The Truth About Creativity, Aging, and Discipline: From the World’s Best-Selling Author (James Patterson)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Office Hours with Arthur Brooks

Episode: The Truth About Creativity, Aging, and Discipline: From the World’s Best-Selling Author (James Patterson)
Host: Arthur Brooks
Guest: James Patterson
Date: December 1, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Arthur Brooks welcomes James Patterson, the world's best-selling author, for a candid discussion about creativity, aging, discipline, and the lessons a creative life imparts about happiness. Together, they explore Patterson’s writing journey, wisdom gained from rejection and persistence, how creative work changes with age, and actionable insights for living more creatively—and consequently, more happily.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Cadence of a Creative Life (00:45–08:00)

• Arthur Brooks introduces James Patterson as not just a creative person and accomplished novelist, but as an embodiment of how creativity fuels happiness.
• Brooks sets the theme: Creativity is core to happiness because it activates the “right side” of the brain, responsible for meaning, mystery, and deeper well-being.
• Creativity isn’t just for professionals—anyone can tap into it for a happier life.
• Memorable Quote [01:01]:
  “Somebody says you’re lucky if you find something you like to do, and then it’s a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it.” —James Patterson

2. Beginnings: Childhood & The Spark of Storytelling (10:07–11:56)

• Patterson’s love for storytelling arose from solitude in childhood, entertaining himself by inventing stories in the woods.
• He didn’t read avidly in high school due to the uninspiring curriculum, reflecting on the importance of igniting—rather than stifling—children’s interests.
• On getting kids to read:
  “If the objective is to get kids reading, do not give them books that turn them off.” —James Patterson [11:56]

3. Dealing with Rejection: The Reality of the Writer’s Life (11:56–13:46)

• Patterson’s first book, The Thomas Berryman Number, was rejected 31 times before publication and later won awards.
• Rejection doesn’t necessarily mean your work is bad; universal acceptance doesn’t mean it’s good.
• Arthur Brooks' lesson [13:09]:
  “Just because something that you do is rejected doesn’t mean it’s bad... and just because everybody accepts something you do doesn’t mean it’s good.”

4. Writing Discipline & The Daily Process (14:24–18:11)

• Patterson shares his daily routine: Up by 5:30–6:30 am, writing in sprints throughout the day and incorporating exercise and social time.
• COVID-19 gave him the opportunity to write an autobiographical book, which helped him focus more sharply on craft, especially sentence-level attention.

5. Creative Evolution & Aging (18:11–23:17)

• Patterson admits aging affects concentration and working memory, but his imagination remains sharp.
• He reads more slowly but still processes creative ideas prolifically, often keeping 500 potential book ideas on hand.
• He highlights adjusting to changes in strengths over time, suggesting happiness comes from embracing what you can do now rather than lamenting what’s lost.
• Memorable Quote [23:24]:
  “I just made a conscious decision to pay more attention to the sentences, sentence by sentence.” —James Patterson

6. Where Ideas Come From: Ordinary Life as Inspiration (25:10–27:25)

• Ideas spark from snippets of conversation, ordinary events, or challenges people share.
• Patterson advocates for finding wonder in everyday life and relationships.
• On ordinary inspiration [26:53]:
  “The best ideas actually come and inspiration... come from ordinary life, not from extraordinary experiences.” —Arthur Brooks

7. Letting Go & Facing Hard Times (27:34–28:53)

• Patterson is not one to dwell on regrets; he focuses on what can be changed.
• He cautions against letting uncontrollable events ruin your day, referencing author Mel Robbins' “let them” principle: don’t fret about what others think or say.

8. The Importance of Observation and Curiosity (31:46–32:23)

• Patterson values hearing people’s stories, regardless of “status” or perceived accomplishment.
• The fundamental interest lies not in the spectacular but in the ordinary dynamics and choices of people.

9. Philosophy of Work: Thinking Before Doing (33:24–35:05)

• According to Patterson, “thinking” is more important than “doing”—the genesis and refinement of ideas are the foundation of meaningful work in any field.
• On disruption [34:00]:
  “People do not like disruption. You must disrupt... very quickly... Insofar as you get people to buy in, your mission works.” —James Patterson

10. Craft, Excellence, and Hard Work (36:30–38:07)

• Patterson embraces Hemingway’s notion that starting with “one true sentence” is crucial, but excellence lies in relentless rewriting, not first drafts.
• On rewriting [38:04]:
  “Rewriting? Yes, 100%... the rewriting is huge.” —James Patterson

11. Motives for Writing & Artistic Impulse (39:35–42:24)

• Discussing Orwell’s four writing motives—egotism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, political purpose—Patterson agrees with some, but for him, writing is mainly compulsion and the joy of the creative challenge.
• He avoids genres or perspectives he doesn’t resonate with: “If I don’t, you know, I don’t know... I don’t think it’s risky.”

12. Joy vs. Suffering in Creative Work (42:12–43:32)

• Some writers (like Orwell or Frederick Forsyth) see writing as suffering; Patterson finds it joyful.
• His advice: If you don’t love writing, consider co-authorship or another route—don’t force yourself into creative misery.

13. "It's Biscuits": Finishing, Letting Go, and Moving On (43:35–44:19)

• “It’s biscuits.”—Patterson’s idiosyncratic phrase meaning, “It’s done, let’s move on,” is presented as a metaphor for both creative and regular life.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On finding purpose:
  “You’re lucky if you find something you like to do, and then it’s a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it.” —James Patterson [01:01]

• On rejection and perseverance:
  “Just because something that you do is rejected, it doesn’t mean it’s bad.” —Arthur Brooks [13:09]
  “But sometimes it is.” —James Patterson [13:17]

• On creative evolution:
  “I just made a conscious decision to pay more attention to the sentences, sentence by sentence.” —James Patterson [23:24]

• On daily writing life:
  “My day is organized around writing words... everything else is kind of punctuating the writing process.” —Arthur Brooks [33:24]

• On creativity after loss:
  “After she died, I couldn’t write for two or three years. I literally... tried. I wrote a half of a book. I just shredded it.” —James Patterson [27:34]

• On ideas from ordinary life:
  “The best ideas actually come and inspiration... come from ordinary life, not from extraordinary experiences.” —Arthur Brooks [26:53]

