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Rob Spiegel
Senior Editor at Design News
Author of a number of business books, including
The Shoestring Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Best Home-Based Businesses and Complete Guide to Home Business
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rob-spiegel/12/122/756
Author page on Amazon
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What motivates you to write?

A combination of creative drive and livelihood (I make my living as a journalist)

What made you chose the genre or subject matter that you chose?

I write in multiple genres — journalist, fiction, poetry, drama. So I never had to choose. In choosing the type of journalism, it was based on opportunity.

Where do your characters or ideas come from?

That’s the easy part. Got a zillion ideas. Characters show up as I write.

What’s most rewarding about writing?

It scratches the creative itch. However, sometimes it’s not particularly rewarding. Sometimes it’s just work.

Who is an author who inspires you and why?

Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski, and John Ashbery. They all have guts and imagination. They wrote/write against the stream.

What do you look for in other people’s books?

Voice. It’s all voice.

What are you writing now?

Journalism, poetry, fiction, and drama.

What kind of book would you like to be known for?

Novel.

If you were to write in another genre, what genre excites your writer’s blood?

Fiction. Any kind — literary, middle-grade.

If you achieved great fame and fortune, would you continue to write?

I’d probably give up journalism. The rest I’d keep doing.

What encouraging advice can you offer new writers?

Don’t write unless you have to. If you have to, and you’re persistent, good things may happen. Send your stuff out.