Leading a Life, Not a Career: Robert Masello '74

"Do whatever you secretly want to do," he advises the Class of 2001. "You [might] think it's smart to get into investment banking. [But] once you start climbing that ladder, it's hard to get off that ladder. I know people who locked themselves early on.

"I like having my freedom, doing different things. And as writer Richard Ford once said, "writers don't have careers — they have lives."

Robert Masello '74, a freelance writer living and loving the California scene, has been enjoying watching his newly released book, "Writer Tells All: Insider Secrets to Getting Your Book Published," which hit number five on the L.A. Times Best Sellers List early this week.

But that's not all that he's done. Besides publishing 13 books ranging from horrifying Stephen King-like tales to downright creepy science fiction, Masello confesses that he never really has had a career.

But need an expert on love and romance? Or perhaps the supernatural or black magic? Maybe you've just wondered how to break into the television or book publishing business. Masello has had vast experience in all these areas.

Masello admitted that, after visiting several colleges, Princeton's unique and striking environment lured him in.

"The sheer beauty of the place knocked me out," Masello said. "The trees in bloom, the lawns green, people walking around in comfortable manner, it just seemed like a chill place to hangout."

So besides living close to his Italian relatives in New Jersey, he listened to the charming stories told by the older brother of his best friend, an undergraduate at the University. He decided to come to Princeton with one goal in mind — to learn.

"The University had a literary reputation," Masello explained. "It seemed to be the kind of place to be if you wanted to do that kind of thing and [that it] would be wise to enroll."

Though he didn't scramble around the campus fervently joining organizations, Masello was extremely close with his roommates, with one — now a minister — conducting his wedding in his backyard 11 years ago. "I didn't make a lot of friends," he said, "But I had close friends that I made in my time there."

And then there was the guest editor summer internship in New York with Mademoiselle.

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During his junior year, Masello sent in chapters from a novel he was working on for his creative writing class to Mademoiselle's college editor competition — whose past winners included Sylvia Plath. He was offered a guest summer position with the magazine as a fiction and poetry editor.

While interning at Mademoiselle, he participated in a "cross-section" of American males — a distinct group of twelve Ivy League educated men, all differing in age, but living in the Upper East Side of Manhattan — in a survey of what men thought of women.

"I must have said some entertaining things, because the managing editor asked me to write about my dating experience," he laughed.

Masello took the opportunity to write an elaborate article on the subject. When the article elicited a huge response from readers, he was offered a monthly column called "His." The column continued to chronicle his dating life.

"It's not that I ever followed [the advice of] my column on romance. With three dates in college, I was just a young man in his twenties in New York," he chuckled.

Taking a job with Esquire Magazine after he graduated, Masello continued writing for Mademoiselle along with other women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Elle. He also began writing love and romance books.

After his stint writing for magazines, Masello experimented with writing jingles for the music industry. These short songs flourished the first year — but failed in the second.

"It was a complete reversal," he said. "You are supposed to struggle in the first year."

Finding himself on his own and without continuing employment, Masello earned his living with his pen and returned to writing books and scripts.

He worked for the publishing company Ballan-tine, a division of Random House. There he made another switch — this time from writing about relationships to writing horror stories. His book, "What Do Men Want From Women" failed to sell well, but his contract required him to write one more book.

Hoping for more success the last time around, Masello showed Random House the first three pages of a horror novel. His editor came back with both good and bad news.

The publishers loved the first three pages, but Masello's new editor wasn't sure he knew how to write a novel.

Despite having a mere three pages, Masello was confident he would be able to complete the novel — a task that usually takes nine months to a year to accomplish.

"I was an English major," he noted.

In fact, his first horror book ended up fairing well, and Masello continued writing more supernatural novels. He researched black magic, cult history, and wrote books that sold: "Private Demons," "Raising Hell" and "Fallen Angels."

Representative of his horror pieces, "Fallen Angels" depicts angels in an evil light.

"I was just so annoyed about people believing that angels are protecting them from a bad hair day or tax audit, so I gave the bad guys equal time," Masello said. "It was a backlash book and it did very well."

In bookstores, Masello's work can be found in the fiction, thriller and science fiction sections.

"To look for my books, just look at a couple shelves from Stephen King. That's where they would put me," Masello said.

It would be these books that would catch the attention of Hollywood television producers for plot ideas for their shows and movies. According to Masello, writers of television shows "driving much nicer cars than I did" kept on wanting to meet him.

He became a consultant on cult language for MGM, reading and checking over scripts — scripts he believed he could write better. So he decided to enter the television business, eventually writing for FOX's "Sliders," CBS's "Early Edition," and most recently for Aaron Spelling "Charmed" on WB as its executive story-editor.

"Writing television shows is less spiritually satisfying but more lucrative than anything else," Masello said.

When he's not being well-paid writing television shows or writing articles, though, Masello goes back to what he knows best: writing books.

After his recent book, "A Friend in the Business: Honest Advice For Anyone Trying to Break in to Television Writing," did remarkably well, Masello asked himself what else he knew a great amount of information on. So in his newest book, "Writer Tells All: Insider Secrets to Getting Your Book Published," he describes his success in publishing his works.

"['A Friend in the Business'] was fun to write and had a receptive audience," Masello said, "So I wrote another with my worst stories on publishing and experience publishing 13 books — what you are going to encounter, how you come up with an idea, how you refine it, how you change it, how you write it."

"It's close to speaking voice, telling you who I am, straight to the reader in my own voice," he said about the book's tone. "When you write, you have to adapt yourself, your tone, your vocabulary, your tone [and] syntax, to parameters of the publication, character, or template of the show.

"But here, I was able to speak on the page as clearly and freely as I wanted to and as I could," Masello explained.

Masello has gone from being a checkered love expert, Dr. Death and Stephen King, to now a helpful writing teacher. Though he was eager to become Princeton's new writing program director after seeing a New York Times listing earlier this year, he was soundly rejected.

Besides recovering from that anticipated but heartfelt disappointment, Masello now is at his California home recovering from an accident that broke his left elbow in five places and right shoulder in three places.

After a lecture at UCLA and on his way home, he stopped at a local bookstore to buy Publisher's Weekly that had what his editor told him was a good review of his new book. Along the way, he tripped. "An author killed by a good review," is a phrase Masello said he knows well now.

Otherwise, he is in the process of writing a big thriller that he expects will take about four months to complete.

As for graduating seniors, Masello has some more advise. "Spend as much time with your friends as you can and pack carefully," he noted.

"Oh, and in case you don't do what you expect to do, be sure to ask parents for a loan," Masello continued. "You may need it initially when you leave."