In terms of why everything is different, each book is different than the one before because I'm so bored of what I just finished I want to work on something different. The next book becomes an antidote to what I did before.
Each one an antidote to the one that went before. Each one a reaction, an about-face, a rebound.
You write differently in each book. It may appear to be similar to readers, but you're a different writer in each book because you haven't approached that subject before. And every subject brings out a different prose strain in you. Fundamentally, yes, you're contained as one writer. But you have various voices. Like a good actor.
If entrepreneurs were running schools, instead of bureaucrats, schools would be teaching a lot more of the skills and mindsets found in this book. Since they're not, this book is a necessary antidote to a traditional college education.
Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give.
If leaders don't have an antidote for fear they will be crushed by it. What is your antidote?
The book is not a cut-and-paste job. Yeah, I have a blog, but the material in the book is all new. The blog deals with my life now, whereas as the book starts a few years before my birth until right about the end of junior high. And yes, I am contractually obliged to mention this as much as possible (each time I do, HarperCollins sends me a free pizza).
I start each book when it's ready and never before.
I always want to try to bring something fresh to every book. It's getting harder instead of easier. I feel like I work harder with each book. But I don't want it to show on the pages, that's for sure.
Time spent researching varies from book to book. Some novels require months, even years of research, others very little. I try to do most of my research before I begin but inevitably questions emerge during the writing.
Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.
Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.
We’re all in the end-of-our-life book club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each conversation the final one.
I appreciate your giving my book -- and in no small way, me -- a chance. To thank you, I really wanted to acknowledge all of you in the book. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough room for each name. So I've put in a code name that stands for all of you reading this book. The name is 'Mom.' It will be our little secret. So when you see 'Mom' in the acknowledgments, you'll know I'm really talking about you. And don't let my mother try to tell you otherwise.
Each one could be a Jesus mild,
Each one has been a little child,
A little child with laughing look,
A lovely white unwritten book;
A book that God will take, my friend,
As each goes out at journey's end.
I suppose also that watching marketing and publicity stuff play out from behind the scenes, making those plans and seeing each piece fall into place or not, each year, for each book, has made me a little more tranquil about the process for my own book than I might otherwise be.