• On letting go:
  “It’s biscuits. It just means it’s basically. It’s done now and we should go eat the biscuits.” —James Patterson [43:32]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Arthur Brooks' introduction & science of creativity: 00:45–08:00
• Patterson on childhood and the love of stories: 10:07–11:56
• Dealing with rejection & early career: 11:56–13:46
• Patterson’s writing process & daily discipline: 14:24–18:11
• Aging, cognitive change, and adaption: 18:11–23:17
• Sourcing creative ideas from the ordinary: 25:10–27:25
• On regrets and moving forward: 27:34–28:53
• Observation, curiosity, and relating to others: 31:46–32:23
• Balancing thinking and doing: 33:24–35:05
• Craft vs. inspiration, rewriting as excellence: 36:30–38:07
• Motives and compulsion in artistry: 39:35–42:24
• Writing as joy vs. ordeal: 42:12–43:32
• “It’s biscuits”: Finishing and letting go: 43:35–44:19

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The Eight Lessons for a Creative, Happy Life (Summarized by Arthur Brooks)

[44:19–End]

Arthur Brooks distills Patterson’s wisdom into eight life lessons, applicable far beyond writing:

1. Live in the process, not the outcome
   Enjoy the living, not just the outcome or legacy.

2. Rejection ≠ bad, Acceptance ≠ good
   Trust your own judgment; external validation is only part of the picture.

3. Embrace changing strengths as you age
   Celebrate what you’re gaining, not just what’s declining.

4. Seek inspiration in ordinary life
   Pay attention to daily moments for creativity and joy.

5. Be an observer, not a constant participant
   Non-judgmental observation makes life richer and less stressful.

6. Think deeply before you act
   More thoughtful planning leads to more meaningful action.

7. Excellence is in the hard work, not just the idea
   True fulfillment comes from dedication and effort, not brief enthusiasm.

8. “It’s biscuits”—finish, let go, move on
   Don’t ruminate endlessly; close each chapter and progress, in both work and life.

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Tone and Takeaways

The conversation is both practical and philosophical, warm but grounded in discipline, humility, and a genuine love for creative work. Patterson’s down-to-earth approach dismisses romanticized suffering and emphasizes curiosity, persistence, and enjoying the minutiae. Brooks frames creativity as not just the path to artistic production but as a core pillar of joy and meaning for anyone.

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Useful for listeners who have not heard the episode:
This summary captures the rhythm, anecdotes, and practical advice from Patterson and Brooks, and gives you the “eight lessons” that can be immediately applied to your own creative life—even if that just means being a bit more observant, thoughtful, and present today.

Transcript

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[Arthur Brooks]

There are a lot of psychologists I could talk to about the whole business of creativity. But I thought, why don't I talk to the most creative person I've ever met?

[James Patterson]

And he wouldn't appear in. So here I am. Wow.

[Arthur Brooks]

Nice. James has published more than 200 books. From last count, I think you've sold more than 425 million copies.

[James Patterson]

Somebody says you're lucky if you find something you like to do, and then it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it.

[Arthur Brooks]

Why did you love writing?

[James Patterson]

When I was very little, 7, 8, 9 years old, and I would go.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Through the woods telling myself stories.

[James Patterson]

And that's how I amused myself.

[Arthur Brooks]

Are you a better writer? Are you a better. Is your craft better?

[James Patterson]

I think so, yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Patterson]

Just because I just made a conscious decision to pay more attention to the sentences, sentence by sentence.

[Arthur Brooks]

Where do these ideas come from?

[James Patterson]

It can be anything. It can be a phrase. It can be just different things in the background there. I can't really see it. There's this thing with ideas, and it's about yo thick. I mean, I have probably 500 things I could write books about in there. The inspiration is that that idea that you start with has to be strong enough to drive the whole.

[Arthur Brooks]

Hi, everybody. Welcome to office hours. I'm Arthur Brooks. I'm a behavioral scientist dedicated to lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love, using science and ideas. This is a show about how you can do that, too. I'm a professor at Harvard University and a columnist at the Atlantic. I'm an author. But most of all, I'm somebody who's dedicated to help other people become happiness teachers. I try to do that from a lot of different angles, and today's an example of doing it from a slightly skewed angle on the Science of Happiness. Because my conversation is not with a happiness scientist. I'm going to talk today with a novelist, an author, somebody who's actually the most successful author in American history by many metrics. I'm going to talk to James Patterson today about how to become a more creative person so you can become happier and how becoming a creative person can give you lessons for a happier life. Most of you know who James Patterson is. He's considered to be the most popular storyteller, top teller of our time. He's sold something like 425 million copies of his books. I mean, he's published more than 200 books and he has the Guinness World's record and the most number one New York Times bestsellers at last count, 67. That's a lot of New York Times number one bestsellers. It's amazing, as a matter of fact, what he's been able to do. And so I wanted to understand, because I'm interested in creativity, not just how you can become more creative by learning from a creative person, but what are the life lessons you learn from this level of ongoing creativity. Furthermore, if you're an amateur doing something creatively, does it add to your life and does it ruin it by becoming a professional? Well, he's an interesting case, as you're going to see. He's somebody whose life is really built around constant creativity, around constant ideas. The cadence of his life is just writing. You know, that's the drumbeat of his life. That's his heartbeat. Basically. He gets up six o' clock in the morning and writes and then has a little coffee and writes and talks to his wife and writes, plays a little golf and writes, has some lunch and writes. You get the point that I'm trying to make. And the reason for that is because creativity is for him, the vehicular language of happiness. How can you use that? And one of the broader implications of it. Before we get started, I want to talk a little bit about the connection between creativity and happiness. I've talked in the past on this show about hemispheric lateralization. The two halves of the brain do different things. To a certain extent. They do a lot of things the same too, but in a very important way. They divide up the tasks of life in the following way. The right hemisphere of your brain. And this is According to Ian McGilchrist, the great Oxford neuroscientist. I'll drop a couple of his papers into the show. Notes. The Right side of the Brain deals with the why questions of meaning and mystery. The why of life. Why are we doing any of this? Love, meaning, happiness. These are all right side phenomena, they're the ineffable parts of life. When you try to describe them, when you try to solve the problems that they raise, like what's the meaning of my life? The left side of your brain kicks in. It's the what and how to side, that's your tasks. And, and in point of fact, when this hemispheric lateralization, it's a miracle and does wonderful things when they work together, when they don't work together, it's a problem which is one of the problems that we have today where we live in a technical, or I should say technological simulation of life. That's really all on the left side of the brain, the task side, that shuts off the meaning side, the mystery side of our lives, which explains a lot of the trouble that we have with happiness today. Well, one of the best ways for you to get to the right side of your brain is creativity. Now, you might be saying, I'm not a creative person. I'm like a goat in terms of creativity. It doesn't matter. The truth of the matter is that when you explore ideas, flights of fancy beauty, you're going to turn on that right hemisphere of your brain and you're going to start exploring meaning more. And I've got a lot of research that shows that that's exactly the case. Not research that I've done research, research that great researchers for many years have done experiments showing that when people are experiencing anxiety and depression, their symptoms are lowered when they, for example, paint, whether they're good painters or not, give them a piece of paper and watercolors and put them in a room and looking at a landscape and talking to their friends. And it inevitably works to lower symptoms of anxiety and depression. Why? Because you can solve a lot of your problems by going to the ineffable right side, the numinousness of the right hemisphere of your brain. Writing is the same way, poetry, reading poems, writing poems. It has a very, very strong effect in experiments on lowering anxiety. I've seen lots of research on this, and there is even really good work on brain mapping in the neuroscience literature that shows exactly how this works, how the right side is illuminated and leads to not just relief, but inspiration, higher quality of life, want to get happier, do more creative stuff. Now let's talk to James Patterson a little bit about how he does that stuff and how he's built his life around it. Not because I'm asking you to go write 200 books in 67 number one New York Times bestsellers. That's absurd. Well, unless you're James Patterson and you're watching this right now. Hi, James. But because he's going to give you some very important ideas about what this creative life has told him about the meaning of life, about how to build your life. Specifically, he's going to give seven big lessons that creativity teaches us about how to live a happier life. Now listen for these lessons along the way, and then I'm going to come back at the end. So don't turn it off before the end, because I'm going to come back to the end and I'm going to give you the. The seven. Actually, no, I'm going to give you eight lessons that he gives us about how to live a life of greater happiness that he's learned by being creative. And you can, too. So don't go anyplace. Listen to the interview. You're going to love that. And then stay to the end, because I'm going to give you the big eight on how you can start being happier today by being a little bit more creative. Here's the interview. James Patterson, welcome to office hours.

