Here & Now's Celeste Headlee speaks with mega best-selling author James Patterson about his new memoir "James Patterson by James Patterson," a collection of stories about his life, loves and writing career.
Book excerpt: 'James Patterson by James Patterson'
By James Patterson
passion keeps you going . . . but it doesn’t pay the rent
When i first arrived in New York, I would force myself to get up at five every morning to squeeze in a couple of hours of writing before I went to work at the ad factory. I was full of hope and big dreams but not enough confidence to quit my day job and write for my supper.
I’d play some music, maybe a little Harry Nilsson (“Gotta Get Up”), and do my first stint of scribbling sentences, cutting sentences, adding sentences, driving myself crazy.
The book’s getting better, right?
The book’s getting worse. Every sentence I write is inferior to the last. I’m going to be the next Graham Greene.
Don’t quit your day job, chump.
You start thinking you’re a fraud, “a big fat failure.” Okay, okay, so that’s a line out of the movie You’ve Got Mail. So is “You are what you read.”
As I said, I was driving myself crazy. It goes with the territory. I think that’s what first-time novelists are supposed to do. Our rite of passage. Every night after work, I’d come home in a daze of jingle lyrics and cutesy catchphrases, sit in my kitchen, stare around at the tiny antiseptic space, then start writing again. I’d
129
go till eleven or twelve. That’s how I wrote The Thomas Berryman Number.
I did the first draft in pencil.
But then I typed. The two-finger minuet. I had to reach up to the counter to peck at the keys of my faithful Underwood Champion. Eventually, I hurt my back. That’s when I stopped typing and started writing everything in pencil again.
I still write in pencil. I’m writing this with a number 2 pencil. The pencils were gifts from my old friend Tom Mc- Goey. They each say Alex Cross Lives Here. My handwriting is impossible to read—even for me. Hell, I’m not sure what I just wrote.
After about a thousand revisions, when I thought the manu- script for The Thomas Berryman Number might be ready for human consumption, I mailed it out myself. No agent. No early readers. No compelling pitch letter.
I got rejections. Mostly form letters. A couple of handwritten notes from editors that were encouraging. One publisher, Mor- row, held on to the manuscript for two months before rejecting it. With a form letter.
Then I read an article in the New York Times Book Review about the literary agency Sanford Greenburger Associates. San- ford Greenburger, the founder of the agency, had died in 1971. His son Francis took over the business. Francis was in his twenties, not much older than me. The article in the Times said they were accepting manuscripts from unpublished writers. That would be me.
I sent over the manuscript that had already been rejected thirty times. We’re talking four hundred typewritten pages secured in a cardboard box. Two days later, I got a phone call from
130
Greenburger Associates. I’m thinking to myself, I can’t believe they turned my book down so fast!
The caller turned out to be Francis himself. He said, “No, no, no, I’m not turning your novel down. Just the opposite. Come on over and see me. I want to sell this thing. I will sell your book.”
So Francis hooked me up with Jay Acton, a hot young editor at Thomas Crowell, a small, family-owned New York publisher. Jay and I got along beautifully. He worked with me for about a month on the manuscript. He helped the book take shape and we cut some fat.
Then Jay rejected it. My thirty-first rejection.
But Francis Greenburger talked me down off a ledge of the thirty-story Graybar Building, where J. Walter Thompson had its offices. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I’m going to sell it this week.”
And he sold it to Little, Brown. That week.
From 'James Patterson by James Patterson' by James Patterson, published by Little, Brown and Company, copyright © 2022. Reprinted by permission of publisher.
"story" - Google News
June 09, 2022 at 11:08PM
https://ift.tt/8yEkeVv
Author James Patterson tells his own story in new memoir - WBUR News
"story" - Google News
https://ift.tt/NoLFSb8
https://ift.tt/2yTiZXD
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Author James Patterson tells his own story in new memoir - WBUR News"
Post a Comment