We hear it all the time, write what you know. For today’s guest blogger, Naomi Elana Zener, this is a paramount step to beginning a story, but it isn’t the key to the end.
Write from Experience
By Naomi Elana Zener
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
– Albert Einstein.
I’m an attorney by training and trade, having studied in depth Trusts and Estates Law, but my practice has been focused on Entertainment Law. My debut novel, Deathbed Dime$, delves into the underbelly of the dark world of the greedy survivors, who’ve outlived their dearly departed “loved ones,” deciding want to do with what’s left in the corpse’s coffers, after all debts, taxes, and the funeral have been paid off. Greed, set against the backdrop of the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, are the hallmarks of the world in which Deathbed Dime$ is set.
The novel’s protagonist, Joely Zeller, is a young lawyer in her thirties, navigating the choppy waters running through the world of beneficiaries, hopeful, intended and otherwise, trying to get their hands on the deceased’s money, while trying to have a life herself. The themes of being a young woman trying to carve out a place for herself in the world, establish a successful career, find love and marriage, while maintaining a semblance of self, are all themes with which most women can identify. I would be lying if I said that these were not themes I’ve addressed, analyzed and grappled with in my own life.
Apart from the area of estate litigation and the fact that Zeller comes awfully close to reading as Zener, the similarities between the protagonist and myself end there. However, this is the entrée point into my personal belief as a writer that the best writing comes from writing what you know. Write from your soul. Mine your experiences. Open the floodgates and express yourself free from inhibition. In the end, editors are there to help you sort through the words to help you find the forest through the trees.
I started writing Deathbed Dime$ in 2009, as a bucket list item. After sharing it with a very close-knit group of people, which obviously included my parents and husband, all of whom gushed over my talent (very little of it existed in the first draft, I assure you), I decided that maybe writing was something I should pursue. My manuscript made many trips back and forth, to and from the proverbial shelf and desktop computer, before I finally decided to take it seriously and work on in it in earnest, when I went on maternity leave in 2011. Somehow, after my first child was born, a creative switch flipped on in my brain, and thankfully the writing has consistently poured out of me ever since. So much so that I started my satire blog, www.satiricalmama.com, which I fill with short stories intended to humour and spark discussion.
It is on my blog where I really expose myself, for I satirize everything taboo that we are raised never to discuss in mixed company: religion, politics, sex, money, and anything else that would light a fire under controversy’s proverbial tush. In my four-part series entitled “Scenes from a Marriage,” each one of those pieces came to me as a result of something that arose in my own happy marriage – not verbatim of course, but rather my husband would say something funny or irritating, or leave the toilet seat up, and inspiration would be triggered and I couldn’t stop myself from writing if I tried.
“Kosher Pickles” was written as a reaction to a manifestly misogynistic religious dictate stating that in Judaism (for the record I’m a Jewish woman), a husband can take a ‘kosher concubine’ when his wife either cannot or refuses to procreate and will not grant him a divorce. The wheels churned in my mind about how would it feel for men if the shoe was on the other foot. Furthermore, I believed that it would be funny if I flipped the situation on its head by placing it in the context of speed dating for a ‘mancubine.’
“Hell Hath No Fury” was inspired by my mother, who is a well-respected psychiatrist, and what would happen if Satan was undergoing analysis.
“Guess Who’s Coming to Seder” was a spoof on the famed movie with a similar title starring Sidney Poitier and many a family’s struggle with interfaith marriage.
Last, my piece “What a Messiah You’ve Made” was roused by both going through my own birthing experiences and what would’ve happened if the alleged omnipotent one was not the only one to divinely touch Mary (she was married to Joseph after all).
At the end of the day, with everything I write, I take a piece of me and start from there, whether it be a personal belief, a reaction to something I’ve read or experienced, my family, the legal profession, or anything I read and how it makes me feel. My works are a combination of writing from what I know and have lived, and whatever happens to inspire me in a given moment. Then, like magic, my creative spirit embellishes upon that catalyst, spicing up the story with the right ingredients, allowing it to marinate long enough in my mind such that the words flow through my fingers and on to the screen (or page if I’m writing in my notebook, which is often the case with a first draft). I don’t know how to write any other way. The idea of not using my personal experiences doesn’t lend itself well to my being able to continue to write and entertain. So, here’s hoping that my life remains rich and colourful, rife with characters from all walks of life, which enrich my world, and most importantly, my imagination.
© 2014. Naomi Elana Zener. All Rights Reserved.
Naomi Elana Zener is a new writer with a fresh satirical voice. Naomi writes satire and fiction on her blog, Satirical Mama. Her vociferous blogging has been read and appreciated by industry bigwigs such as Giller Prize winner Dr. Vincent Lam and New York Times best-selling author and journalist Paula Froelich. Naomi’s articles have also been published by Erica Ehm’s Yummy Mummy Club. Naomi is also a practicing entertainment attorney and lives with her husband and two children in Toronto. She’s currently working on her sophomore novel.
About the book:
Deathbed Dimes exposes the reality that if you can outlive your relatives, friends, and sometimes even strangers, your odds of hitting the inheritance jackpot are better than playing the lottery.
Joely Zeller is a beautiful and ambitious 32-year-old attorney who is the only daughter of a Hollywood firm royal. She’s determined to build a successful career, find love, and get married, all without her family’s help. To emerge from under her parents’ cloud of notoriety, Joely fled to New York upon graduation from Stanford Law School to practice Estates and Trust law at a blue-chip Wall Street law firm. Enduring 90-hour workweeks for the next eight years, she sacrificed her love life (jilted by her fiancé for his best man) only to have her career efforts foiled by her incredibly incompetent male counterpart.
Joely then sees her golden ticket to self-actualization. A serendipitous encounter with a former professor reminds her that with the impending, inevitable demise of aging baby boomers, an unprecedented wealth transfer is beginning to take place. With her experience and her Hollywood connections, she could start her own law firm back in Los Angeles. Alongside her two best friends and former law classmates as partners, Joely sets about helping the recently disowned, dispossessed, and penniless sharpen their claws as they stake their claims to the fortunes of their dearly departed.
CLICK HERE to purchase Deathbed Dimes.