Get to Know: Robin Winzenread
Author of Some Assembly Required
- When and why did you begin writing?
I fell in love with reading in elementary school and that led to a love of writing in middle school. By high school I was freelancing for the local newspaper and had starry-eyed plans to pursue a journalism degree in college and become a writer. Fortunately, I pursued that dream and earned a B.A in journalism from Indiana University.
More specifically, though, my original plan was to be an international correspondent. I wanted to travel the world and write about it. As a 16-year-old foreign exchange student with a love of all things Ernest Hemingway, I was drawn to new adventures, new places, new people – and those experiences still fuel my writing today.
As a career, however, my plan as a foreign correspondent never materialized – these were the pre-internet travel-blog writing days – and I ended up pursuing other writing opportunities instead. Sometimes, though, I do get to travel and when I do, I usually write about it in my personal blog, Cracked Reflections on a(n) (ab)normal Life.
Still, while I’m not paying the bills with travel writing, I have made a decent living for myself and my family as a technical writer in the finance industry. I’m also adjunct writing faculty for Indiana University at its Columbus, Indiana campus. In short, nonfiction writing has been my bread and butter for decades, so I achieved part of my dream. I am, and hope I always will be, a writer.
But, again, technical writing wasn’t my plan and while it may feed my family, it doesn’t feed my creative soul. It’s not what excites me when I put fingers to keyboard. When I planned to become a writer, I had novels on the brain too – exciting stories set in faraway lands, usually including some mysterious stranger with looks to kill and an intriguing backstory. I wanted to dive into other experiences. I wanted to create other worlds.
I wanted to write fiction. But first, I had to start somewhere else. Somewhere creative.
I hit the “bored-with-my-technical-writing-job” wall several years ago and decided to incorporate more creative writing into my life. I created my blog, I started freelancing for newspapers and magazines, I helped create an amazing cookbook for an Indiana media company. But even those experiences, however, were all nonfiction.
Finally, I’d had it. It was time. I started to write my novel, Some Assembly Required. It’s the project I needed to bring me back to where I wanted to be, a creative fiction writer who strives to bring humor, joy, excitement, and adventure into the world. Fortunately, I’ve found a home with Champagne Book Group and they’re helping me bring my fiction baby to life.
- Tell us your latest news.
It thrills me to no end to shout in my loudest outside voice, I’m going to be published! Champagne Book Group reached down from the heavens and plucked my manuscript, Some Assembly Required, from the ether. They breathed publishing life into it and into me, and my world will never be the same. For that, I owe them a huge thank you.
In other news, I have multiple works in progress – in the past it was usually magazine articles – but now I’ve gotten serious about writing fiction and I can’t be happier to have more than one manuscript in the works. I have a sweet Christmas romance screaming to get out in addition to a romcom set in Venice, Italy featuring a fish-out-of-water Midwestern artist who falls in love with a sexy local. Talk about a fun fantasy to write. H’mmm . . . give me a second, my mind is in the Piazza San Marco. I also have a sequel to Some Assembly Required simmering away too. When – not if – it sells *crosses fingers, lights candles, says a few thousand prayers* I’ll be diving into that project too.
In terms of my day job, I have financial proposals to write and, in terms of my night job, I have writing classes to teach and an article on digital humanities coming out with my division supervisor this spring. It’s an IU publication, but still exciting on a very nerdy level. We’ll be presenting our topic – a communication blog I developed for my writing students – at a seminar in February, and I’m looking forward to it. The real excitement, however, will be seeing Some Assembly Required come to life. It’s the best news of all. Nothing else comes close.
Looking back on this interview, it’s fun to talk about how much writing supports and sustains me. When I was a kid, my father figured I would starve if I made writing my vocation. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened. Of course, now I must sacrifice a barn cat to avoid jinxing myself with the whole starving writer thing…wait…I kid, I kid. No barn cats were harmed in the making of this bio.
- When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I’ve been listing my profession on my taxes as writer since the 1980s. My entire career has been centered on technical, nonfiction writing so I’ve always thought of myself as a writer. Creative writer, however, is another story. I only really started thinking of myself as a creative writer about eight years ago when I realized I wasn’t using my writing skills the way I originally planned. I started blogging and freelancing and that led me to more creative outlets, including contributing editor on a professionally produced and published cookbook, The Hoosier Harvest Cookbook. It was only a matter of time before I figured I should take a stab at fiction and, finally, a novel-length work. That was about two years ago. And that manuscript was Some Assembly Required.
- Do you have a specific writing style?
As a writing instructor, I can easily recognize my students’ individual writing styles, so I know we all have them, and, yes, I do too, but describing my own style is difficult. It’s just so me. It’s humorous, I hope – at least, that’s what my Pitch Wars mentors, Leonie Kelsall and Marty Mayberry, told me was my real talent – and I strive for humor with my creative writing, but I’m not sure if I can claim it as a style. I do tend to write in a conversational fashion and I love writing dialog. I have a very good ear for sound, and I hear the conversations in my head in my characters’ voices – either that, or I have an undiagnosed multiple-personality disorder – but, regardless, I almost can’t type fast enough to get these conversations down sometimes. When I’m in the flow, it just kind of falls out of me. Like dandruff.
