Find out more about James Patterson, and read an excerpt from When the Wind Blows at www.jamespatterson.com

Timehost: We're happy -- thrilled -- to be joined by thriller author James Patterson. His newest book, When the Wind Blows, is just out. In some important ways it's different from his other books, like Kiss the Girls and Jack and Jill. I'd tell you what it's about, but I don't want to give too much away. We'll let Mr. Patterson do that! Welcome Mr. Patterson!

James Patterson: It's terrific to be here. After a long day on the road, on tour, with a Rolling Rock sitting in front of me.

Timehost: I wish I had one! But let's take the first question...

JLC52_98 asks: What is WHEN THE WIND BLOWS ABOUT?

James Patterson: It's hard to know where to begin, so I'll begin with a movie trailer for a movie that doesn't exist. This is how the movies might introduce When the Wind Blows: the point of view is from behind a large plate glass window. We're staring out over an incredibly dramatic looking forest in the mountains of Colorado. In the edge of our sight line, we see an object moving toward us at a very high speed. Of course we have extremely loud music and sound effects as they always have in movie trailers. As the object gets very close, we can't believe what we're seeing, and we blink our eyes closed, but when we open them again, the object is still there. It is a young girl, in many ways a very typical young girl, wearing contemporary clothes, she has wings and she is flying. And she crashes right through the plate glass window. Up comes the title, "When the Wind Blows" -- end of movie trailer. I don't know about you, but I would rush out and see that movie.

Timehost: Me too!

James Patterson: There's a teaser anyway... we'll get into more as we continue tonight.

Timehost: Speaking about movies...

venom1966 asks: Greetings, Mr. Patterson, I'm a big fan of yours. I enjoyed the movie version of "Kiss the Girls", are any more movies planned??

James Patterson: Hopefully we're close to something on "When the Wind Blows," but Paramount is planning to shoot Along Came a Spider in March.

Lifebliss asks: How did you first become published? Was it difficult?

James Patterson: I submitted a manuscript that wound up in a sluff pile at William Morrow, and they held it for almost five months, with mild encouragement, then rejected it, I found an agent because of a story in the New York Times, and the first novel was then rejected by 31 publishers in New York. It was finally bought by Little, Brown, and it went on to win an Edgar for "Best First Mystery Novel" of that year. So much for the other 31 publishing experts.

Datarlama asks: Do you have a education background in Criminal Justice?

James Patterson: No. I have a B.A. and an M.A. in English literature, I have seven-plus summers working at a mental hospital, I've interviewed a lot of police detectives and FBI agents, but no real background in criminal justice.

nessa60_98 asks: y all the nursery rhyme titles?

James Patterson: The original title of "Along Came a Spider" was "Remember Maggie Rose." The editor didn't love it. "Along Came a Spider" was the title of one of the sections in the book, and the editor and I decided that would be a good title. Once we got into the children's titles and nursery rhymes, it seemed like a good way for people to make a link between my name and the books I'm writing. It's not as good as the Sue Grafton titles, but eventually she has to get to "Z" is for zygote. Then maybe AA is for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Timehost: We've got two related questions about Morgan Freeman....

larile asks: "Was Morgan Freeman your first choice as Alex Cross?"

mearlynn2 asks: Mr. Patterson, I absolutely adore Morgan Freeman as an actor, but he did not fit the picture I had in my head of Alex Cross -- how do you feel about that?

James Patterson: I think you have to consider yourself lucky that we got an actor of the magnitude of Morgan Freeman. A lot of very good thrillers fail in the movies because they get actors who can't possibly recreate the heroes of the books. Morgan is certainly older than the Alex in the books, but he is such a good actor that he created a memorable character. You might say there's Morgan Freeman's Alex Cross and then there's my Alex Cross. And they're both interesting and valid creations. I never thought of anyone in particular in my mind. And in Hollywood's mind, there aren't a lot of black actors who can open a movie. I would have been happy with Denzel, or a lot of other actors.

Timehost: Why isn't Alex Cross in your current novel, When the Wind Blows?

