Anna David, Publisher, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, and Television Personality: I wrote a lot
of books without knowing my why and it convinced me that I didn't like writing anymore because
I had such bad experiences with it.
Film Courage: How often does a professional writer write?
Anna: I believe that a professional writer writes every day. I believe that it is one of
those skills, it's sort of like the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour theory that you're not
going to excel at something and be able to call yourself that unless you do it all day,
every day and have for a decade or so. It kind of kills me, I meet people all the time who say
“Everyone tells me I'm a great writer,” and I say “Great, do you write every day?” “Well,
no.” I mean it's people don't really get that it's like you know it's like going
into a gym and lifting weights one day and saying “Everybody tells me I'm so good at
lifting weights,” well if you don't do it every day, how good are you going to be?
Film Courage: What if someone is a content writer for their job let’s say
and so they think that because “I’m great at writing copy or writing stuff
for a brand that then I can write my own story, it should be no problem.”
Anna: I do think that if you have experience as a copywriter, as a content writer,
as long as you're putting words together every day, you're going to be in much better shape
than someone who isn't any kind of a writer but it is a totally different skill set. I think you
know it's about it's about words and language and psychology. I find actually copywriters are
very interesting to me because the work is about I became a writer because I'm fascinated with words
in Psychology copywriters are all about what's going to get someone to press by what's going to
get someone to have a response so I actually think that's better training than a lot of other writing
and when you set out to be a writer quote unquote you gave yourself what you said three pages a day
did that change did you add on more to your plate no I was always pretty committed to the
three three pages after rewriting the three pages from the day before because that's the thing that
can take hours and hours and hours I'm one of these writers who I may over edit it's very easy
to get very caught up in like let me just make this perfect let me just make this perfect and
it's sort of like perfect as the enemy have done and you know perfectionism is actually
just fear wearing a disguise it's never going to be perfect and when I meet people who say
I'm working on my book for seven years I'm like oh God you might be better off starting again
well what was her name Susan, she wrote Quiet: The Power of Introverts
in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Susan Cain. Yeah she did seven years but she admits that she
enjoyed the process so much because she's an introvert and it was all part of who she was.
Film Courage: What should a writer know before writing their book?
Anna: A writer needs to know why they're writing the book. I wrote a lot of books
without knowing my why and it convinced me that I didn't like writing anymore because
I had such bad experiences with it. My second book what happened is I had written a story for
details magazine about high-class hookers in LA and I had been given this assignment. The
editor said go do what I'm giving you months go infiltrate this whole seedy
underworld. I said great. I went and did it and I uncovered great, crazy, crazy things and I had
disk drives of things that people been in prison. I had lists of famous people. I had the craziest
things and then my editor was fired and another editor came in and he said to me literally we just
need this to be a story about like how rich men get off and so I was so bitter that they had taken
this amazing material I had and made it into such a boring story that my agent said to me was it was
actually when we were walking in to make the deal for Party Girl: A Novel she said they may offer,
you a two-book deal, do you have another idea? So I just busted out with how about a novel about
high-class hookers in Hollywood? And they said yeah that sounds good that's how I got my second
book deal and I thought “well, sex sells, it's a sexy topic. People are going to like it.” The
problem is I'm not interested in the subject of hookers. I don't have a judgment about it,
I'm just totally bored by it, so I'm writing this book that I'm bored by thinking oh sex sells. I
never bothered to ask myself why do you want to do if I'd asked it would have been like well I
want to do it because I'm resentful at my editor details well that's a stupid reason to do a book
so every author needs to say: What is your why? Why you? Why this book and why now? If you can
answer those questions and you know what you want your reader to do as soon as they finish
writing it then you should write your book and of all of your books which was the strongest why
for you Party Girl: A Novel. Party Girl: A Novel was okay yeah it was absolutely yeah because you
felt so connected to the material because it was basically you but you were sort of embellishing
or tying the other stories right yeah I mean yeah Party Girl: A Novel was very much my story but it
had a real intention behind it and I wrote it before I knew about publishers and book deals
and Goodreads reviewers and nasty comments and book sales and all the things that were going to
sort of sadly poison the experience. It was just written from such a
pure heart. Film Courage: What is the process of writing a book begin for you?
Anna: The process of writing a book for me today begins with saying what am I interested in that
people actually want to know about and not kind of having this vague idea but really going out and
trying out material right now I'm writing a book that's based on my podcast interviews and I put
out there on Twitter on LinkedIn on Instagram I'm constantly kind of taking the material I'm writing
about and seeing how people respond to it. So you're getting actual test cases, you're getting
a b testing while you're working on something. So I wrote many books without ever bothering to ask
if anybody wanted to read them. Now I get really clear about is this a book people are going to
be interested in and then I start writing from there. Film Courage: You said with your second
book you weren't really that invested in the topic yeah, it was more because your article was sort of
kiboshed and you thought you know what I no no I want to take this were you surprised at the
feedback that you received that people actually did want to know about this like The Client List
or whatever The Girlfriend Experience I don’t, nobody really cared about my second book, least
of all me I turned that book in and I hated it and then a month later I said can I have it back
I want to reread it from page one and my editor said I don't think you need to I think it's pretty
good and I said no no no I want to rewrite it and I rewrote it and I rewrote it and I still hated
it and honestly when I get emails from people who tell me they love it I have no respect for them
because I hate the books so much so do you think that's where there was a disconnect that maybe
because you didn't feel so personally invested that it translated and How It Was Written yeah
yeah Party Girl: A Novel is I wrote this book with this pure heart and there was so much excitement
around it and it was going to be this thing it was going to be my dream come true and then it
didn't happen and so I forgot about the pure heart I thought well okay I gotta be more strategic what
will sell what do people care about and I used to make a really big mistake in my career which
is if somebody asked me to like to talk about something I took that as a sign that I should you
know I became like a sex dating and relationship expert despite having no interest in it because
somebody offered me the opportunity to do it so my third book was about reality shows because
at that point I was being asked to go on TV and talk about reality shows I didn't have a strong
affinity for reality shows I didn't really care but it was like I was taking what was showing up
as ideas about what I should do and I really if I have any regrets it's that I didn't just stop
back and go hey do you care about reality shows nope okay next pack another opportunity will come
along which is your favorite part of the writing process that's such a good question I used to
love the very end not because you were reaching the end but because I'm not an outliner and so I
always feel felt like the end would it was almost a spiritual experience where it would make sense I
would write myself to a place where I'm like oh my God if this hadn't happened here this could never
have like it was almost like divinely inspired not to sound totally pompous and self-important
at this point I do like all of it I will tell you the part I like the least is actually where
I am with the book I'm writing right now which is after I've rewritten it and printed it and gone
through and made edits and you're just like oh my God I'm on page 200 crossing things out to make
changes and you're so sick of the material that's when it gets hard I have found a trick which is
when I'm so sick of reading my own material it's almost like an acting
exercise pretend I'm somebody else how would I feel if I was Karen reading this
and I almost try to embody somebody else so that I can actually get fresh eyes.