- How did you come up with the title?
I suck at titles. Always have, always will. I’m not even sure if Some Assembly Required is the best title – I’m still open to suggestions. But as the premise of the story is about a younger woman trying to remake her life after divorce, it seemed appropriate. I was trying to capture the essence of that feeling – starting over with no real clue what to do next – and it seems to work. In short, my main character’s new life is an Ikea dresser waiting to be assembled straight out of a box with the wrong picture and the instructions are missing. Maybe I should call it Some Tequila Required.
- Is there a message in your novel you want readers to grasp?
Beyond having faith that love will find you again, I suppose, if anything, it’s to never give up. To keep fighting the good fight. To look for the silver lining which sometimes comes in the form of a very sexy boss named Sam.
Moving beyond clichés, I just want to remind people that life begins anew every single day. We don’t always start it where we want to and many things will be out of our control, and none of us are playing on a level playing field, but if we approach it with humor and a good attitude – because what else can we do? – it may not suck as much as it would if we approached each day with a horrible, no good, very bad attitude. Having gone through a divorce and having my life go in directions I never intended, I realize the only things I can control – to some degree – are my reactions to what the day brings me and my attitude about it. Usually I laugh, and that’s enough. Plus, that gets me invited to more parties and who doesn’t love a good party.
- Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Being brief, that’s my problem. I’ve always been a plotter, but when I start writing I take that plot and pants the hell out of it, as in writing by the seat of my pants. Again, when I’m in the flow, the story and characters just take over and they have these lives they want to live, and they’re full, rich lives, so the story just kind of grows and expands and morphs into its own fully-formed universe until that first draft is finally finished. Then the revisions start, and I become a serial killer. Sentences, scenes, chapters, characters, it doesn’t matter, no one is safe from my delete button. And that can be challenging too.
- What was the hardest part of writing your book?
The hardest part was cutting out an entire sub-plot that involved one of my favorite characters who had to be eliminated too. But the story was ballooning to huge word count heights and something had to go. It was hard, but it made sense.
Another difficult aspect of writing is falling in love with your work knowing you will eventually have to kill so many of your darlings. The irony too is, no matter how much you love what you wrote today, there’s always the promise that tomorrow you’ll hate the hell out of it. I constantly swing between, “This is great!” to “This is a dumpster fire.” Imposter syndrome is real.
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- Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
I think it was seventh grade. We had to write a brief descriptive essay on a place and I wrote about our goat shed. Exciting, huh. Growing up on a farm in the middle of nowhere Indiana back in the day, we didn’t have many options for what counts as fun now, but our goats were high entertainment. For my homework, I wrote five stirring paragraphs describing dust motes in the sunshine and the smell of hay mingling with goat manure. It was magical. At least, in my memory it was magical and when my teacher gave it back to me with an A+ written across the top, it sealed the deal. She also told me how much she loved it, after that, I was hooked. The influence of teachers is extraordinary.
- Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
I learned so much. First, I learned you just have to put your butt in the seat and write, write, write. I have sticky note on my monitor which reads, “You can’t eat an elephant in one bite.” That said, you can’t eat an elephant if you don’t start in the first place. It doesn’t matter if you set daily word counts or page counts, just sit down and start. If you do that regularly eventually, you’ll have a complete manuscript, and then the real fun starts.
And I developed a greater willingness to accept constructive criticism. I realize every word I write isn’t literary gold. As a writer, you must be willing to put aside your feelings and step into someone else’s shoes to look at your work critically, independently, open-mindedly. Also, I learned that I love words ending in “ly” but that’s a no-no. As is the all-too-frequent use of the words “but” and “that.”
- Do you have any advice for other writers?
First, in terms of the craft, read good writing. It’s the best way you can improve your own writing. And learn to read constructively. When you find a book you love, read it first for pleasure and then read it a second time for writing education. Pay attention to pace, setting, organization, character descriptions, etc. Ask yourself why did you love it? What was it that really set it apart for you. Then try to learn by example but incorporate what you’ve learned into your own story with your own style.
Second, grow a thick skin because you will need it. This is a tough business and you will hear more no’s than yes’s. Rejections happen – I could paper a wall with mine – but don’t take them personally. It’s just business. Always conduct yourself like a professional. After all, agents and editors talk, and if you lash out, it could have wide ranging repercussions for your writing career. Try to remember that writing is subjective, and it also matters what’s hot and what’s selling too. Sometimes a rejection isn’t so much about your skill as a writer as it is about timing. Your vampire manuscript will have to be extraordinary to find an agent in a market that’s saturated with vampire novels, for instance.
Last, but not least, reach out to the Twitter writing community via the hashtags – I recommend #amwriting, #writerslife, and #writingcommunity to start. There’s a tremendous amount of free advice, information, handholding, critiquing, etc. out there, and it’s helped me tremendously. It’s how I found the #Pitchwars mentoring program and my writing mentors, Lee and Marty, as well as my Pitchwars #TeamFineWine siblings, Elizabeth Chatsworth, Anne Raven, and Syed Masood who has not one but two novels coming out soon, including More Than Just a Pretty Face from Little, Brown, and The Bad Muslim Discount, from Doubleday.