[James Patterson]

Thank you. Thank you. I'm so honored to be in your office.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

I'm surprised you would let me in.

[Arthur Brooks]

Hey, I'm all about talking to my best students. Although you're certainly not one of my students. I'm more like one of yours at this point. This is our second conversation. The first was so enriching on your show that we had to continue it on my program.

[James Patterson]

I agree. I'm happy to be here. I love the area. This area of trying to get people.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

To see how they can make little changes that help.

[Arthur Brooks]

I mean, you've been talking about this a lot lately, and we're going to get to that. But what I really want to talk about today is, is creativity and how it is generative, how it actually helps people in their lives. And. And, you know, there are a lot of psychologists I could talk to about the whole business of creativity, but I thought, why don't I talk to the most creative person I've ever met and see where that expertise lies?

[James Patterson]

And he. And he wouldn't. Wouldn't appear. And so here I am. Wow.

[Arthur Brooks]

Nice.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Nice.

[James Patterson]

Fair enough.

[Arthur Brooks]

For our listeners and viewers who are not aware, James has published more than 200 books from last count, I think you've sold more than 425 million copies, and you have the Guinness record for the most number one New York Times bestsellers. Were you aware of this, James?

[James Patterson]

Yeah, the publisher does sort of feed me this stuff. And it's interesting, though, and I think it has to. Just with my own makeup.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

And I think so much of moving through life is sort of understanding who.

[James Patterson]

You are at the core.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

And my core is not impressed with that.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. That's how you get 67 Number one New York Times bestsellers is not care.

[James Patterson]

Yeah. You know what I care about? I care about the books that they're. Best I can do. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

No, it's an important point. Let's start at the beginning. You started writing. I think you published your first book in 1976. That was the Thomas Berryman number, right? That was your first published book, right?

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

What actually led you to that? Because this is not even your first career. Tell us a little bit about that story about how you wound up becoming a writer in the first place.

[James Patterson]

Somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do, which I think there's some truth to that. And then it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it.

[Arthur Brooks]

Why did you love writing? What was it about the process of writing that turned you on so much from a very young age?

[James Patterson]

You know, you never know how all of these things work. But as a kid growing up, we.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Were, a lot of the time, had a house in the woods. There was no other kids around, and.

[James Patterson]

I was very little, seven, eight, nine years old.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

And I would go through the woods telling myself stories, and that's how I amused myself.

[James Patterson]

Cowboy stories. Or depending on what you were watching on television those days, you're making up stories about different shows. And that was the way I entertained.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Myself and diverted myself because it just. Well, I had my sisters who I didn't really want to hang out with that much. They were younger and pains in the ass. No, they're.

[James Patterson]

And so I think that was a little bit of the seed. Interestingly, I didn't read that much in high school. They. And this is a thing about turning kids on and turning them off. Went to a Catholic grammar school in high school, and they just. They just gave us things that turned us off.

[Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[James Patterson]

And that's not if the objective. And once again, I'm really big on objectives. If the objective of the mission is to get kids reading at an early age, you have to give them things where they go. I love that. Give me another story. Not. I don't like that. I had an imprint at Little Brown Kids imprint. And our mission was when a kid reads a Jimmy book, they would. Jimmy was the name of the imprint. They would say, give me another book, as opposed to Millions of kids who say, I've never read a book that I really like. Once again, if the objective is to get kids reading, do not give them books that turn them off.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Now, your first book, the Thomas Berryman number, had 31 rejections and then won awards. Give me a nostrum for life on the basis of that. I mean, give me some basic life advice for everybody watching us here. Well, sure.

[James Patterson]

I don't know.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

I never have advice for people. I have a master class about my writing and in there I say, I don't have any advice for anybody. I'm just going to tell you what I do and you might find some of it useful.

[James Patterson]

However, the only thing I would say about that is if you're nodding your head at what I'm saying, forget about it because you already know that. If you're shaking your head a little bit, then think about that because that.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Means you're not doing that and that might be useful for you.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's interesting because, you know, the big takeaway that I get from that, that, I mean, there are a lot of writers, very famous writers who get rejected a lot and then, and then they hit it and it turns out that, you know, they're greatly vindicated by the markets.

[James Patterson]

Well, John Grisham, as an example, he, his first book, it got turned down by everybody.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Patterson]

A small imprint in New Jersey published it. It was actually one of his best books. Everybody turned it down. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Let me give you the lesson I think that I'm getting from this and you'll see if you agree with me. Okay. James, just because something that you do is rejected, it doesn't mean it's bad.

[James Patterson]

No, but sometimes it is.

[Arthur Brooks]

And the corollary to this, I mean, this is, this is just because everybody accepts something you do doesn't mean it's good, right?

[James Patterson]

Well, there's that, but there also is sometimes, you know, you're just not there yet or you're never going to get there. You may have a dream about something and it's just not going to, you know, if you are a 280 pound ballet dancer, it may work, but it's a tough one.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah. And you don't think I'm going to pitch for the Red Sox? Is that what you're telling me?

