Member Spotlight: William Roskey

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? It’s a unique means of self-expression in which the author can create a different world peopled by individuals born in his mind and who will live long after he is dead. Individuals whom he comes to know very well. He can share this world with countless readers he has never met and never will, and not only entertain them, but make them think.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Reading comments from fans of my current series of books who enjoy them and exhort me to “write faster.”

What is your favorite time to write? Mornings are when I’m at my best.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “…no kernel of nourishing corn can come to [a person] but through his toil bestowed on the plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? There are many more opportunities. In addition, the computer saves countless hours and makes revisions easy. I began writing in the late 1960’s, when the two items one had to work with were a typewriter and reams of paper. If there were typos, you had to retype the whole page because editors insisted on no erasures or correction fluid, and they required that you send the original manuscript. No photocopies could be submitted, and, if the manuscript was rejected, it came back months later all tattered. Computers are also a boon in researching. This is truly a golden era for writers.

William Roskey’s A Terrible Loyalty Book 5: A World War II Submarine Novel is out now.