Share the Love

Thanks for all your responses and emails, I wish I could respond to them all.  It’s great to see so many writers inspired by this weblog and this story.  I do hope you tell your friends about it as well.   

Sam’s Letters to Jennifer hits stores today and I’m hitting the road.  In the next week, I’ll be in New York, Chicago, North Carolina and South Carolina.  I’m looking forward to meeting you all out at your bookstores. Visit my website for a complete list of appearances.  Whether you can make it to the events or not, make sure to pick up a copy of the book for yourself, and one for a friend. I promise that you’ll be dying to talk about Sam’s Letters to Jennifer with someone.  That’s why I’ve created these discussion questions.  

The thing that’s special about Sam’s Letters to Jennifer is that it’s a love story.  Just because I started with novels about murder and mayhem doesn’t mean that I’m not a romantic. I like to think that I’ve had a few romantic moments in my life and I’ve picked out some of the spots that are most special to me. Have you been to all of them? Tell me about your favorite romantic places.  

Gotta run, but more news from the road is on its way,

JP

authorpatterson at 9:06:36 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 53 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Thanks for your responses.  This is my first web-log ever.

Anyhow, given the significance of the letters that are shared between the characters in Sam’s Letters to Jennifer, I think it would be fun to discuss important letters that we’ve gotten in our own lives.

So let me steer the discussion a little by sharing the experience of one of the most important letters I ever received in my life—the one accepting the manuscript for my first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number.

I don’t know if any of you have tried writing novels but it’s very difficult even after you’ve done the work and have that manuscript sitting there and somewhere in your mind you’ve decided it’s good.  You still have doubts.  You don’t know if it will find an audience.  You don’t know if publishers will even look at it.  You don’t know if it will sell a single copy.

And when, as happened with Berryman, you’ve gotten 31 publishing houses to say “no” to it—even in nicely worded letters that weren’t all form-letter rejections—these doubts only get bigger.

So when I got that letter from the editor-in-chief of Little, Brown and Company, saying he wanted the book, well . . . it blew my little mind and then changed my life.

Here was a guy who had worked with Norman Mailer and John Fowles writing to say he liked the book—that he loved the book . . .  it was just incredible.  I held that letter in front of me and I realized I could do it.  I held that letter and I believed I could do it.  I could be a writer for the rest of my life.  I was a writer.

My editor invited me to Boston where he had an incredible office on Beacon Hill.  It was like this 100 year-old library.  I remember sitting in front of a roaring fire on the first floor and looking around me.  The shelves were stuffed with first editions of books including Catcher in the Rye and The French Lieutenant?s Woman.  And then the editor came down these creaky old wooden stairs and I nervously folded the letter (which I?d been carrying around like a good luck charm) and slid it into my jacket pocket.  And then I shook his hand and, well, the rest is history.

If you have a moment in the coming week, please log in and tell me about an important or emotional letter you received.

It?s only fair.  I shared with you . . . right?
Best,
James Patterson

authorpatterson at 9:54:46 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 201 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Dear Reader,

 

In the spirit of keeping our connection strong and vibrant, I have decided to start this web log and I invite you to join me and to share your own experiences with Sam’s Letters to Jennifer as well as your own love-stories and family secrets.  I also will invite you to get your own family and loved ones involved.

 

I will be checking in from time to time to respond to postings and to tell you more about the writing of this book and my own experiences. 

 

I hope this letter finds you well and I am looking forward to reading your written words!

 

All my best,

 

James Patterson

authorpatterson at 9:29:07 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 131 comments: Show Recent | Add your own