Creating a Bestselling Novel (The Secret X-Factor Revealed)

Originally published by James Altucher on LinkedIn: Creating a Bestselling Novel (The Secret X-Factor Revealed)

Brad Meltzer got 24 rejection letters before becoming a bestselling novelist.

“I was determined not to struggle,” he said.

Except he did… we all do. But with Brad, I feel I’ve never met someone this determined to do what he loves…

When he started writing, he had no idea what he was doing. And he didn’t have a plan.

He was in law ( out of fear). This goes back to the “not wanting to struggle,” thing. But luckily, he quit before it could begin sucking his blood.

He started with a story about two kids living in Michigan.

“Everyday I started to fall in love with talking to these imaginary people,” Brad said, “Everyone always tells you to find what you love and then find someone to pay you to do it. I didn’t know what I loved, but I found it in talking to these characters.”

He went to the University of Michigan, so that's where the inspiration comes from. But he's making these characters up. It’s sort of a twist on “write what you know.” It’s a new formula:

Write what you know + drift off.

“I was young and stubborn,” he said.“The week I got my 23rd and 24th rejection letter I said ‘If they don’t like this book, I’m gonna write another and if they don’t like that book, I’m gonna write another.’ I didn’t care.”

He cared more about making it than he did about rejection. That’s part of it. But I still needed to ask, “What gave you this persistence? I mean how did you push yourself to continue?”

“When you have nothing, you fight harder than anybody,” he said.

“Did you have nothing?

“My family had nothing.”

I made him paint me the picture.

“I grew up in Brooklyn. And Brooklyn kicked my family’s ass. It just did. It was a mess. My dad at 39 years old lost his job. He had two kids and he said ‘It’s the do over of life, I’m gonna start over from scratch’. He had $1,200 to his name. He had a car. And we drove down from New York to Florida. And he said we’re gonna start over from nothing.”

They lived with their grandparents. Because they didn’t have enough money for a security deposit. Brad was 1 of 6 people living in a one bedroom apartment.

“I remember my dad’s first job interview. He was interviewing for a job at an insurance company. But the interview was in a Wendy’s. We used to pretend not to know him. I would sit on the opposite side, watching him be interviewed. And go ‘My god, my life is being decided in a fast food restaurant.”

This struggle was going to make him the writer he is today. But Brad didn’t know it at the time.