"Success is 99% perseverance."

Anastasia Rubis on debuting at 63.

One of the glories of being an author is community with other writers. We are always introducing friends to friends and growing our circles of colleagues and confidantes - which is exactly how I came to know Anastasia Rubis! When I launched “Authors Over 40,” our mutual friend Laurie Lico Albanese (Hester), told me I had to meet her friend Anastasia, and I couldn’t be more grateful! I’m just so impressed by her perseverance in this difficult and sometime bizarre and discouraging line of work, and celebrate her for publishing her first novel in her 6th decade.

Congrats, Anastasia!

A little more about her in her own words: “I was born into an immigrant family and ‘author’ was not one of the recommended careers.  I worked in advertising and PR and higher education before giving it my all and focusing on writing books. I also lost my father and younger sister and realized it was now or never to be true to myself.”

Anastasia Rubis has been published in The New York Times, Huffington Post, New York Observer, and literary journals. Her story “Blue Pools” was included in the anthology Oh, Baby published by Creative Nonfiction and edited by Lee Gutkind. Another story, “Girl Falling,” was named a Notable Essay in Best American Essays. She co-wrote and co-directed the short documentary Breakfast Lunch Dinner: The Greek Diner Story. She and her husband live in New Jersey, where they raised their daughter, and she spends summers in Greece, where her parents were born.

From the jacket: “Oriana is the first biographical novel about the brilliant and fearless Italian journalist whom Christiane Amanpour has called her role model—and who holds a place alongside Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters as a master interviewer. It is the story of a trailblazer who broke through the glass ceiling of journalism, a woman who wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power and who revolutionized her field, all while struggling to carve out a space for love and family.”

VITAL STATS:

• Your age when your first novel published, and the title of that novel: 63. Oriana

• Your age now:  63

• How many novels you published to date: 1

• What’s your next novel and its pub date if you have it: halfway through next novel, no pub date yet

INTERVIEW:

1. How many novels did you complete before the one that became your first published novel?

Two novels.  I did not try very hard to publish them; the moment I got one or two rejections, I folded, being younger and not yet having the thick skin necessary.  I also wrote five or six screenplays, which helped me polish my skill at writing dialogue.  I’ve been told that Oriana is very visual, and I think that’s from my screenplay training.

2. What kinds of jobs did you have to support yourself while you wrote?  Are you still doing one of them?

Advertising and PR and teaching.

3. What was the writing routine in which you wrote the novel that became your first published? How long did it take to write that book?

I drove myself hard to write the first draft, often sitting at my desk for eight or nine hours.  It took about a year for that draft. For the next eight or so years, I revised countless times, and I mean revised, not edited. Big changes, like changing the scope of the novel from a narrow love story to the wider story of Oriana’s childhood and career.  I touched the manuscript every day, including weekends, and when I didn’t, it took a long time to get back into the groove.

4. What was your darkest moment before selling your first novel? Only one? 

Let’s say when an editor of historical fiction who I really admire liked Oriana and shared it with other readers at her house but ultimately passed.

5. What advice about writing helps you stick with it? 

Success is 99% perseverance. Ass in chair.

6. What is your favorite part about the writing life?

The intellectual challenge. It’s the hardest, most brain-twisting work I’ve ever done, by far. Another favorite part is that I am fulfilling a childhood dream. And of course I like re-reading sentences or passages that really work and thinking wow, that’s good (not often).

Thank you for joining me here, Anastasia, and have fun at your debut launch! I love the distinction you made between revising and editing (so crucial!) and I really feel your pain on that pass on the novel - but all’s well that ends well! Congrats, again.