4)  How You Can You Help

• Keep creating!
   
• Tell all your creative friends and associates about my free site!!
   
• If you don't have a web page of your own, consider using your profile at DREAMWalker Group as one for purposes of marketing yourself.  After all, it's FREE!
   
• Create a link from your own homepage to DREAMWalker Group's homepage (http://dreamwalkergroup.com) or to your own profile.
   
• Provide me with a list of your own favorite authors and favorite books for inclusion in your profile.
   
• Tell me under what related subject headings you'd like your profile listed (e.g. Boating, History, Motivational, Nonfiction, etc.).
   
• Suggest to your publishers that they sponsor a small ad on your profile page.  These inexpensive ads link from your profile page directly to your publisher's website (or wherever they choose!).
   
• Buy at least one book a year through my site.  If every amazing person listed on my site bought just one item using the Amazon search box on the home page, DREAMWalker Group would earn enough money to keep this free site up and running for about one and a half years!
   
• Let us know when your profile needs to be changed (e.g. contact information changes, publish new book, etc.).
   
• Mention DREAMWalker Group when talking to Oprah!

DREAMWalker Group: So Gail, why are you a writer?

Gail Fonda: I knew from kindergarten I was so shy I could barely talk, so my only way to communicate was through writing.

DWG: This seems to be a common thing with writers. Why so you think they're so shy?

GF: I think it's because people with any type of artistic talent, be it writing, drawing or acting, seem to be very sensitive in many ways. It's something about a part of the brain that regulates thinking and emotions. A psychologist would be able to describe it better.

DWG: When did you start writing?

GF: In the sixth grade. As a matter of fact,  in sixth-grade camp (my first time away from home), I was petrified. But the teacher assigned us a writing project, and she told me I was a writer. It's the first compliment I had ever received. My mother was verbally abusive and very critical, as are many of my other family members.

DWG: So you wrote to deal with emotional pain?

GF: Yes! Writing is so cathartic! Just putting feelings and events on paper helps to relieve anger, nervousness, depression, anxiety. My first written word besides school was a letter to Dear Abby in the seventh grade. She didn't respond, and I was hurt. Writers are sensitive and hate rejection, which is a daily thing they have to suffer through!

DWG: So you kept writing despite years of rejection. Why?

GF: It's the only way I know how to communicate. I have to write. I can't seem to control it. I try to reverse the blame. When I get rejected, I blame the other person, whoever is really right or wrong. It doesn't matter. Writing is like breathing. I MUST do it, I have no choice.

DWG: Did you study writing in college?

GF: Yes. I have a BA in Journalism, Kent State University, 1976. An introverted person loves to write long, lengthy term papers, which is the opposite of most other people.

DWG: Your family situation seemed dysfunctional. Did you get any positive feedback?

GF: Yes, but only from my father. Never my mother. It seemed she was jealous I could accomplish something she never even tried to do; she never even had a job in her life. I started off getting front page stories on my campus newspaper, but not without diversity. One of my journalism professors tried to kick me off the paper. He just wasn't a nice guy.

DWG: What happened with him?

GF: I don't know why he didn't like me. I wasn't aggressive and loud the way he was.

But I made out a petition and a year later he was fired for embarrassing me in front of the class by tearing up a paper I wrote with too many commas in it.

DWG: Did you work in the field?

GF: Yes, and I have a lot of published articles with many bylines, though I am far from rich and successful as one might expect. The field only pays well for people on television, and I'm too shy for that.

DWG: What's happened more recently?

GF: I didn't even know how to use the computer eight years ago, but my husband showed me how, after I had major surgery and had to stay home for six weeks. I began to write on the Internet, and I am still doing that as much as possible.

DWG: Any major success on the Internet?

GF: Some success. I have a published book, entitled, My Private Hell: Struggle & Survival. It's a short, but riveting true story of how I use exercise to combat the side effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Exercise promotes a good attitude. It relieves anxiety, depression and helps me to keep going. I have also written stories for other writers' books, and articles on politics, women's issues, relationships and poems online.

DWG: What suggestion would you give to writers of today who have no clue what to do?

GF: Get on the Internet and Google "writing" and the possibilities are endless!