What Goes Around – Book Tour and Giveaway

The Mystery of Writing -Michael Wendroff

The mystery of writing–is it nature, or nurture or numinous?

I wonder if the ability to write my debut thriller, What Goes Around, and see it published was due to nature or nurture. Or perhaps something else.

Is the something else supernatural? After all, the real impetus for writing this was something my mother said to me the second I was born: “Oh! How nice to see you, AGAIN.”

I always seemed to have a natural ability to write, with words flowing relatively easily from my pen from an early age.

In the genes? My mother was an editor at major publishing firms in New York City back in the day. My favorite company she worked for was also the publisher of Archie comics, so getting a free supply was the highlight of my boyhood week. I think I still have a crush on Veronica. Or was it Betty?

 I also remember she’d have stacks of new paperbacks around, and one day, unbeknownst to her, I took 20 of them and exchanged them for a new baseball at the corner store. Still have that baseball, while the books have long since been remaindered.

 But the thing I most remember is seeing my mother on a weekend morning sitting cross-legged on a bed, manuscript pages strewn about, red pen in hand, marking them all up with her editorial comments. When it came time to get my own editor’s comments, while they weren’t in red ink, the edits in the margin of the word document were just as tough–but at least I’d known to expect that! So nature-my mother’s editorial talents, and nurture–learning from her, as well as from my own editor, are probably both at play.

My mother remarried a literary agent. He had bestselling thriller and mystery writers in his stable, including Robert Ludlum (The Bourne Identity), David Morrell (First Blood), Brian Garfield (Death Wish) and Dean Koontz (you know who I’m talking about). So I was nurtured by reading great commercial novels, all free of course. In fact, I remember once staying over at Ludlum’s winter home on St. Thomas. I woke up early one morning, crept into the living room where I saw Bob sitting on his couch, yellow legal pad in one hand and a #2 Dixon Ticonderoga pencil in the other. Yup, that’s how he wrote his 450 page novels–all by hand! I admired his plotting and prose, but did not want to do that! Thankfully, when it came time to write What Goes Around, I had a pc!

I learned more about publishing when I was at NYU and wrote my MBA thesis on “Marketing in the publishing industry.” For that, I’d contacted the trade journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and they helped me get interviews with the top industry leaders. They actually ended up excerpting my thesis in three editions of the journal, and paid me for it. That was the first time I got paid for writing. I liked that!

That experience certainly nurtured my interest in publishing. In fact, for that thesis I was once waiting to interview the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster at the time, Michael Korda. I remember it was way past the time of our scheduled interview and I was getting antsy in the waiting area.Then the door finally opened up, and I was called in to meet someone. That someone was Truman Capote! In Cold Blood. Talk about a thriller!

It was the Covid pandemic when I finally fulfilled my lifetime desire to write a book. There was that period where you couldn’t do anything–couldn’t go to the movies or restaurants, couldn’t even play tennis or go to the beach. So I had no more excuses. I wrote my book, and got an agent. When he went to sell it, my stepfather, Henry, was gravely ill. Now, I knew the process of selling to a publisher would not be quick or easy. In fact, when Henry sold Robert Ludlum’s first thriller, 14 publishers rejected it before the 15th took a shot and it became a bestseller. So I wasn’t discouraged at first when my agent hadn’t sold it immediately. However, sadly, Henry died. But the day after he passed on, my book was sold! So I think I had some spiritual help there. Thank you Henry.

So my mystery of writing is a combination of nature, nurture, and numinous. Naturally!

Oh, and I started off by telling you what my mother said to me the second I was born: “Nice to see you, again.” What does that have to do with this guest post? Read What Goes Around, and you’ll find out!