Author and UCLA alumna Staci Robinson’s first published novel may be titled “Interceptions,” but as far as her career is concerned, she’s sprinted past the 20-yard line and has made the ultimate touchdown: living as a full-time novelist and screenwriter.
“Today I sit at Starbucks three or four or five hours a day, and I’m writing,” Robinson said. “I’m on my third novel, and I have two books coming out this year and a screenplay that was just auctioned. I’m really excited because my whole writing career is just taking off.”
Robinson’s novel “Interceptions” fictionalizes Robinson’s real-life experiences as a UCLA pre-law student in a relationship with a football player on his way to a career in the NFL.
The main character, Stefanie Pointer, must face the challenge of following her own career goals while supporting her serious boyfriend.
“I had made the mistake when I was 24, 25 years old, of choosing my college sweetheart over my career plans to go to law school,” Robinson said. “I had the aspiration to become a lawyer, but I had fallen in love. … I wanted to write this book not only as therapy but also to really give the message that you should put yourself first in situations like this. … I wanted to target young college-level, college-aged women to not make the mistakes that I made.”
Robinson’s best friend and fellow UCLA alumna, Shindona Neal, also encouraged Robinson to relay this message to college-aged girls by telling the story of her experiences.
“We were dating kind of similar guys but we had very different views in terms of how our lives should go,” Neal said. “I used to always tell her stuff like she should get herself together, she should concentrate on herself, and I was very, very career-oriented and she was a woman that was in love with her man.”
Throughout the novel, Robinson not only drew upon her romantic experiences but also her more general experiences as an undergraduate. For example, Robinson creates a scene in the novel, based on her own memory, where Stefanie and her boyfriend sit on the lawn next to Janss Steps, reflecting upon their college experiences while looking over the campus and contemplating how their lives will change upon graduation.
“I thought (setting the story at UCLA) would make the story more authentic,” Robinson said. “I thought it would be able to capture more dimensions of the story if I created a fictitious story in a real-life setting ““ and what better place to do that than at UCLA?”
While Robinson’s experiences at UCLA inspired her first large piece of writing, she did not realize she wanted to write until after her graduation and after working as an intern at an L.A. football agency.
“I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer. … I never realized that I was a creative person until I wrote this manuscript,” Robinson said. “I was on the straight and narrow to become a lawyer so I didn’t explore my creative talents while I was at UCLA.”
Neal saw the potential novel material in Robinson’s undergraduate experiences, as well.
“It just seemed like she had so much drama and it was very entertaining and I thought that she should get the message out to other people about some of the things she’d been through,” Neal said.
Upon breaking up with her college sweetheart, Robinson took Neal’s advice to begin writing and decided to enroll in creative writing and screenwriting courses in UCLA Extension. Taking these courses provided Robinson with more opportunities to continue writing.
Finding time to write, however, proved more challenging. “When you’re a writer all you want to do is write,” Robinson said. “Especially when you write fiction stories; they’re coming into your head 24 hours a day, even when you’re sleeping, so you kind of have to make sure you find time for your personal life and try to put a blockade up to your stories so they don’t come in when you’re having dinner.”
Robinson’s future projects include another novel based on her own experiences, titled “Letters from Heaven,” about a biracial girl trying to find out about her familial past while living in an upper-crust, primarily white Northern California neighborhood.
Additionally, Robinson cowrote a nonfiction collaboration of interviews and essays about Tupac, called “Tupac Remembered: Bearing Witness to a Life and Legacy,” which will be published in December.
With a varied line of creative projects, Robinson’s journey has not necessarily been the straight and narrow one she expected, but her determination kept her on the path. “I definitely recommend taking full advantage of everything UCLA and Los Angeles as a writing community has to offer,” Robinson said. “Make sure you explore during that time and really figure out what you want to do and if you want to become a writer, be 100 percent fully dedicated. … The only ones who make it are the ones who never give up.”