The Advertising Agency Years: the pressures of family responsibility vs the dream to be a writer.

Then - An Oral Memoir of a Writer's Life

Author Warren Adler talk with his son David about how his writing career didn’t start until he was over 50. This is the perfect episode for the aspiring writer who needs to balance making a living and living out their passion. Adler discusses how he got his first novel published and how he kept going despite hundreds of rejection letters. He tries without success to explain what it means to want to be a writer. He can’t explain it and compares it to the mysteries of love.

Along with passion for writing, Adler owes a good part of his success to luck. If the philosopher, John David Garcia, never came to Adler’s ad agency to promote his own book, then he would still make a living in advertising.

The shift from an advertising executive to a full time novelist was his dream and Adler talks about that transition.