[James Patterson]

There's that. Yeah, the pitch for the Red Sox thing. Yeah, yeah. It may not, it may not just be in your, you know, it's, it's a small window of very small number of people get the opportunity to be a professional baseball Player. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And quite frankly, not everybody can be James Patterson. Meaning that you better love to write as opposed to love having written books, is what it comes down to. Well, let's fast forward 49 years since you wrote the Thomas Berryman number. That's 200 books later. And let's talk a little bit about how you write now, because obviously you still can't not write. Sorry for all the double negatives, but you can't resist it. I mean, you're somebody who adores writing.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

No, I love it.

[James Patterson]

I love it, I love it, I love it.

[Arthur Brooks]

You breathe writing, obviously, or you wouldn't be writing all these books, for Pete's sake. Talk to me a little bit about writing and how it occupies your day, how it occupies your thoughts, your dreams, or. Or how you structure your basic writing process. I would love to know that.

[James Patterson]

One of the interesting things that a few years ago I wrote it was during COVID and I had more time on my hands than I really wanted. And I started an autobiography, which I.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Had not planned to do. And I just started writing these stories and I.

[James Patterson]

These are pretty good. These are pretty good. And it was just stories. It wasn't the usual kind of autobiography. In fact, I make fun, not make.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Fun of them, but I write about a page on my hometown as though it was one of those kind of autobiographies, all the details. And I said, if you're looking for this, it will not be in this book.

[James Patterson]

That book is just going to be stories.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

But the interesting thing for me is writing that made me a better writer. At my age, I started concentrating on.

[James Patterson]

The sentences again, and that has made.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Me a better writer. And I think for the last year or two, because of writing, that I think got better.

[James Patterson]

And there are a couple things that I didn't know early on, even when.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

I wrote the Thomas Berryman number.

[James Patterson]

After that, I wrote a couple of.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Books that weren't nearly as good. I was trying to do to get a big commercial blockbuster, but I didn't.

[James Patterson]

Know what the hell I was doing. And one of the things I didn't.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Do is I didn't research, which is a big mistake. You know, John Grisham knows enough to research it, but I didn't.

[James Patterson]

And the other thing that I didn't.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Do is I didn't pay enough attention to. To characters. And I wrote a couple of pretty crummy books.

[James Patterson]

But I do think about character all the time now.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, you write every day.

[James Patterson]

Yes.

[Arthur Brooks]

And so do you. Get up is the first thing you do or do you have a schedule. Do you have a discipline around it?

[James Patterson]

I have a loose schedule. I don't really need a schedule, because I don't. It's not like a job where I got to force myself to do it. I will get up 5:30 to 6:30, depending on the day, come into this office, maybe make some notes on things that I. That I particularly wanted. Or maybe I've had a thought at night or the day before, or just.

[Arthur Brooks]

Something about age, isn't it?

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Tragically, yeah.

[James Patterson]

Yeah. As I woke up three or four times to go pee. No, no, no.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's where your best ideas come when you have to get up to pee.

[James Patterson]

Oh, my God, where's my pen? I have a pen right over the toilet now. No, no, no, no. I'm making all this up. And then I will have two or three papers here that I'll kind of glance through the local paper, the Palm beach paper, USA Today, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, kind of blast through them a bit, come back to them at some point, have a little bit of coffee. When I. When I do that, I'm. I'm off. Ridiculous with coffee is I have a cup here somewhere. And. And what I'll do is I like it really hot, and I'll have like two or three sips, and I won't finish the cup. And then I'll go and eventually I'll heat up the cup again and heat up the cup again. So basically, I'll do one and a half cups during the day. And then frequently my wife and I will go out and play like nine holes of golf, which takes us an hour or so. So we walk around, get a little exercise, get irritated at the golf game. She was a big All American swimmer, so she hits the ball farther than I do. I'm okay with that. No, I'm not. But, uh, I'm kind of okay with that. And then more writing, and then sue and I have lunch together and more writing and then, you know, life and whatever. We, you know, have a limited. We have a. A number of close friends. We don't have a lot of sort of friends that are kind of friends, but they're not really. Don't really want to spend that much time with them. We don't do any of the big, you know, let's go to the party with a hundred people.

[Arthur Brooks]

Over the past 200 books or so. As your books have matured, as you've gotten older, what's gotten easier as a writer and what's actually gotten harder as a writer and the reason I ask this is a lot of my research goes into the cognitive changes that happen to people creatively that early on, particularly before about the age of 45, your innovation is very high, and then later on your innovation is lower. But your. But your pattern recognition is exceptionally high at 50 and 60 and 70 and 80. And so I'm curious about if you're seeing particular patterns of strengths that have gotten stronger and weaknesses that have gotten greater as you've gotten older.

[James Patterson]

Yeah. Weakness is definitely going to be concentration.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Ah, Your periods.

[Arthur Brooks]

So you're indefatigable. Focus. You could go for much longer when you were a younger guy.

[James Patterson]

Yeah, but I can do. The short outline's great.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

I really can concentrate a little piece. A little piece for me.

[James Patterson]

I have a little hole in my brain anyway.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

I don't think my sister actually has this. It's much worse than me for names.

[James Patterson]

And things like that. I can't remember anybody's names and names of movies, stuff like that. It's. I'd be worried about it, except I've had it now for a dozen years.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, that's working memory. And working memory is. It's not. It's not neurodegenerative degradation at all. It has everything to do with the episodic memory and the hippocampus of your brain. Your brain literally is fuller. It's like you send your librarian into your hippocampus to get something, and I.

[James Patterson]

Like, dump some shit out of it because I want a little bit more room.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, your little librarian's got to go to the back of the stacks and up five flights of stairs. And then he comes back 15 minutes later and said, that guy's name is Mike, and Mike is long gone is what it comes down to. There's nothing wrong with James's brain. It's just James's brain is full.

[James Patterson]

This is one of those. Your cloud is full or whatever. Okay.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah. That's. Basically. We have a very imperfect episodic memory storage system. The human brain does.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

But.

[James Patterson]

So. So that's been a problem. But not. I. I just live with it and move on.

[Arthur Brooks]

Other strengths and weaknesses. I'd be keen to. To hear you. So concentration and focus.

[James Patterson]

Concentration in terms of long periods. Long periods of reading, same thing. I'm more likely to sit and read 10 or 15 pages at a time and then keep going back to it.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Than, you know, 60 pages. I used to read more full book, you know, books that I used to read. In addition to everything I was doing.