James Patterson: Every once in a while, I'll walk into a bookstore or maybe a movie theater, I have the reaction, "I wish I'd thought of that." The concept in "When the Wind Blows" was one of those. This idea of biotech being responsible for a human being who thinks and acts and feels and laughs like a human, but has some of the gifts of a bird, was an irresistible one to me. And then I added in my usual suspense and non-stop action and page-turning, and created a story that I like very much. I think it's good for writers creating a series to take breaks, to keep themselves refreshed and keep the series original. A lot of people think that "When the Wind Blows" is the best book I've written. But of course, not everybody.

DizzyFlores_79 asks: How long does it take you to write a novel?

James Patterson: It takes me nine months to a year. I could do them faster if I wanted to, but I have a terrific nine-month old son and a wonderful wife, and I enjoy a lot of things about life, so that's a good pace for me. Nine months to a year. The new Alex Cross has already been turned in to the publisher.

raja8_98 asks: What were you like in high school? Do you have any advice for a young writer? I love to write but my English marks bite!

James Patterson: I was a good student in high school, but I hated to read. In those days, they sort of jammed a lot of stuff down your throat that I wasn't interested in: Silas Marner, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, things that I didn't care for. I discovered reading when I had just gone to college, and I was working at a mental hospital to make the money to go to college, and I discovered I loved it. Then I started scribbling short stories. The first college professor who saw my stuff told me to stay away from fiction. The second professor who saw my stuff encouraged me to write fiction, so I went with the advice that I liked the best. A lot of successful writers had trouble in school for one reason or another, and have still gone on to be very good writers. Steven Cannell is one. I believe he was dyslexic and had a lot of problems in school. If you love to write, you have to do it, and you don't need a lot of advice because you're compelled to do it. You just have to sit down and write a lot of stories. The very simpleminded advice I have, and I think it's true, is to keep a notebook with a lot of story ideas. And story ideas are things you think people would be interested in if you fleshed them out. And once you come up with good story idea, write it as straightforwardly as you can. Tell the story. A lot of writers forget that they're telling a story, and get lost in the sentences, and then the paragraph, and the pages, and the chapters, and that's why, as readers, we find ourselves putting down a lot of books after we start them.

Mattzilla3 asks: What is your favorite novel that you've written, and why?

James Patterson: I don't have a favorite. I like the Cross books a lot. I'm very happy to have created Alex, I like "When the Wind Blows" I like "The Midnight Club." I think the best written of the books is the first one, "The Thomas Berryman Number" I don't think it's the best story. I'm not as keen about "Season of the Machete," "See How They Run," or "Hide and Seek."

Timehost: Here's a question about the process of writing...

KoldFusion_98 asks: How much work is involved in a novel per day?

James Patterson: Once again, it really depends. You have everything from very obsessive writers who must write a certain number of pages per day, and writers who can't help themselves and write a certain time allotment every day. For me, I write for two to four hours per day. I think about the stories a lot. I'm kind of letting the stories flow over me. But I don't write a lot a day, unless I'm stuck. If I'm stuck, I might put in some extra time. It's a personal thing. Steven King puts in a lot of time every day. Some writers can't get motivated to sit down and write a second book. The author of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" can't sit down and write another book. And it's been four of five years since he wrote that. Some writers look at writing a book as a lot of us look at writing a term paper. It's a long hard process. For me, I look at writing a book like going out to get ice cream or playing basketball. It's a fun process, I love to do it. I look forward to getting up every morning and writing.

mearlynn2 asks: Which authors do you read?

James Patterson: I have a real span, and it goes from Ann Tyler, Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- I recently reread Ulysses and some Proust. I like some of the writers in the same genre I write in, like Patricia Cornwell. There's a terrific book...by a guy by the name of Anderson. It has "dog" in the title, maybe someone out there knows the title. I always block on the name but it's one of the best books I've read in years. I was never in to audio tapes until recently. I've got a place in the country now so I can pop them in the tape player. I listen to a lot of books I know I should read but I won't. Titan, the Eisner biography, Tom Clancy -- in his case, I know what he's up to but I don't want to go through all 800 pages of it, so the audio tape is more to my liking with Tom.

Timehost: If any of you know the name of the Anderson book with the dog in the title, just send it in!

megajeremy asks: What part did you play in the making of the movie "Kiss the Girls"?

James Patterson: Extremely limited. I spent a day with the screenwriter. I had the ear of Sherry Lansing at Paramount, but there are just so many chefs involved in a Hollywood movie, it's very difficult to get heard. On the movie set, the novelist is somewhere below the caterer in importance.

venom1966 asks: You mentioned Stephen King -- do you guys ever get together over a couple of "Rolling Rocks" and talk books??

