This male writer specializes in writing love stories, and he gets along well with the female writers who occupy romance novels. Among the published 18 novels, 1 1 was made into a movie. He could have become a professional track and field athlete. He is active by nature. All walks of life have been mixed up, including decorating and selling houses and opening factories to produce medical supplies. At the age of 30, he realized full-time writing and even donated 9 million to build a playground for the school. Isn't it interesting?
The following is an exclusive interview, the original text is from his own audio book The Notebook. According to the copyright statement at the end of the book, it should be no problem to translate this.
After visiting here, I want to tell you something about myself, because many people are curious about where writers come from and what their lives are like. I think every writer is different. The following is my story, I hope you will like it.
I was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and New Year's Eve is only 40 minutes away from 1965.
My father is a bartender in a bar. Maybe it was fate that made him have to go to work that night, because New Year's Eve is the busiest night of the year. Although he didn't have much money in his pocket, he hired the best obstetrician in Omaha and spent 124 yuan (delivery fee and my mother's two-day hospitalization fee) to bring me into this world.
In the first few years after birth, my family and I ran around. At that time, my father was still looking for a suitable master's program and finally entered the University of Minnesota. I lived there for two years, but I don't quite remember. I vaguely remember that I have a dog named Pepper and a paper train that I like to ride. 1When I moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, I was still digging bugs on the grill of the moving van.
My memory of the city of Los Angeles is only that I lived in the University of Southern California with my father for four years, and my impression is equally vague. I remember being hit in the head by a brick thrown by a gangster of 18 years old. I learned to ride a bike and only knocked out one tooth. My turtle unfortunately jumped off the balcony on the second floor of my house and committed suicide.
1973, my father stayed in California to write a thesis, and my brother and sister and I went to her hometown of Grand Island, Nebraska with my mother and lived there for one year. 19741February, we returned to Fairoaks, California to reunite with our father. I clearly remember that when I moved into my new home, the TV series "Colta: Nightcrawler" was playing. Perhaps because of this, when I see darren mcgavin, I will regard Fairoaks as my second hometown.
To sum up, I barely graduated from primary school. I remember that my first teacher had fiery red hair, a big round face and a hunchback, and especially liked to wear a close-fitting fluorescent green evening dress. I failed in Chinese class. Fortunately, I made a paper volcano, which was filled with soda, vinegar and food coloring, and could spray purple lava. The teacher thought my creativity was not bad, so he let me continue my study.
High school is much better. I don't know why, my brain was suddenly enlightened when I was 14 years old, and I got an A from Keke. He was the first in high school and graduated with honors, but he failed to deliver a graduation speech. Later, he participated in the California track and field competition held in Los Angeles and kept several high school records. Finally, I got a full scholarship to track and field and went to Northam University.
I had a good time in high school. That's great. Unfortunately, things have changed, and it didn't take long for bad luck to begin. After breaking the record of Northampton University's 400-meter relay race (as if it had not been broken), I was injured and my ligament was covered with ice for almost a year.
When I go home in the summer vacation of my freshman year, I just hang around at home except ice on my ligaments. My mother said, don't sulk, can you do something? I asked her, then why? She said, how should I know? Write a book! I said, okay. Eight weeks later, my first novel was born. Of course, this book was not published, and it was buried directly in the "literary cemetery" in my attic. I haven't thrown it away yet. It's next to my pile of football collection cards. To tell the truth, that story is still very good, but it is badly written. This is how my little writing career began.
Fast-forward to college, made a group of good friends, watched basketball games all day, drank too much beer, and met a girl named Cathy from New Hampshire, Florida during the spring break from 65438 to 0988. It was love at first sight. I told her the day I met her that we would get married. As soon as she listened to the music, she asked me to continue drinking. 1989 July, we got married.
In this year, I finished my second novel, The Royal Murder. Write better this time. There are many wonderful conversations, but they are too long. As a result, the book was also thrown in the attic with a pile of rejection letters.
So, I decided to change careers. Because the publishing house and the legal department didn't accept it, I tried many different jobs, hoping to find my interest. I have done house evaluation, bought a house for renovation and resale, served in a restaurant, sold dental products by telephone, and finally opened a factory to produce plastic products. Although I don't know anything about medical treatment and engineering, and I only took elementary courses in science, I plunged into it. With a credit card debt of $30,000, I can only fight alone and avoid the laser my wife shot in the back of my head. After two and a half years of protracted war, we can finally stop fighting and make ends meet. That night, we celebrated our victory crazily. Nine months later, Miles Andrew was born.
During this period, my old friend and Olympic champion billy mills and I wrote Wokini, which was published by Feather Publishing House, a very small publishing house in Sacramento. This book sells well in the local area, and was appraised by Random House (the largest publishing house in the world, a branch of Penguin Publishing House) 1994. Finally won!
Later, I sold my business and wanted to find something else to do before I died. I came across an advertisement for drug sales, and I thought, okay. This decision is great, the working hours and income are good, and I only see my boss once a month. I really can't ask for anything more.
Then, I successfully asked the company to transfer me from Sacramento to New Bern, North Carolina, and moved across the state to a place I had never seen before in February. That night, we celebrated our move with candlelight and champagne, and nine months later, Ryan Cody was born.
When I was 25, I took a look at my life. A good job, a good wife, a good child, a house with running water in front, what else can you want? 1994 in may, I finally found the answer.
The comedy Cheers had a one-hour special program before the finale, and I watched it from beginning to end that night. This comedy has been broadcast continuously for 1 1 year, which can be said to have accompanied me for most of my life, but I feel that I have not realized my dream.
At four o'clock in the morning, I decided to try writing a book again. Write well this time, and don't play with tickets as before. I consulted the market, chose the theme of the love story, and then designed several characters according to the stories of my wife and grandparents. I thought about the plot for two months before I started writing. At that time, Alzheimer's disease was a hot topic in society, and I thought that with the help of this tragic effect, a good love story should be written. At the beginning, 80,000 words were written, and 28,000 words were deleted. The manuscript was finished in January. 1995.
In February of the same year, the company moved our family from New Bern to Greenville, South Carolina. After finding a fixed address, I sent letters of recommendation to 25 publishing houses, and finally signed an agreement with Theresa Parker, the copyright agent of Sanford Greenberg United Company. 1October 19, the book arrived in new york. 199510/noon on October 23rd 12: 02, my fate changed.
I remember I was serving fried chicken to a table of nurses.