Leonard Bishop is the author of ten novels and the internationally popular Dare to be a Great Writer (Writer's Digest). He is a direct, no-nonsense writer who knows it is not talent alone that gets one published. It is belief in self and knowledge of the writing craft.

Although many writers wonder if they have the talent to become great writers, Leonard Bishop believes the question is a waste of time. He first encountered the question when attending the New School of Social Research in New York City in 1948. Talent was a hot topic back then and, although it continues to come up today, many of those who dealt with the question then went on to become successful. Bishop's classmates and friends in and around the New School included Mario Puzo, William Styron, James Baldwin, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, and Jack Kerouac.

A short, powerfully built man who leans forward and speaks passionately about writing, Bishop uses humor, wit and self-deprecation to make his points. Bishop believes it's more important for a writer to set high expectations than to have talent, although he's not sure what talent means. Only by setting high goals can a writer accomplish his or her dreams.

"When you first start out," he says, "it's impossible to have the work match the hope, so you fail. But the point is, each time you get closer to what you hope to accomplish. And very often the quality of the failure determines the height of the success. The closer you get to your dream, even though it's not achieved, the more successful you become, because you expected so much."

When Bishop took his first manuscript to an agent, the agent warned him of having "unrealistic expectations." He took the book back and hunted for a different agent. His efforts paid off. He went on to write a number of novels, including Down All Your Streets, which made the NY Times Best Seller list, The Everlasting, which was translated into five languages, and Against Heaven's Hand, which became an ABC Movie of the Week. He taught writing at Columbia University, New York University, and the University of California, and lectures at writing conferences around the country. His book on writing, Dare to be a Great Writer (Writer's Digest) is in its fifth printing. If he hadn't set his expectations high, he wouldn't have become a writer.

"If a writer sets realistic expectations, he has nothing to look forward to," Bishop says. "You have no fixed income, no job, no health insurance and no retirement funds. You spend three to five years writing at night and neglecting your family and friends and then you send your manuscript off to an agent who sends it back in six weeks saying it's not their cup of tea. You live in a constant state of despair. The only way to survive is to have unrealistic expectations. If you don't have this dream, then you're a realist, but the only way a writer can survive is to hype himself into believing that there is money, fame and opportunity out there for him. The only ones to make it turn their unrealistic speculations into reality."

Like many attitudes and opinions that are formed from personal experience, Bishop gained his insights by living them. Armed with a high school certificate after taking industrial education classes, Bishop became a hobo. He only recalls reading one book, Beau Geste by Christopher Wren, before winning a typewriter in a crap game and enrolling at the New School to study writing.

After he submitted a short story to the Dial Press, the publisher said his work was powerful and authentic and asked him if he had a novel. Bishop said he did. He rushed home and wrote 70 pages in the next week. When he delivered it, he got a $1000 advance. Then he threw the 70 pages away and started his first novel.

Bishop continues to emphasize the powerful and authentic when he teaches seminars. In a recent workshop, he politely listened to writers read their work and pointed out how each of them missed connecting with the reader. Rather than writing about real experiences, they wrote about how they thought about experience. They were trapped in their heads. For example, one character got punched in the nose and then thought about it.

"How do we experience events?" Bishop asked. "You don't get hit in the nose and then think about it. The first thing you feel is hurt and pain on the physical level. The second thing you do is get angry or feel fearful; that's on the feeling level. The last thing you do is think about it; that's reflection, and it usually occurs later."

Like someone being punched and feeling afraid, fear handicaps writers. When agents tell writers there are 60,000 books published each year, some are discouraged. But Bishop sees it as 60,000 opportunities to get published. "I see lots of manuscripts and 65 percent of them have high potential for publication, but I also see fear in those manuscripts. Writers play it safe by confining themselves to what they think the editor or agent wants. They corrupt the purity of what they originally conceived. They hesitate and lose the quality of the melodrama. They work on sentiment or sentimentality. It's the melodrama that allows them to get passionate about their work. They're afraid if they write from their guts, they won't be popular because it will be too honest."

Rather than worrying about whether they have talent or not, Bishop suggests that writers work on developing the basic craft of writing. Some aspiring writers spend their time meeting agents and trying to find short cuts to getting published, yet lack the basic tools and skills for writing fiction.

Bishop spends his time helping writers develop the skills necessary for them to become better writers. He speaks from experience--he describes himself as "ignorant" when he started writing. He didn't have talent, but found that, by carefully studying writing, he began to learn techniques to write a successful book.

"I built up a tremendous lore of writing skills," Bishop concludes. "Writing is not an art; it's a craft. One doesn't start out making a work of art; one begins by writing something that will sell. You start out with expectations that are impossible and then try to make your work match those expectations."