I Guess I’m a Writer Now

Essays by James Patterson
Some Stories from My Life

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“Life Lessons”

I had never thought of myself as a true Mad Man, but for the next couple of years I got obsessive about advertising. To my surprise, maybe even shock, I quickly rose to become CEO of Thompson North America. I was still in my thirties. On the side, I was writing one or two bestselling novels a year. It was nuts. Something had to give or eventually I would.

Life lessons are everywhere, right? The trouble is, like most people, I tended to ignore them. I soldiered on through long days and nights. I was working too hard. I knew it.

But every once in a while, I snapped out of it and actually paid attention.

It happened to me on the New Jersey Turnpike, of all unlikely places. One Sunday afternoon, I had to leave the Jersey Shore for a meeting in New York. The last thing that I wanted to do was schlep back to work. The last place I wanted to be was hot, sweaty New York City in July.

An hour and a half after I left the shore, I was still trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The proverbial turnpike parking lot. Cars moving at ten miles an hour.

On the other side of the road, an occasional car went whizzing by. Whoosh. Maybe one car every fifteen seconds.

Whoosh . . .

Whoosh . . .

Whoosh . . .

I sat there, mildly pissed, absorbing this very obvious life lesson for about an hour.

Then I finally got it. The lesson was simple and so very clear. Why hadn’t I seen it before?

My mission in life had to be to get on the other side of the highway. To get in the traffic lane that was moving. My life was going in the wrong direction.

I swear to God, that insight, that miserable time trapped on the Jersey Turnpike, drove me out of advertising.

I focused on writing novels.

And I made it my mission to try and find somebody who would love me and who I would love back.

Whoosh . . . whoosh.

“Escape from New York”

One evening, a week or so after my epiphany in New Jersey, Burt Manning invited me to dinner at 21 Club, one of his favorite eating spots in New York. It was always a treat for me to break bread with Burt. He’s an interesting guy — a talented conversationalist and a good listener. That’s a rare combination. He’s also a winner. He literally saved Thompson. Burt wanted to talk about my future, and he told me I could be as big as I wanted to be in the ad world.

At this point, around 1996, I’d written four bestselling novels featuring Alex Cross. I’d also had that epiphany on the Jersey Turnpike. So I told Burt I didn’t have a future in advertising. I don’t actually remember this, but Burt later told me I said, “Burt, I can’t afford to work at Thompson anymore.”

I guess the kid from the country had finally come of age. I believed I was ready to be a full-time writer.

After I formally quit, I stayed on the J. Walter Thompson board of directors for a couple of years. It’s interesting that when you leave a job, but you’re still technically there, you’re not really there. I wasn’t, anyway. Not in mind, and not in spirit. It started to get a little ridiculous.

I can still remember sitting in the Thompson boardroom and feeling trapped. I’d look at my watch and think, Oooh, it’s only 8:30 . . .

I’d catch myself looking at my watch again. Oooh, it’s only 8:51 . . .

Oooh, 9:14.

Oooh, 9:31.

And that is precisely why I’ve refused to sit on any boards since I left Thompson. For me, life is too short for board meetings.

But let me tell you, life is pretty good for a bestselling writer. I think maybe I was born for this. And I still look at the world through the lens of a kid from Newburgh, New York. That helps me stay down-to-earth. Keeps things real, keeps me humble.

“I Guess I’m a Writer Now”

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 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 McGoey. 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 manuscript 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, Morrow, 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. Sanford 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 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.

—James Patterson

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