This week, we're talking with Stephen Snyder MD about his new book Love Worth Making.
Tell us something unexpected about yourself!
For someone who spends so much time thinking about sexual diversity, bisexuality, and kink, I'm the most utterly conventional Kinsey 0 you could imagine — happily married, a total homebody.
How did you get into writing?
When I was a young doctor in the 1980's, I encountered a new invention called the word processor. For the first time I was able to write the way I think: first generating ideas, then torturing them into submission through extreme re-writing.
Where did you get the inspiration for your current book?
I'd been fiddling around with the ideas in it ever since I first encountered erotic desire as a child of perhaps seven or so.
How long did it take you to write this book?
The proposal took me a year and a half. The bulk of the writing took a little over a year. Then my editor Jennifer Weis (“The Nanny Diaries”) at St Martin's Press asked for additional material, which took several more months.
Have you got any writing rituals?
I'm a religious Jew, so my life revolves around the Jewish sabbath. By the time the sabbath begins on Friday evening, I'm usually quite exhausted. Friday evening after dinner, I have uninterrupted time to read — which has always been my best way of replenishing my energy. Saturday I'm either reading, or in synagogue, or taking a walk, or napping. I'm usually up late Saturday night writing, then if I'm lucky I have all Sunday to write. Monday through Friday I'm usually busy seeing patients and doing media and correspondence, and the only writing I typically get done then is email interviews and brief pieces for the media. Friday evening the whole thing starts over again.
How important is marketing and social media for you?
Very important. I'm on twitter a lot. I think all sex therapists should be on twitter. I wrote an article about this on PsychologyToday https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sexualitytoday/201404/sex-therapists-guide-twitter-part-1 — but it didn't get much response, so I'm guessing few people agree with me.
What advice would you have for other writers?
The main thing as a writer is to write as simply as possible. The best training I know of for this is to be active on twitter and try to put things into 90 characters or less. (Twitter now allows up to 280 characters, but all great tweets are 90 characters or less).
What are you reading now?
You can't be a sex therapist without being somewhat of a cultural anthropologist, so I'm always on the lookout for good books about the evolution of human society. I'm a big Jared Diamond fan — spent many delicious hours devouring his “The World Until Yesterday” and “The Third Chimpanzee.” Promised myself a few months ago when my book was finally finished that I'd finally let myself read “Guns, Germs, and Steel” as a reward. But now it's competing with Augustin Fuentes' “The Creative Spark” and Stephen Marche's “The Unmade Bed.” Like everyone else, I'm slowly making my way through Jordan Peterson's “12 Rules.” I'm also eagerly awaiting Wednesday Martin's new book, “Untrue,” which promises to take a new look at female sexuality through an anthropological eye.
What's your next step?
I'm working on the sequel to “Salem Burning”To introduce my book “Love Worth Making” to as many people as I can. Then to start work on my next book, which I'm hoping will deal in much more detail with male sexuality and the psychology of masculinity. My preliminary research tells me this is a subject that's currently of great interest to both women and men.
What are your top 3 books of all time?
Not surprisingly, my favorite books were all written by people who like myself spent most of their time listening to people's stories. I discovered Alan Wheelis' “The Quest for Identity” as a young man, and have re-read it many times. Same goes for Scott Peck's “The Road Less Traveled,” and Avodah Offit's “Night Thoughts.” I liked Offit's book so much that I made her into one of the main characters in my book, “Love Worth Making.”
Do you read your book reviews?
Of course! If someone has taken the trouble to actually read what I've written and write about it, the least I can do is read what they have to say.
