Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Leslie Rasmussen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Leslie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Since I learned how to write, I’ve written silly short stories, a journal, and fun letters home from camp, but I never considered writing as a career. When I got out of college I knew I wanted to do something in the entertainment industry. I started out as an assistant to a producer on a drama series and learned as much as I could about editing, scoring, mixing, directing and writing. The next jobs I got were as a writers’ assistant on sitcoms. I got an inside view of how the writers worked and thought it looked like fun. That’s when I began writing different spec scripts and reading other writers’ scripts. I even audio taped various shows to listen to the way the characters spoke. This really helped me hear the voices. After educating myself, I knew writing for TV was what I wanted to do for a living. I was lucky when a female comedy writer took me under her wing, helped me get my first agent and first script. Through working in TV I learned how to write dialogue and real situations. Years later when I decided to write books, I knew how to write dialogue really well. The thing that didn’t come easily was writing full descriptions that would set the scene, so the reader could picture where the characters were. . In TV, you have actors, a director, prop people, a set designer and a location scout. As an author, that’s all on you. I studied novels, I went to writing conferences and took classes, and I really observed settings in the world. I don’t think there’s anything I could’ve done to speed up the learning process, because a new skill takes time, even if you have the background. I didn’t hit a great deal of obstacles in the learning process, but in the publishing world, I did. Getting my first novel published was not easy, and it took a while, but in 2021, my first book, After Happily Ever After was published. My second novel, The Stories We Cannot Tell will be out this July. I am now working on my third novel, and I feel that I have the skills and experience to know what I enjoy writing.

Leslie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, so being around the entertainment business was in my blood. My father was a writer, and I loved his sense of humor. He worked in advertising, so he wrote in a different medium than I wanted to, but he went to college for cinematography. I have always had an interest in tv shows that were about realistic situations and problems in life that regular people had to overcome. The shows I wrote for were Roseanne, Evening Shade, Norm McDonald, Major Dad, many others that were about families. When I decided to become an author, It was important to me to write about issues that women faced in their lives. I’m very proud that my readers have said that they see their family, their friends, and themselves in my characters. I have written about marriage, the empty nest, aging parents, friendships, pregnancy, loss, infertility, love, hope and family. I’ve also spoken on various panels about changing your career in the second half of your life and rediscovering who you are. Mid-life empowerment and how you see yourself after you reach forty-five and above, are important topics. I’m most proud that I accomplished my goal of becoming a published author. When I set out to write a book, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to finish it. Writing for a half hour sitcom (42 pages) is a much different beast than writing a 300+ page novel. I’m also proud that I didn’t stop with the first one.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I left television writing when my youngest son turned one. When he went to kindergarten , I wanted to get back in, but the business had changed and it was very difficult to get freelance scripts or an agent. Sadly, I had to pivot my career. I took time to figure out something else I thought I might want to do. I enjoyed helping people and was interested in eating healthily, so eventually I settled on a new career in nutrition. I went back to school, earned a master’s degree and then interned with a couple of nutritionists for two years to learn the ropes. Eventually I went out on my own and opened my own business. About eight years into my business, I missed writing a lot, so I began writing personal humorous essays which were being published on Huffington Post. Two years later I decided to pivot once again and close my business and become an author. As I learned about writing a book, I continued to write essays for Huffington Post and I now have written over twenty essays published by them.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When I started as an author, I had very little following on Facebook and even less on Instagram. I began to follow authors whose writing I enjoyed and I joined groups of people who read a lot and posted about their favorite books. Over time I met many people online and some of them have become good friends, even in real life.. As my novels came out, I gained even more followers, and I now have a decent social media presence. I would say to build yours, you need to comment authentically on people’s posts that you like, not just hit the like button and move on. If you are truly yourself online, people will be interested in you. I never post political or anything religious, I enjoy posting things that other people can relate to, or funny things I come across.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lesliearasmussen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leslierauthor
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesliearasmussenauthor
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/lesliearasmussen
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/leslierauthor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3cBGnilkGIDjVSN5HTGDFw