Dennis Palumbo from the Inside Out

Dennis Palumbo from the Inside Out

An Interview with Dennis Palumbo by Colleen Collins

At this year's 2003 RWA national conference in New York, the Published Authors' Network's (PAN's) keynote speaker was Dennis Palumbo, a writer whose work includes numerous television shows, the feature film My Favorite Year (for which he was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for Best Screenplay), novels, articles, and more.

Dennis Palumbo is also a psychotherapist specializing in creative issues, in which capacity he's worked with new and struggling writers as well as successful screenwriters, novelists, TV writers, journalists, from the unknown to the famous.

His recent book, Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within (John Wiley and Sons), identifies key problems and offers approaches, for dealing with everything from envy to burnout.

Instead of offering tricks and techniques to help writers overcome perceived personal defects, his book validates the belief that who we are as writers-our feelings, hopes, dreads, fears, fantasies-is enough.

In fact, not only enough, but a wellspring for our creativity.

Many years ago, back in LA., I worked with Dennis Palumbo on a television sitcom. I was the script girl, he was one of the staff writers. That was twenty-five years ago, and the next time I saw him was when he gave the PAN keynote address.

At the time, I couldn't help but wonder if he decided to be a therapist after our somewhat, well, challenging sitcom experience, but in reading his bio I've learned it was his years-long interest in psychotherapy that evolved into his second career choice.

And, from romance authors' feedback who listened to his keynote and read his book, a great choice that has been.

A few days after the conference, I asked Dennis if I could follow up with a brief interview on his talk and his book. He graciously agreed. Those questions and answers follow.

Q: During the question and answer period after your keynote address, several women asked how to balance their being the primary person responsible for care of the home and raising children while also pursuing a demanding professional writing career.

One woman said it's different for men with writing careers--they're allowed to be primarily writers because it's a given that their wives take care of the rest. For the writers who didn't attend your keynote, could you summarize your response?

A: Well, there is a difference for men and women, in that men--regardless of the changes in society--are still reinforced and socially-conditioned to focus their primary energies on career.

The women writers in my practice complain about this all the time...that they sometimes feel they have to squeeze their writing in around their duties as wife and mother.

In my experience, the way to achieve "balance"--whatever that means--is to challenge yourself to take your work seriously, and then to educate your family members about it.

Particularly because writing is such a solitary, inwardly-directed job, a woman writer really has to carve out a space for herself to work. Which means she has to take it seriously.

As novelist John Gardner once said, "If you believe that what you're doing isn't important, you're right."

Q: I read your article on the film "Adaptation" (published in the LA Times, January 12, 2003) and I particularly liked your comment "For as Charlie [the writer protagonist] comes to learn, the only way out is to go further in. Where the pain lives. And the passion."

This seems to dovetail with your advice on "writers' interruptus" (when unforeseen events take writers away from their writing). You suggest that instead of aggravating over the event, use it to fuel your creativity by writing about it.

Please explain further how taking the time to dig into our own pain and passion can help an already interrupted, sidetracked story, especially one that's on a critical deadline? Isn't that wasting time?

A: Since the raw materials of a writer's life is her interior world of feelings, it's never a waste of time to explore this world.

When I suggest using whatever frustrations or other feelings you're having by investing them back into the writing, I mean using who you are right now as the jumping-off point.

Rather than saying to yourself, "I'll wait until I feel better, calmer, more confident, etc., before I start writing," I'm advocating you take the actual feelings you have now and work with them.

Yes, even when on deadline! If you're feeling stuck and thwarted, find a character in your story who feels that way and give him or her those feelings.

Either in scenes from your narrative, or stand-alone scenes--in a diner, or at a work place--wherein the character gets to vent or act out these feelings of yours.

Maybe some of what emerges will work its way back into your story, maybe not, but at the very least you've moved past your block and are writing. In the end, I think writers are better off writing their way out of problems, than sitting and ruminating about them....or, worse still, waiting till they "feel better."