[James Patterson]

I do two or Three books a week and now it's like one book a week. So that's down. I do think. I think the imagination seems to be still pretty sharp. We do all these sort of off the wall or I do them. We. I just did a thing a go finish your book. We reached out to a bunch of, you know, from Author's Guild to University of Iowa Writing Workshop and just send us 250 page or 250 words on. On the new project you're doing when you think you're going to be finished and that depending on that, ask for 6,500 words and gave out I think 12 or 13. What do you want to call them? Money. Anywhere between 50,000 and 15,000. And there's a couple more that we're going to consider now one of them is for libraries. I've been trying to get people to do this for years to put, you know, you have banners a lot of the museums. Yeah, Vinci here today. Come on in. You know, until you look at and go, oh yeah, cool. Da Vinci. You know, I would love libraries to put up these big banners, you know, the Free Store. So that people would walk by and go like, oh yeah, right. All the shit in there is free. That's cool. I mean if they had the Free Store in the mall, it would be alliance around the block. Oh, stuff's in there. Free. Yeah. Just a different way to look at the library so that when people go by like oh yeah, right. Everything's free.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

The Free Store.

[James Patterson]

So I think I'm going to do a thing with some cash prizes for libraries that put up the damn banners the Free Store and send me photographs of the Free Store and we'll throw some money their way. So that's kind of a neat idea. I think we're going to do one. It's a little more kind. Don't know how to execute it yet. Which are. I always believe there are a lot of people out there that have cool ideas that, that could really make things a lot better. And so I want to get out there and challenge people to send those ideas and might make a book out of them. Just these, you know, blockbuster ideas. And all I want you to do is start with 50 words on just basically what the idea is and go, oh yeah, that's a great fricking idea. Now if you want to back it up with, with 20 pages, great. So stuff like that, which I do all the time in terms of side issues, I think it's kind of cool thing to do.

[Arthur Brooks]

Love it.

[James Patterson]

So.

[Arthur Brooks]

So okay, so we. On the, on the, on the negative side of the aging roster, we've got concentration and focus. On the neutral side, we have imagination.

[James Patterson]

No, I think the imagination is pretty positive. I think that's staying pretty good. And also, I mean, you know, I have all over the thing here, you know, my next five novel ideas laid out.

[Arthur Brooks]

You do. So what are the things that have actually gotten easier for you as you've gotten older?

[James Patterson]

I don't know the. I don't know that anything's easier.

[Arthur Brooks]

Are you a better writer? Are you a better. Is your craft better?

[James Patterson]

I think so, yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[James Patterson]

Yeah. Just because I, I just made a conscious decision to pay more attention to the sentences sentence by sentence. Rewrite sentence by sentence rather than, you know, a little sloppy.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[James Patterson]

And character development. Much more attention to character development. Writing out, you know, I'll be doing an outline and I'll have a separate outline on this character. What makes this person tick? Why are they doing that? You know, what are they like physically? What's their past? Who are they?

[Arthur Brooks]

If you're like me, you got to be drinking when you're in the gym and you have to be drinking something clean without any calories. That will actually give you your electrolytes and all the good stuff. For me, that's Element lmnt. You probably knew that already. It's a great product that helps you stay hydrated without sugar and a bunch of dodgy ingredients that are found in a lot of popular electrolyte drinks and sports drinks. No sugar, no junk, just electrolytes that actually work. Give it a try. I like it. It's science backed and made for athletes. Fasting keto or happiness. Scientists like me. Anyone who sweats. So how do I use it? I use it in the morning. 4:45 in the morning. I don't like to drink anything with caffeine or anything. It peps me up to the like, to be real clear. And I drink my caffeine later. Element is just the ticket that I need. Give it a try yourself. Right now you can get a free sample pack with any purchase at Drink Element. That's drink just like it sounds. Lmnt.com Arthur Try it risk free. If you don't like it, they'll refund your order, no questions asked. But you're going to like it. What about your ideas? I mean, you say you've got five things going on in your head at the same time. Where do these ideas come from? Do you get it from something? Does it come to you in a dream? Does it come to you from experiences you had the day before? Where do you get your ideas? Because you've. I mean, book after book after book.

[James Patterson]

Yeah, it'll be something simply says something, or I'll read a line or I'll see some. Maybe some little scene in a movie and I'll go that there's something there that could be a whole book or some little character thing that you'll see, or you see somebody in the street.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

And I don't know, it's just little things. And you go, I'll give you an example. Years back, my wife's mother died. She's very close to her mom.

[James Patterson]

And about a week later she said, there's so many things I wish I told my mother. I said, that's a book not about your mother and you, but that you could be about your mother and you. But it's a great mother daughter idea for a novel which she wrote. Or. Or it could be with guys. Men's in their men and, you know, guys in there. So many things I wish I tell my dad. My father. The first time as an adult, first time in my memory that Avery hugged me was on his deathbed. But once again, so many things I wish I told my father or that I wish my father told me. You know, like so many other dads who went through World War II. He never talked at all about that, ever. Never talked about it. Hmm. A lot of. A lot of men and women who go through combat won't. Won't talk to civilians about it. Yeah, yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

No, for sure. Because it becomes sort of a form of pornography.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Yeah.

[James Patterson]

It's just hard. Or to admit to some of the things you saw or did or whatever and that people won't understand.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, no, no. I have. Two of my kids are military and they're, you know, it's hard for them in a lot of ways to relate their experiences to people that are non military.

[James Patterson]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Very strong things. But here's an interesting point I think that I'm getting from your books and from what you're saying right now. The best ideas actually come and inspiration. They come from ordinary life, not from extraordinary experiences.

[James Patterson]

Yeah, surely not for me. Not experiences, but just. It can be anything. It can be a phrase. It can be just different things that turn me on.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

And I don't know that necessarily. A lot of people are sort of wired to where I am released.

[James Patterson]

An awful lot of things somewhere in here, in the background there. I can't really see it. There's this thing with ideas and it's about yo thick. And that's every. There's page after page after page. And it just. I mean, I have probably 500 things I could write books about in there.

[Arthur Brooks]

And so Ordinary Life for you is pretty extraordinary. And that's the eye for those ideas. Do you ever kill ideas once you're well into a story?

[James Patterson]

Yeah, a lot of them. A lot of the outlines. I mean, different ideas. I'll have like two or three, four points on. I go like. I don't really know where this is going. I know there's something here, but I do it all the time. After I was with a woman, the first love of my life, who this is in. Well, from mid 20s to mid 30s with her for every seven years. She developed a brain tumor. It was fatal two and a half years later. And after she died, I couldn't write for two or three years. I literally. I tried. I wrote a half of a book. I just shredded it. It was awful. I couldn't. I couldn't concentrate. Couldn't do it. Is that right? Yeah. I don't know what that. In terms of, you know, whatever happened to my brain there. But no, it was not happening.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, thank God it came back. That's all I can say. What would you do differently if you could look over the past 200 books or the past 49 years of writing?

