Q. We are both at a writers’ conference and we start talking (because neither of us are afraid of being in a public place). In 38 words or less, tell us the story of your life. I’ve actually never been to a writers’ conference, mainly because I have a lot of trouble sticking to a point and am afraid that the other writers would make fun of me and not let me join in all the other writers’ games. When I was a young child I wandered away from my parents in an amusement park and spent several hours going around and around on the Ferris wheel because the guy who was operating it was too stoned to notice. Eventually the police found me and made me tell them my name, address and all sorts of things my mother had told me never to tell a stranger, so I freaked out and vowed from that day onward never to tell anyone my life story in 38 words or less. I’m sorry, what was the question again? Q. When did you first notice an interest in the written word? Do you still have the first piece you wrote? I’ve always been a big reader and love telling stories, but believe it or not my writing career to date has been completely backwards. The truth is that my first published, non-puzzle piece is “It’s Not PMS, It’s You”. The editors at Sterling Publishing knew me primarily as a crossword puzzle constructor. The Editorial Director at their Innovation imprint invited me to meet with her on this project she had in mind, and it wasn't until about 20 minutes in that I realized that she wasn't talking about a puzzle book. Apparently, someone at Sterling had been following me on Facebook and thought I was funny. I guess that's proof that it pays to keep your status updates lively. As the book was going to print, I received a lot of guidance from people in the industry who suggested that I get some content up on the web, so I started my blog, “Can’t You Get Along With Anybody?” My humor column in the Springfield Patch, “Next Exit”, is about life in New Jersey and came after that. Q. What attracted you to comedy writing? A lot of scholarly people (who never give their real names) say that humor hides a lot of pain. Do you find any truth in that? Please try to limit the number of times you bring up your parents in your answer. I’m not really sure what attracted me to humor writing, except that expressing myself in a funny way has gotten me out of a lot of sticky situations in my life, and when I started to write, it seemed easiest and most authentic to write in my natural voice. And leave my parents out of this, please. Haven’t they caused enough trouble already?! Sorry, I’m not sure where that came from, but my therapist could probably explain it. I think there’s an element of truth to what you say, because humor is a wonderful defense mechanism. In my case, though, I feel I’m funnier when I’m happy. I need a clear head when I’m crafting a story arc, and it’s imperative that I keep my energy up to get to a decent punch line. It’s tough to do that when I’m not feeling up to snuff. Fortunately, very little puts a smile on my face like making people laugh, so it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing for me. Q. What is a crossword puzzle constructor? How did you find yourself in the B&W three across and five down world of crossword puzzles? People who design and write American-style crossword puzzles are called constructors, although in other countries we might be referred to as ‘setters’ or ‘compilers.’ When my kids were very young, I started looking for something to do that didn’t involve Pokemon or Elmo because, as any young parent knows, that stuff will make you crazy after a while if you don’t have something adult to do to balance it out. I had done crosswords with my father when I was younger, and the love of wordplay stayed with me. I found a website devoted to constructors and started reading about the craft of crossing words. The turning point was finding Nancy Salomon, a veteran constructor who mentors beginners, and she helped me get my first puzzle published in the New York Times in 2004. I’ve been constructing ever since and have been featured there and in The Washington Post, The New York Sun, The L. A. Time, The Chronicle for Higher Education, The Onion and BUST Magazine. Q. You are also the X Games columnist for Bust Magazine. Have you told your parents yet and can you let us all know what Bust Magazine is all about. Just for the record, this site is rated GP. I’ll do my best to keep it clean. BUST Magazine’s motto is “For women who have something to get off their chests.” It’s the foremost pop culture/punk/craft/feminist magazine out there, and I am delighted to be the creator of the print industry’s only (sometimes) X-rated, feminist crossword puzzle. I have, in fact, told my parents about it, but don’t bring it up if you run into them at the Early Bird Special. It just makes them crazy. “What, again with the dirty words in the puzzles? This is what we sent you to college for?” they’ll say, and it will be all I can do to calm them down. Q. It’s Not PMS., It’s You is about the quirky, hard to understand and the nearly impossible to have relationships between women and men. What possessed you to take on such a subject? And what has been the reaction from the men who pick up the book? I bet there were a lot of bite marks on them (please see cover). Sterling works a little differently than most publishers in that they tend to develop their own concepts for books and then assign them to authors. Their original concept for the book was a list of gross physical attributes