Meet Gabby Gruen

We recently connected with Gabby Gruen and have shared our conversation below.

GABBY, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

At the risk of sounding pollyana-ish, It never occurred to me to feel anything other than optimism

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

My writing career was divided between advertising, screenwriting, and ficttion writing.

My advertising work began in Detroit, meandered to Columbus Ohio, and landed me in LA–most notably at Ogilvy & Mather and Chiat-Day.

My screenwriting career took me from an original script for Fox 2000, a division of 20th century Fox, and a half-dozen screenwriting assignments for independent production compasnies.

My brand? Imagination and irreverent humor.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

A refusal to setlle for my first or the easiest idea. No less important, ideas are not random scenes. They need to solve a marketing problem, a character issue, or a philosophical theme. Those depend on a bit of experience and maturity…

About ideas and inexperienced writers. Allow yourself to approach them with a bit of freedom, i.e, not too much self-judgment.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

I’m trying to advance my career as an author/publisher but I’ve had to self-publish. Self-publishing has been a terrible grind with some but not a lot of encouragement. I’ve written a second novel that has connected me with a publishing company. I’d love to hand over publishing and promotion duties to them. But I have to edit my manuscript to their liking. Their rewrite request is a good creative note so I won’t complain even though it’ll be a bit of a grind. Finally, a bit of folk wisdom I’m beginning to believe is that the more you publish, the more you build your brand and advance your career. So, I’m well into writing a third novel. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Rafael Andres

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Portraits of Resilience

Sometimes just seeing resilience can change out mindset and unlock our own resilience. That’s our

Productivity
Perspectives on Staying Creative

We’re beyond fortunate to have built a community of some of the most creative artists,

Confidence
Kicking Imposter Syndrome to the Curb

This is the year to kick the pesky imposter syndrome to the curb and move