Q: In your book, Writing from the Inside Out, you discuss how important the "buddy system" can be for writers. Could you elaborate on this?

A: Everybody needs a buddy. When you're a kid, you hold hands with a buddy to cross the street. You learn to scuba-dive with a buddy. As a writer, you need a buddy, too--that one person you trust who really gets you, is supportive of your goals, who'll listen when you need to moan and complain. That one person you can call at some ungodly hour because you think you're a fraud and a lousy writer and nobody loves you, and who can get you back up on your feet again. Usually, this buddy is another writer. Not always, but I find that only another writer truly understands the particular perils and joys of a writing life.

Q: A romance author asks, "How do you distinguish between taking a rest and trying to figure out what you should be writing, and when you're just running scared?"

A: Hard to say. I'd guess that if the "rest" is going on too long, you might start getting suspicious. Plus, as I said earlier, I think writers "figure things out" best by writing, not by ruminating or doing more research.

Even writing out your concerns about the story or a character arc, then writing possible answers to yourself, keeps the process in motion.

Writing is ultimately a dialogue between yourself and that which is being written, and this dialogue is best enhanced and enriched by the very act of crafting sentences, reading these sentences, and writing more sentences. Pretty low-brow, but there it is.

Q: Another romance writer question: "How much do you have to 'give up' of yourself to be a writer? Why does compromise as a creative person sometimes mean being a doormat?"

A: I'm not sure exactly what these two questions mean, in tandem, but it sounds like the overall question is about the compromises a creative person has to make to publish her work in a commercial marketplace.

This is an eons-old question for artists, and not one about which I possess any particular wisdom. For one thing, if a writer uses a term like "doormat" to describe herself, I think that has as much to do with her own issues-self- esteem, etc.-than anything required by the marketplace. However, all successful writing must be entertaining, and must fit the requirements of the publisher. Equally true, though, is that what constitutes "entertaining" changes with the times...as do the requirements of the publisher. For every writer I know, maintaining a personal vision within the context of what publishers are looking for is an ever-present dilemma. As a writer, it's important to fight for what's really important to you. It's also a smart idea to pick these fights carefully.

Q: You've written that writer's block isn't an impasse, but a good sign. That the block represents the psychological tension within the writer. Without going into therapy, can writers use this understanding to help them through writer's block?

A: I talk extensively about writer's block in my book, and don't have the time in this context to get into all of my thinking about it.

But, simply put, I think of writing blocks as necessary and inevitable steps along a writer's developmental path--similar to the developmental steps we go through as we transition from infancy through childhood through adolescence to adulthood.

Each developmental step is fraught with terrors and potential risks...and navigating these problems is necessary to move through each one.

From my perspective, a writer's block signifies the tension the writer feels as she is facing the next upward step in her writing...a growth spurt in craft, or daring, or personal relevancy.

A challenge to dig deeper, risk more, discard the tried-and-true. Whatever. What supports this view, I think, is that after a writer has successfully negotiated the block, she feels she's a better writer...wiser, more mature, owning a deeper level of craft and self-awareness.

Plus the growing conviction that when the next block appears--and it will--she'll be better able to deal with it.

Q: Thank you, Dennis, for your time.

A: My pleasure.

Colleen Collins's current releases are Too Close for Comfort (Harlequin Temptation, August 2003) and Let It Bree and Can't Buy Me Louie (two-in-one Harlequin Duets, September 2003). To read more about her books and enter her contests, go to colleencollins.net.

Reprinted from PikeSpeak, August 2003, the monthly newsletter of the Pikes Peak Writers (a chapter of Romance Writers of America).

Article source: Dennis Palumbo site.

Dennis Palumbo, M.A. and MFT, is a writer and licensed psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in creative issues.

He’s the author of Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within as well as a new collection of mystery short stories, From Crime to Crime.

Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter, his credits include the feature film, My Favorite Year, for which he was nominated for a WGA award for Best Screenplay.

Dennis Palumbo's site: www.dennispalumbo.com