[James Patterson]

I don't, you know, the regrets.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

I'm not a regrets person.

[James Patterson]

You know, you just move. It doesn't really. It's not useful. If we can't do something about whatever the hell the latest thing that's driving us crazy. We try not to ruin the day with it. You know, something happened, you know, a shooting at a school or whatever the heck it is. I try to, like, I can't. There's nothing I can do about that, unfortunately. If. If we can do something, we try.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

To do it, which I think is.

[James Patterson]

Useful for a lot of people to be able to do that a lot of people can't do it. It's logical. You can't do anything about that. Don't ruin your day. Right. You know, and that's really, you know, if you can do good thing to be able to tell yourself. Mel Robbins has that, you know, let them. Which is another. One, it's just a good thought for people to have, you know, don't worry about what people say about you or say about, you know, you let them. One, you can't stop them anyway. Two, you shouldn't be able to stop them. So let them.

[Arthur Brooks]

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[James Patterson]

Fascinating.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Is that guy with the binoculars watching him us.

[James Patterson]

Cut the camera.

[Arthur Brooks]

They see us. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty. Liberty Savings Fairy underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates, excludes Massachusetts.

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[Arthur Brooks]

But for you, it's let them and then write about them.

[James Patterson]

Yeah, right. Let them. That's my revenge. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's. You're. It seems to me that instead of trying to, you know, fretting about life, you're documenting it. Right. Is there something to that? Sure.

[James Patterson]

Yeah. And it's all over the lot in.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Terms of the fiction and then the nonfiction stuff I mentioned, you know, in the whole military side, I do books with Matt Eversman, that was the actual sergeant who was portrayed in that movie Black Hawk Down. And he's become a good friend, and he was obviously involved in serious combat.

[James Patterson]

And we put together. It's a really terrific book. And our mission was, if you would. If you were in combat, you would say, everest winner. Patterson got it right. And if you're one of these people that likes to bullshit, that you really understand, but you don't have a clue, you would read it and say, I had no idea what. What it's all about to be in the military, which I think is really. It's one of those books that you read and you go, I really actually learned some stuff here a lot. And it's interesting, after we finished the book, I said to Matt, you know, I really understand now. And then a couple weeks later, I apologized, we had dinner, and I said, you know, I said that I don't understand because I have never fired a gun at anybody and I've never been shot at. So I don't really understand. But I do understand better than I did before, especially in terms of. Of the camaraderie that people in combat have.

[Arthur Brooks]

And a lot of what you write about is actually the human dynamics between people. That's a lot of what you Care about, right?

[James Patterson]

Oh, that's all I care. Yeah, I assume it's all I care about. Yes, I'm really interested in people's stories. And sometimes people don't believe it because I'll sit there and, and over dinner and say, one other person really hasn't in their own mind done anything, but I want to hear their story. And they go, why are you interested in me? I find your story interesting, but I never did anything. Well, yeah, you did.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, but so relationships and ordinary life, in a way, is more amazing than audacious adventures.

[James Patterson]

They're more interesting to me. I know I might be interested in how the hell did you do what happened? Tell me why the hell, why would you want to caught now that playing that for starters. I don't, I, I know people are like that. I just, I'm curious about what the thought process is, but, and then, you know. Okay, now then what happens?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, I, I, I'd love you to react to a couple of, you know, philosophical points that other writers, I probably.

[James Patterson]

Won'T understand them, but sure, go ahead.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you will, because you're, you're more sophisticated than some of these folks. So, you know, one of the things I'm always really interested given the fact that a lot of what I do for a living is writing at this point too. I asked you about the process. And you get up at 6 o' clock in the morning and you write a little bit and then read the paper, have a little coffee, write some more, talk to your wife, write some more, go golf, write some more. And I can see the through line here, which is basically your day is organized around writing words is what it comes down to. And everything else is kind of punctuating the writing process. And that's a pretty interesting point.

[James Patterson]

Writing words and thinking about stories, which I do a lot of.

[Arthur Brooks]

So what's more important, thinking or writing, James?

[James Patterson]

Thinking, really.

[Arthur Brooks]

Do you think that's true for anything? Do you think that's true in any, any business? That you should think more and, you know, you know, think more, do less?

[James Patterson]

I don't want to say do less, but think a lot?

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Patterson]

Anything in life, any business. I have this book disrupt everything and win. And it, part of it has to do with.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

All right, here's my publisher, Hachette. So I sell them this book. And.

[James Patterson]

These are two new people who took over Hachette. They have a new mission. And this is true of any, any corporation, any team, any university, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, for Your mission to work. Their mission to work. You must get all of your editors to disrupt the way they've been buying books and the way they edit. To some extent. They must disrupt. And people do not like disruption. And not just change slowly, but disrupt very quickly. You must disrupt the way your sales department sells. You must disrupt the way they are presenting themselves. You must disrupt maybe the way the receptionist greets people. You must disrupt the way your. Your website is put together. And insofar as you get people to buy in, your mission works. Insofar as you don't get people, maybe if it's a good mission. But if you. If you don't get people to buy in, your mission is. Is. Is not as effective.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, this is really interesting because your process of thinking and writing is the cadence of your life. It's just your life.

[James Patterson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, for sure. That is the cadence. For sure.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah. And Hemingway was different because Hemingway. Well, to begin with, you're not like a heavy drinker. I know Hemingway was an incredibly heavy drinker. And the result was he would wake up hungover every morning, and to get to be able to write, he would open. He had his typewriter. He's working on a typewriter with it. Looking at the back of a closet. So it was in a closet. Open the closet, look at the back of the closet and write for two hours in the morning, which was probably the only time he had sufficient dopamine, given the fact that he was spending it all on boozing it up and, you know, carousing.

[James Patterson]

And he wanted to do these extraordinary things. He wanted to do these big, adventurous things, which he. And I can't say that he was wrong. He considered doing these things to. To. To. To be meaningful. That's a meaningful life. You know, I've been involved in that war. I've been involved. I'm, you know, I'm less that way.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, I mean, your writing is how you live, and writing wasn't how he lived. Writing was incidental to the adventures that he was having. He's a very, very different kind of writer in this way. A couple of things that he said that was. That were interesting. I'd love to hear your reaction to. If I would write one true sentence, then I could go on from there.

