Guest Post - ...Other Jobs Before I was Published by Sophie Gunn

Author Sophie Gunn

"I Was/Am a Waitress in Real Life - or Other Jobs Before I Was Published."

I’m one of those strange people who have always been a writer.  It started when I was fourteen and got paid for my first writing job: a dollar a line.  Yep, I was addressing envelopes for Artie Greenberg’s bar mitzvah.  I was a calligrapher.  Weird, huh?  But my mother was a calligrapher, so I knew about five “alphabets” by the time the other kids were learning cursive. I addressed wedding envelopes, designed invitations, filled in names on certificates. Whatever needed writing, I was there with my ink, nibs, and pens. 

But after I graduated college, I needed a real job. So I went into advertising copywriting.  I loved every minute of it. The people were mean and horrid, and I adored them all. “Come back when it’s funny,” they’d say. Or, “It’s okay. Now throw it out and make it good.”  These were the people who taught me to write. They taught me not to settle for the first idea. They taught me that collaboration makes every idea better. They taught me to take criticism (a lot of criticism!) and to revise, revise, revise.  The world of advertising in Manhattan was brutally competitive, which brought out the best in my writing. It had to be fast. It had to be funny. It had to be smart. Then I had to go back over it ten more times, and come back when it was funny.

These are the lessons I hope I brought to writing HOW SWEET IT IS.  (But also, notice the awesome typography on the cover. The word “sweet” is beautiful, isn’t it? I wish I could still write like that...) 

Thanks so much for having me here on the blog today.  To find out more about me and HOW SWEET IT IS, please visit my website at http://sophiegunn.com. 

Thank you Ms. Gunn for sharing some of your experiences with us today. 

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