A Conversation with Leif Gregersen,
Author of "Through The Withering Storm"
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| Featured Author, Leif Gregersen "Through The Withering Storm" |
Why do you feel you had to write, “Through The Withering Storm”
I felt I had to write my book, “Through The Withering Storm” because there is so much stigma and pain involved around the illness I went through, I wanted to try and pave a smoother path for those sufferers of mental illness who came after me and even before.
From Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
In this book, just about all of my ideas were real events that really did happen, but it took a long time, years in fact, for me to be able to write about them. In my other books, “Poems from Inside Me” and “Green Mountain Road and Selected Stories” which were works of fiction, I would often ‘steal’ bits and pieces from real events or even fiction stories I had read and piece them together bit by bit until they were really my own.
Do you ever experience writer's block, and how do you overcome it?
I found that the best way to overcome writer’s block is to write every day. What I often did while writing “Through The Withering Storm” when I didn’t want to write or didn’t feel like I had any more words in me was I would just sit down and edit the previous day’s work and soon I would get into a much more creative mood and I would allow myself a treat, like a cup of coffee or a nap after I had finished my word count for the day
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
To anyone who is an aspiring writer, I would say that you have to understand that writing must be a passion. You have to love writing for writing’s sake. There will be rewards along the way for hard work, but it is very hard work, maybe the hardest you could imagine, and that if you want to find a way to make a million and then sit back and live off royalties, you are much better off buying a lottery ticket. Being a writer means working hard first at writing and then at marketing, likely for the rest of your life, even past retirement age.
How do you market your work? Are some avenues more successful than others?
I do a lot of the marketing of my work online, but it is hard to get noticed in the slough of books out there. When I really need money, I go out and do book signings where I sit down for however many hours and sell and sign books at a store or a farmer’s market. Sometimes the money can be good there and sometimes you sit for hours selling nothing. Another way I have been trying is to make Youtube Videos and mentioning my writing in them or interviewing people on a topic covered in my book.
If your book was made into a movie, who would play each role?
If I were to have my book made into a movie, I would like young and relatively unknown actors to play the parts. At one time I thought that Leonardo Di Caprio would make a good Leif Gregersen, but he is past the age now to play a teenager. The book starts with me at 12 years old and ends with me at 20 so it would have to be an actor around that age who would have to really understand what it was like to be a hard-driving drill sergeant on one hand and a scared, mentally ill patient in a hospital on the other.
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Synopsis:
What happens when our most complicated organ fails us? Is it possible that a genetic illness can turn a hardworking, overachieving teenager into a monster shunned by family and friends? What does it take to recover from a serious mental disorder? What kinds of places are left when a person's mind, whether they are young or old, rich or poor, has failed them? Journey with Leif Gregersen as he pushes himself to excel in sports, work, school, flying, reading and even writing as he is thrown back again and again into a cold and violent place without even understanding what brought him there or that there was anything wrong in the first place. Read about sub-human conditions and sub-human treatments and a young man with no desire to stop trying, even when all is seemingly lost.
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About the Author:
I was born in a small city on the edges of Edmonton, Alberta where the Northern Lights dance their magical rhythm in the winter nights and temperatures can go down as low as minus 60. My life in grade school was amazing, we went on many trips, even one to my Dad's home country of Denmark and to Disneyland on another. I loved to play football and all my teachers told me I was gifted. When I got into junior high things began to change for me, I would lapse into depressions, had few friends, lost interest in sports or good grades, but then all that seemed to change the next year when I joined Air Cadets. In the junior wing of the military, I had found a place where I could easily make more friends, feel good about who I was and learn to defend myself. From my parent's point of view though something was going desperately wrong. I had become obsessed with making bombs and wearing army clothes, I lashed out against everyone, and my grades were starting to suffer seriously again. My parents put me into a psychiatric ward for two weeks and when I got out I tried to clean up my act. Over the next four years I went through bouts of alcoholism and depression, and finally when I was 18 the worst imaginable happened. I became so mentally ‘divergent’ that I had to be forcibly confined to a mental hospital and my life would never be the same.
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FOR MORE INFO:
Website (free chapter, videos, blog, etc): http://www.valhallabooks.com
Facebook fan page (poetry, photos, interaction): https://www.facebook.com/pages/Valhalla-Books/175657722582392?ref=hl
Author central (book purchases, videos, etc.) : http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00DK44DAG
Also on LinkedIn and Google+
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BUY THE BOOK
Amazon: http://amzn.to/13RU1Cr