Also, that’s how Champagne Book Group found me – through my #pitmad tweet.
- Do you have anything specific you want to say to your readers?
First, thank you for being one of my readers. My story isn’t perfect, but if it made you laugh out loud at least once, then I consider it a success. Too many ugly things in this world conspire daily to wipe the smiles right off our faces. I want to slap ‘em right back on.
Second, I fell in love with Jan Karon’s Mitford series years ago and, in part, her stories inspired Some Assembly Required. Jan wrote these wonderful books about simple joys and finding love in a small town, and she said she wrote to give her readers an extended family. I love that.
On the flip side, Jan’s world is just a little too angelic at times which is sweet and delightful and I’m happy for it. I love that Jan maintained her high moral standards in her books, and I really admire her for that. But I wanted my small-town story to be more relatable, more realistic. I want my readers to believe it happened. So, my characters sometimes cuss up a storm. They think about sex. When they’re angry, they think uncharitable thoughts. They’re impatient at times. They’re human.
Basically, there’s a slight grittiness to this story, but it’s told with humor and with hope and with a happy ending. Yes, Jan gave her readers an extended family, and I hope I’ve done that too. The difference is that some of my extended family you’ll invite home for Thanksgiving, but you’ll make them sit at the kiddie table. Possibly in the next room.
- What inspired you to write your first book?
First, it started out with this need to create. I wanted to write something that had life and love and humor and fear and sadness all rolled up into something, but I didn’t really know what that something was going to be at first. It had to simmer for a long time. Then I started to figure out what I wanted to do – share a story about a single mom who tries to make a new life for herself after divorce. After that, I started thinking about my own hilarious childhood on a small farm, so I decided to set it in the country and make her a bit of a fish out of water.
Basically, as I thought about my life and the lives of my family and friends, I started getting ideas about how I wanted to tackle it and I started plotting. It took me two years to finish it – reminder, I work two jobs – but it was an exasperating joy to write.
- Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Here’s a small excerpt that captures what I’ve tried to achieve with Some Assembly Required – it’s messy, it’s humorous, it’s relatable, it’s life. In this scene, Ro Andrews (my overworked single mom/main character) and Sam (the hunky boss who has her all hot and bothered), share their first kiss:
Sam turns toward me. My heart pounds as he leans in close. Deep brown eyes drill into my own damp with tears. His breath is warm upon my skin. My heart pounds. I lift my face toward his.
And, just like that, worlds collide, stars explode, dogs lie down with cats, the Cubs win the Series, and Sam, the sexy, single cowboy, kisses me.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, a boy kissed me. His lips were full and moist, and it was gentle and sweet, and we were young, very, very young, so it wasn’t what you would call a “hot” kiss as much as it was tender.
And then, he stuck his big fat tongue down my throat, I gagged, got mad and punched him in the face. Two weeks later, he asked me to go steady.
Boys. Go figure.
This kiss? This isn’t like that. Not by a long shot.
Even though it’s freaking cold in the cabin, even though I have tears in my eyes, and after riding around on that fat horse for over an hour, I smell like a camel, this kiss is hot. Freaking hot, as in melts metals and creates fission and puts the fires-of-hell-to-shame hot. In short, we’re smoking.
When Sam’s lips meet my own, angels sing – or, maybe it’s devils giving voice to the thoughts in my head because my brain isn’t singing a Sunday hymn. Our lips part, Sam’s tongue rakes mine with fire, I burst into an inferno, my arms tighten around him, his tighten around me, we fall into it, and we kiss. We freaking kiss. And kiss. And kiss, oh, my God, how we kiss.
Right now, my vagina could light up China, and, possibly even Singapore. With some extra energy to spare for Australia, mate.
But then, without warning, it’s over.
Sam pulls back. His arms fall to his side. I search his eyes for meaning, looking for who knows what, but they dart away.
He rises to his feet and bolts toward the front door. “We should head back.” The door slams shut, Sam disappears, and I’m alone in his cabin, hot, horny, and clueless.
What the bloody hell?
- Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
I had the good fortune to have a colorful childhood on a small Indiana farm surrounded by animals and siblings and some of these experiences needed to see the light of day beyond our memories. Down on the farm mayhem ensued on a near daily basis – cow will be cows, as will pigs and goats and chickens and younger brothers etc. – and I had these wonderfully hilarious experiences crying to get out onto the page. Someday I may write a memoir more with the goal of reliving it as opposed to sharing it. Seriously, it was a wild ride. However, Mom made me promise to wait until after she died. Some of these stories I think she wants to remain hidden.
I also watched my Nana try to remake her life after my grandfather passed away from cancer too early in his life. She had an oops baby – my sweet Uncle Jerry who’s a year younger than me – but the real take away is here was a middle-aged woman with a small child who now had to go it alone. I lost sleep worrying about my Nana, so some of what I tried to capture here was that experience. How do you pick yourself up off the ground and rebuild a life? How do you move forward? So many of us contend with that at some point in our lives. I think a part of me is trying to figure that out too.
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