[James Patterson]

I'm aware of that from him, and I think that's really true and really useful. True sentence, good sentence. If you. If you. You start out in that day and you're just writing mediocre sentence after sentence, it's probably not going to be a good day. You want to start out with that. One of the reasons I like outlines is you get up and there you have sort of written out and maybe a good sentence will be in the outline, but you got to start. You're not starting nowhere. You're not starting with the blank page. You're starting with something. And I think that's useful. And, and it may have taken you, you know, for, you know, rewriting to that outline to get to that chapter that's in the outline, but you may have worked pretty hard on that outline. I, I'm a big fan. David Baldacci, for example, he doesn't outline, but I do. And so when I, when I, when I'm sitting there, I'm, I'm not staring at a blank page. And I have to some extent crafted that half page or two pair, three paragraphs that, that are at least the start of that chapter. And that day I may sit down and I may, I may scrap it and do something else in terms of that. I may say, you know what I can do, But I absolutely agree with that. Good sentence or good thought or something to that effect is really, really, really useful.

[Arthur Brooks]

Do you also agree with his, his famous quote that the first draft of anything is crap?

[James Patterson]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. So for you, excellence is not writing, it's rewriting. Is that fair?

[James Patterson]

Rewriting? Yes, 100%. Yes.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's a, I mean, man, that is a, that is a bit. It's funny because I just turned in a manuscript and on. I never worked hard on a book in my life and I turned in the first manuscript, I don't know, nine months ago to my editor, it's a completely different book five iterations later. And, and that's, that's you too, right?

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Yes.

[James Patterson]

You know, the rewriting is huge. I mentioned it's disrupt everything.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

And that was different because it was with a professor from Vanderbilt.

[James Patterson]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

So it's interesting because even somebody after 200 books, excellence is not in the inspiration, it's in the hard work.

[James Patterson]

Inspiration is that that idea that you start with has to be strong enough to drive the whole thing. And the mission has to be a good one. If you start out. And the idea for the book, as I did early on with, oh, I'm going to blow up Wall street. Well, you know, I don't know. Theoretically there probably is something there, but you don't have a clue what the hell it is. So that's a bad mission. And a lot of people start with bad missions in terms of Writing books.

[Arthur Brooks]

There were three great 20th century novelists that were utterly obsessed with Spain. Hemingway was one, Michener was another, who wrote Iberia, of course. And the last, most famously, of course, is Orwell. And Orwell was always good for a bunch of quotes about writing. So here's one. He said, there's only four motives for writing. And here, no doubt you've heard this. Egotism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose.

[James Patterson]

True. I don't know. Let's go through them one at a time.

[Arthur Brooks]

Egotism. Sheer egotism, probably.

[James Patterson]

I mean, I think you have to have some of that to think that you're smart enough, good enough, whatever, enough. So, yeah, ego, for sure. Egotism. I don't know. What's the. What's the second one?

[Arthur Brooks]

Aesthetic enthusiasm.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Yeah.

[James Patterson]

I'm not sure what. What aesthetic means it. That's going to be all over the lot.

[Arthur Brooks]

But it just means creativity.

[James Patterson]

No, I know, but I mean the aesthetics can be. My aesthetics are going to be very different than.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[James Patterson]

Or, you know, whatever. What's the third one?

[Arthur Brooks]

The third one is historical impulse. Something needs to be said.

[James Patterson]

Yeah. It's not something that I am dealing with for the most part, every once in a while. Yes.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And then there's political purpose. That doesn't sound like you at all. It doesn't sound. You're not a. You're not a propagandist.

[James Patterson]

I'm always trying to. I'm chasing this old fashioned dream of that we could just get together and be logical, sane people and work it out.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. I mean, is it fair to say that your main impulse for writing is. Cause you can't not.

[James Patterson]

My impulse is. It's like. I think a lot of artists who.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Will sit and go, I want to do this painting.

[James Patterson]

I have an idea and I think.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

It could be a really terrific painting. I really want to do the painting. Or I have this idea for a song and I really want to do this song because I think it's a good idea. I have a little of the sets or, you know what I mean, that kind of thing.

[James Patterson]

If you like a painting, I think.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

That'S a good way in terms of me. I have this idea for this painting. Really excited about doing it.

[James Patterson]

Weirdly, you know, the romantic season become.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

A big thing and I just found.

[James Patterson]

It kind of challenging. And I read a couple of them and I said, you know, there's certain kinds of books I can't do. I can't. I can write a love story. I cannot. I cannot do a romance. The romance, you know, Those romance I couldn't do. I can't do a book about a general. I don't understand how they think and how they talk. I just, I couldn't write one of those. But I read these romanticies and said, you know, I think I can really do a great. Because you're fantasy, you know, I think I could do a great fricking romantasy. So I like to challenge. I'm doing it and I love it. But so I like, you know, there's a painting I'm interested in doing that I think I can. I think it'll be really stimulating and a good challenge. Challenge is useful if I think as long as I feel I can. You know, it's interesting some somebody brought up somewhere along the way about, you know, you must have all these risks. I don't do risks. I don't. If I don't, you know, I don't know. I don't. That's really risky.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

I don't think it's risky.

[Arthur Brooks]

I have one more Orwell for you and I don't know how you're going to respond to this one. James Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

[James Patterson]

Some people are that way. Frederick Forsyth, who did A Daily Jackal.

[Interviewer/Assistant or Additional Commentator]

Who was the journalist, he apparently hated to write. He hated the idea of it. He had to really pump himself up to do it and then he would try to do it as quickly as he could. No, I love it.

[Arthur Brooks]

So that's wrong as far as you're concerned. That doesn't describe anything about writing for you?

[James Patterson]

No, I don't think it's wrong. No, I think it's right for some writers, apparently. That must be the way he felt about it.

[Arthur Brooks]

Should he therefore have not been a writer in your view?

[James Patterson]

I don't know. Obviously he wanted to do it on some level and he did it. He felt compelled to do it. He felt, I guess he had things he thought would change the world or whatever the hell it is. He just didn't want to write the books.

[Arthur Brooks]

He wanted to have written them.

[James Patterson]

Yeah, he should have. He should have. Co writer. You get some co writer into writers. I don't know. Yeah, but no, that has not been my experience. But I do know writers that find it painful. Yeah. And you know, the other thing it is, I don't have to sit there and worry about whether it's going to get published or worry about my editor is going to sit here and destroy it because my situation is I know it's going to get published. And I like my editor, but I can say it's biscuits.

[Arthur Brooks]

What is that?

[James Patterson]

It's biscuits.

[Arthur Brooks]

Biscuits. I like that expression.