and things that men do to piss women off in relationships, as well as different ways to dump them. Of course, anyone who has had any contact with the opposite sex, male or female, knows that we irritate each other, but I thought it would be funny if we went a little broader than that. Personally, I think we're all flawed, and because it is completely, totally wrong to take potshots at the male half of the species (when anyone is looking), I became more interested in the interaction between the sexes. As I wrote, and as I discussed things with my editors, the book evolved to be more about relationships than how to kick your man to the curb. Q. I just love the cover design of your new book. Were you involved with the design of the calorie free cover? Isn’t it yummy? I wasn’t involved in the cover design, but I certainly am very pleased with it. Q. What was your creative process like when it came to writing your book and your columns? Do you come up with the idea, does a phrase catch your attention and take off from there, does the gem of an idea come to you in a dream or do you do you just show up and write? My creative process when it came to writing the book consisted mainly of panic, since it was really my first non-puzzle project, and one that I was writing purely on my own. I literally came home from the initial meeting and Googled “how to write a book.” It was an incredible learning curve, though, and now it’s much easier. Nothing is more daunting than staring at a blank sheet of paper or a blank computer screen and trying to get started, even when you’re experienced. The biggest thing I took away from this was that you have to treat writing like any other job and just do it. Get those ideas down and don’t worry about order, or whether it’s good or not, or even logic. You’ll be mopping up later anyway. I also learned to pay more attention to the conversations and daily whirlwind around me, because stories are everywhere. These get stored away until I find a place for them in my writing. They might get pulled apart, or exaggerated for humorous effect, but everything is potentially fodder for a column or a story. Q. What do you feel has been the milestone in your writing career so far? Seeing your name in The New York Times as the creator of a crossword puzzle isn’t too shabby. And the puzzle community has been incredibly supportive of my humor-writing efforts. I owe them quite a bit. “It’s Not PMS, It’s You” helped me get some recognition as a person who can write in a straight line as opposed to just inside a box like in my crosswords, so that’s great too. Now I’m discussing the possibility of a second book. Q. What advice can you offer people who want to write? Is getting published all that and more (I think I know the answer)? I’m honestly still not sure how I got published, so I’m not sure I am qualified to offer advice, but I would encourage people who love to write to keep doing what they love to do. Put those words down no matter what. Don’t allow a fear of not being good enough or not getting published stop you. I’m not sure if writing for the express intent of getting published works. An authentic voice is much more compelling than a voice trying to knock off the current best-selling author. It’s a tough market out there right now, but I still believe there is room for everybody. Q. How has social media helped in the sales of It’s Not PMS, It’s You? Well, considering that Facebook is how I got my book deal in the first place, I would say it’s been a huge success. Post-publication, I had the good fortune to work with a wonderful publicist who knew the ins and outs of getting my book into the hands of bloggers, and the Tweeters and the Facebookers. All of them chatted about “PMS” to an insane degree, and that really helped. In a down market where advertising, book tours and even publicity are being cut to such an extent, you really need to take advantage of the internet grapevine. Q. What is next for crossword constructor/humorist from New Jersey? Next, I plan to take my dog Jade, the Extremely Spunky Border Terrier™ for a walk. Other than that, I continue to construct puzzles for The Onion and BUST, am doing research for my next book and I’m keeping busy playing chauffer to my two beautiful children. Deb Amlen is a humor writer and crossword puzzle constructor whose work has been featured in The New York Times,The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New Jersey Star-Ledger and other respectable, mainstream publications she tells her parents about when she calls to borrow money. At other times, she is part of the outlaw posse that writes The Onion/A.V. Club crossword puzzles and is also the “X Games” columnist for BUST Magazine, but don’t bring that up if you run into her folks at the Early Bird Special. It just makes them crazy. She also writes a humor column called “Next Exit” about life in New Jersey for Springfield Patch.com. Her first book, “It’s Not PMS, It’s You” (Sterling Publishing) is in stores and available online now, and she figures that, if she did it right, this book about male-female relationships will have absolutely no educational or life-changing qualities whatsoever. Please read it anyway. She lives in New Jersey with her family and her Extremely Spunky Border Terrier™, Jade. © 2010, Coach on the Edge ™ elizabeth’s Creativity Coach site is: Coaching for the Creative Soul Follow elizabeth on Twitter at: EdgyCoach or elizabethcoach Please visit: My Views From The Edge Her other skirt blog is Coach on the Edge: Coach on the Edge