Author Peter VanDenBeemt Shares Their Story
– I was born in Philadelphia, PA.
– For my first three years of school I attended Overbrook School for the Blind, a boarding school with classes for the “partially sighted.”
– I attended “normal” schools starting with fourth grade.
– When I was twelve my father joined IBM and we moved to Poughkeepsie, NY.
– When I was fourteen IBM transferred my father to Zurich, Switzerland where I attended Institute Minerva.
– When I was eighteen we returned to the U.S. and I started Lehigh University, majoring in Engineering Physics.
– I left school for a year in the middle of my junior year to work for Bell Labs in Whippany, NJ.
– I went to graduate school at Boston University and received a master’s degree in physics, then left after two years in their Ph.D. program.
– At 26 I moved to Los Angeles and changed my life. Between bouts of creativity I worked intermittently as a software engineer to earn a living.
– Along with the bouts of creativity, I strenuously pursued psychological and spiritual awareness.
– When I could, I retired and moved to Thailand to write full-time.
About the Author
– I was born in Philadelphia, PA.
– For my first three years of school I attended Overbrook School for the Blind, a boarding school with classes for the “partially sighted.”
– I attended “normal” schools starting with fourth grade.
– When I was twelve my father joined IBM and we moved to Poughkeepsie, NY.
– When I was fourteen IBM transferred my father to Zurich, Switzerland where I attended Institute Minerva.
– When I was eighteen we returned to the U.S. and I started Lehigh University, majoring in Engineering Physics.
– I left school for a year in the middle of my junior year to work for Bell Labs in Whippany, NJ.
– I went to graduate school at Boston University and received a master’s degree in physics, then left after two years in their Ph.D. program.
– At 26 I moved to Los Angeles and changed my life. Between bouts of creativity I worked intermittently as a software engineer to earn a living.
– Along with the bouts of creativity, I strenuously pursued psychological and spiritual awareness.
– When I could, I retired and moved to Thailand to write full-time.
What inspires you to write romance books?
This isn’t a romance novel in the conventional sense. Merging a collection of short stories in which the protagonist began by looking for love while being lost in deep caverns of fear, the challenge was to have him emerge competent and arguably triumphant in a believable way. Identifying more than I care to admit with the protagonist, I wanted to see him succeed.
Tell us about how you write:
For me the writing process is essentially rewrite. I start with a die-cast toy car on which the wheels may not even turn, then I take it apart and rebuild it over and over and over until I have what I hope feels like a two-seat sports car. (The risk is thinking I have the sports car when it’s still just a hay wagon.)
Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I don’t talk to my characters but I hear them talking to themselves and to each other.
What advice would you give other writers?
The advice I would give to any writer is:
1. Sit down and write. Don’t struggle with the process and don’t care what comes out. Research what you need to research, take classes when that feels good, but mostly write.
2. Get as many people as you can to read what you write, have them give you their honest opinion of what you’ve written, and button your lip down hard while they give it. It doesn’t matter whether they know what they’re talking about or whether they’re right or wrong. Listen to what they say and it will make you think about your writing. And that will make you grow.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I live in Thailand, I got rejected by a bunch of New York agents and didn’t want to struggle anymore. I was wrong there. Publishing it on Amazon, I’m struggling now to get the book read.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I’m not qualified to comment on that question other than to say that whatever the future of publishing, I hope books have a very long future. If not, the world is in trouble.
What genres do you write?
literary, general
What formats are your books in?
Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Link To Author Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18229431-memoir-of-an-unlikely-savior
http://www.FaceBook.com/PeterVDBPage
http://www.Twitter.com/Peter_VDBeemt