[James Patterson]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

That means that define its biscuits. That must be a Northeastern expression. I cover the Pacific.

[James Patterson]

I don't know where it comes from. It just means that it's basically. It's done now and we should go eat the biscuits. The book is done. I know you have some other things you want me to do. Not doing them. It's done. Let's put some. Some butter on the biscuits and enjoy them.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's a good advice for life. James Patterson, what a delight to be with you today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experiences and for spending just some time with me. It's been a lot of fun.

[James Patterson]

That was great. No, you're always great and very stimulating. I enjoyed both of our little chats together, and I hope you give me a decent grade.

[Arthur Brooks]

But, you know, A plus, James. A plus.

[James Patterson]

Thanks.

[Arthur Brooks]

So I hope you enjoyed that interview. I mean, James is a real character, obviously. I mean, he's talking about what he wants to talk about, to be sure. But I want to give you what I consider to be the eight big points that he covered that are not just advice for how to write books. They're advice on how to write the book that is your life. Because, you know, it really is when you think about it. You're a novelist of the book that is your life. Page one is today. Do you know the ending? Have you thought about the character development? Have you thought about the plot line? Well, here are some principles as you write the novel that is your own life, which is an exciting thing to do. That come directly from what James told me about how he does his work. Number one, pay attention to. To the writing, not from the. From having a successful novel at the end of the day. And what that means for your life is pay attention to your daily life and how you're living your life, not thinking about when it's all over, what you're going to be. Looking back on that James thinks about the writing of the book and enjoying the writing of the book. Not saying, at some point I'm going to have a successful book. I sure hope it's successful. After 200 books, he would have driven himself mad. And that's how you'll drive yourself mad in your life as well. Live now, don't live for the future. Looking back on your life. That's principle number one. Principle number two, James's first book was rejected by 31 publishers and then finally got Published by a small publisher and won a bunch of awards. And the principle there is, look, if you're getting rejected, it doesn't mean you're bad. It doesn't. But also, you'll remember from our conversation that if you're accepted by everybody, it doesn't mean you're good. Good and bad really depend. Are context dependent. Do the work that you want to do. Live the life that you want to live. Think for yourself. That's number two. Number three, as you go through this novel, over the course of your life, you're getting older and your strengths are changing. James talks about the things that he's better at and the things that he's worse at. He says he's better at concentration and focus. He's better at the craft of his writing, character development and sentence structure. Right. He's maintained lots of imagination all along the way. Now, that's an interesting thing because he's been writing books for 49 years. And that's a really important thing as you develop your creativity. But that's a really important thing as you develop your life as well. Your strengths are going to change. I've written whole books about that. I'll put into the show Notes From Strength to Strength, my 2022 book that talks about the fact that your brain's going to change. It just is. James's brain has changed and so has mine, and so will yours. Get out in front of that so that you're riding that wave of change. You're not chasing that wave of change. Don't worry about what you used to be good at. Enjoy what you're getting better at, because there is something that's number three. Number four, where does James get his ideas from Ordinary Life? You know, I mean, he talks about some extraordinary things, like why did you climb Mount Everest? But fundamentally, he's interested in the person and how they think. And he gets his ideas from little exchanges and things that he sees. He has a whole book of these, actually, these ideas that they spark for him. The truth is that the life in life is the little things. Pay attention to life itself. Don't miss ordinary life because you're looking for extraordinary punctuation to that life. You're just going to miss your life. And when you miss your life, you're going to miss your inspiration, is what that comes about. The novel that you're trying to write of your life is written in the little tiny things that happen each day. The breakfast that you ate with your beloved, the conversation that you had with somebody on the bus. These are the extraordinary parts of what the book of your life is supposed to be. That's number four. Number five is that it's a good idea to be an observer. James is an observer of life. He's pretty happy guy because he looks at life non judgmentally. Why does he look at life non judgmentally? Because he's a novelist and he wants to be able to write about life. And if he's intervening in everything and getting outraged about everything and freaking out about everything, which so many people are today, he wouldn't actually be able to write about life with a keen eye. He'd be too invested intrinsically, as opposed to observing extrinsically. That's an important idea for the novel. That is your life. Good. Be involved, yeah, but not in everything. Spend more time watching as opposed to yelling, and life will get a lot better and a lot more interesting to you, too. Number six. Think more before you produce. That's one of the things that James corrected me on. I said, so you just get up and write? And he said, no, no, no, I get up and I think, think more before you produce. That's a really important thing for my work and your work and everybody's work. But because the real creative work comes in the thinking, not actually in the production. The production is sort of the end of the process, as James talks about it. It. And that's an important thing for happiness too, isn't it? Think more about what you're doing as opposed to trying to be productive at the expense of doing what you should be doing, what you want to be doing, what you're doing, thoughtfully, prayerfully, in a considered way. Think more. And number seven is this excellence isn't about inspiration. This is. You know, when we talked about what Hemingway had said, which is one good sentence, man, and the first draft is always garbage. And most writers say this, by the way, and it's absolutely manifestly true in my books. But James has written 200 in orders of magnitude more than me. And still, after 49 years as writing bestseller after bestseller and loving every minute of it, James writes because James can't not write. He still says that the excellence is not in the inspiration. It's about the hard work that comes after the inspiration. And this is true for the novel of your life as well. A bunch of ideas are great, but what you do with them and how you live your life, the excellence that you have in your relationships, it's not that happiness doesn't come from your wedding day. It comes from every day after your wedding day. It doesn't come from the day that your child is born. It's every day that you raise your child. It's not the day you take your job, it's every day that you perform your job. That's really the hard work. And that can be a tough slog, to be sure, but that's where real excellence comes in. And a happy life comes from an excellent life. How do we wrap it up? And this is eight. Number eight. It's biscuits. I didn't know what that meant. I mean, James just said it's biscuits. And what does that mean? That means it's done. Let it be, you do something, let it be, move on. Which is a sort of a beautiful approach to life, isn't it? To live a happy life and to write a good book and to create the existence that you want to have. I guess you're supposed to butter the biscuits and eat them and, you know, once the biscuits are made. But the whole point of it is this. Don't freak out about things that have happened in the past. The book is being created linearly, chapter after chapter after chapter. You wrote a chapter, you worked on it, you're moving on. You know, at the end of the day, it's just biscuits, man, just biscuits. That's a good way to live. And these eight points are a good way to live. I have to say, I hope that James Patterson's approach to writing, which are his approach to creativity, which is his approach to life, are a good way for you to guide your own life in this way. James Patterson's Eight Lessons for a Happy Life, which I'm taking to heart. I hope you will too. See you next week.