This blogger will have the pleasure of meeting James Patterson in March, 2014 when I present at the Illinois Reading Council Conference. I am so delighted to have this opportunity. Here is a post about him and all his accomplishments.
It wasn’t until college, when he could read what he wanted, that he grew to love books. “I just couldn’t get enough. And it got me scribbling,” he says. “I really liked scribbling. I like telling stories.”
The author says he has “a very active imagination” and keeps a folder full of ideas. At any time, he has 45 to 55 projects going, including movie scripts.
James Patterson didn’t plan to become a famous children’s author. He wasn’t even a big reader when he was a kid, despite having a teacher for a mom and a grandmother who was a librarian.
“I didn’t read as much as I should have,” he admits. “I read what I had to.”
Patterson’s interest in children’s books traces back to when his son, Jack, was 8. Like his dad, Jack was a good student but a so-so reader. That summer, Patterson and his wife made a deal with Jack: He could skip some chores if he agreed to read every day. “Aw, do I have to?” Patterson recalls Jack saying. Jack’s parents told him they would help find books he would really like. “By the end of the summer, Jack had read a dozen books, 10 of which he thought were terrific.”
He stresses to kids why reading matters. If you don’t read well, he says, “you’re going to be lost in high school. And what are you going to do in life? Be a pro athlete? A rapper?” While that might sound good to some kids, the chances of it happening are slim. So that makes reading – and doing well in school – a big deal. “Reading will give you a lot of choices,” Patterson says.
Who or what inspires James Patterson?
“I study, study, study” before writing, he says. “Then I write seven days a week . . . for five, six or eight hours a day.”
To hold readers’ interest, “I pretend ther’s a person sitting across from me, and I don’t want him to leave until I’m finished with the story,” Patterson says. Because he’s not superhuman, many of his books have co-authors. “I’ll have an idea and will write an outline” of 60 to 80 pages, including ideas for drawings. The co-author writes the first draft, which Patterson checks often “to keep it on track.” Then he buffs up the final version.
His children’s books aren’t sugar-coated. There are kids with disabilities, kids without parents, kids being bullied. “Yes, there is a dose of reality” in them, he says. “I think that’s good. These books are not softballs. Readers love them because they show kids taking responsibility for their own actions, for their own lives, at a young age.”
Patterson, who is 66, shows no signs of slowing down. “I am a crazy person, totally crazy,” he says. “ I can’t stop writing, and I can’t stop reading.”
