JC Antonelli

I have never had an issue with writer's block. A blank page is a source of excitement and anticipation, with limitless possibilities. A pure white piece of paper (or a blank screen on a computer) is just waiting for our imaginations, hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows.

I taught high school English for a dozen years. The experience made me keenly aware of playing to a tough room with a group of customers who wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else. Having students is a great learning experience for a young writer: if you can get a group of teenagers to listen to you, you have found a way of reaching the harshest critics around.

Students would ask for advice about writing, and I had a simple response: be yourself. If you're funny, be funny. If you're dramatic, be dramatic. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a great writer, but he would not have pulled off even a single Stephen King horror novel, and likewise, Stephen King would never have written This Side of Paradise. But both writers found success within their genres. So my advice was always: find your style and be true to it.

I try to follow my own advice. I'm a pretty funny person. Even in my grown-up years, I often find myself laughing out loud at thoughts in my head, mostly at inappropriate times. If a story is like a piece of machinery, humor is the lubricant. My goal when writing is to make the last chapter as funny as the first. If you're laughing, you're more likely to miss the shoddy plot/characters/descriptions.

Writing is a form of escape. A writer disappears into the story, living a secret life in a fictitious world where he is the god that controls all. It is the ability to immerse oneself in the imagination, check out of reality for a while, and resurface with a compelling story (hopefully). While the rest of the world asks, "How can you write a novel?" I answer, "How can you not? It's awesome in there!"

Currently, I have two books available. One is A Shot through the Heart, a story about a teenage girl who becomes an assassin and ends up having to decide between love and her career. It's funny. The age range for the story is late high school through adult. The main character is a bit edgy, so I would be hesitant to hand it to a 13-year-old (although there are some 13-year-olds who would not be put off in the least by it).

The other book is Stripped Down. It's a bit of a romance, except that the main character spends the entire story trying to find the "one that got away." She throws away everything in her life to find the guy, while being pursued by a killer who believes his creation of the "Vicotini" (a Vicodin martini) will be his ticket to fame and fortune. Despite the female protagonist, it doesn't fall neatly into the "Chick Lit" category. (Men: it's okay for you to read it -I promise it won't make you grow breasts.)

Currently, I have two projects in the works. First is the sequel to A Shot through the Heart. I actually plan on making this a series, and I have the next four books sketched out.

The other book I am working on is for the junior high school age group. This is the unfortunate audience that is subjected to works like Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, Gentle Ben, and every other novel that involves having the reader fall in love with an animal that dies tragically at the end. (I have never been able to understand why the works we make school kids read are so horribly depressing. I think it's English teachers' secret desire to make the kids who bullied them in school cry in public.) In this book, I promise that no animals will be harmed. Very simply, the main character has a suspicion that his parents are aliens - and it turns out that he is correct. Trust me - it's funny.