James Patterson: Now, I've never met Stephen King, but I'm sure we'll bump into one another somewhere along the line. It's just recently that I've had time to kind of get out and meet authors. Generally I enjoy it. I'd particularly like to meet King though. I'd like to meet Patricia Cornwell.

Gods_Scion asks: Just curious, how do you get in the mood to write certain scenes, you know, dreary ones or insanely happy ones, when you are completely NOT in that mood?

James Patterson: I don't have any trouble getting in the mood, whatever it is, and I find that if it's supposed to be scary and I don't feel scared, I know I haven't got it. And if it's supposed to be a very romantic scene and I don't feel very romantic, I don't got it. Feeling is very important to me, and I know for some authors feeling isn't very important, I don't know how they do it. And I know for "When the Wind Blows," I wrote 12 different endings -- and finally, finally, finally, I went, "Bingo." But it wasn't a mood thing. I was in the mood every time I sat down, I just couldn't get it right.

Timehost: Here are two related Alex Cross questions...

venom1966 asks: Is Alex Cross based any real person?

M_Brando_ asks: Mr. Patterson, I'm a want to be writer. The question I ask you is that Alex Cross seems so different from you where did you get an idea for him?

James Patterson: I had trouble answering this question when I first started writing the Cross books. And the best answer I could come up with was: I was interested in the fact that certain blacks tended to cross color lines: Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, some musicians. And I was interested in creating a larger-than-life black hero. But the real force behind Alex Cross came to me later. And I realize that back when I was a kid, When I was three, my grandparents owned a small restaurant, and there was a black cook there named Laura, and when I was three, she was having trouble with her husband, and she moved in with my family. And she was there for four years and became a real mother figure to me. And I spent a great deal of time with her nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles. So I know that family, I know how they respond, how they act together, I know Alex and his family, because I have it in my soul, I could write about that family for the rest of my life. I could write superficially about the inner city, but I don't have that in my soul. The Cross family is different. The interesting thing about questions about whether I can create, or write like, or think like, a black person, is that people ask that question, which is a good one, but somehow they assume that I can write like a serial killer, or think like a serial killer. You know, but "Oh my god, he can think like a black man!" Wow.

Timehost: We've been getting lots of comments...here's a representative one...

Show_Off_17 says: Mr. Patterson, I'm one of your biggest fans. I absolutely loved your book, Jack and Jill.

James Patterson: No writer ever gets tired of hearing nice things about their books, So thank you very much. You know, I'm on tour now, and it really is a lot of fun to get into stores and meet people who enjoy the books.

aperson86 asks: When/how did you know that writing was what you wanted to do with your life??

James Patterson: Oh, it only took me about 25 years to figure that one out. What I knew was that I loved doing it. I had a 9 to 5 job, which was okay, but I tried to keep the writing as a treat, an avocation, a relaxation, rather than a job. And that might be why I love it so much. It's never been work for me.

StckFigure asks: Mr. Patterson: I am an aspiring 14-year-old novelist trying to write a first novel. Is there a general length they should be, or other "requirements"? How long are yours, on average?

James Patterson: Well, you know, mine tend to be 400-plus pages in book length, but there really isn't any required length. I'll give you a quote, when I wrote my first novel I was 25 or 26, and they sent it out to get a quote from a famous author, the guy who wrote "The Manchurian Candidate," and he wrote, "I am quite certain that James Patterson wrote a thousand words of fiction before he ever began his first novel." So just sit down and write your thousand words and maybe you'll get to your first novel sooner than I did -- or later -- but there are really no requirements. Just write your first story, and then another one, and another one, and another one.

Timehost: But your style and construction are unmistakable -- you tend to write in short sentences, paragraphs, and chapters -- why?

James Patterson: I think it's a little bit of an accident, one of those Eurekas! Because I was working and writing early in the morning, I only had a couple of hours, and I would sort of do short chapters, expecting I would make them longer the second time around, and I strung together several of the short chapters, and I thought, "I really like this. It's unique, it's not like other things I've read." And I've written that way ever since. I think it would be a disaster if everybody wrote this way, but it's good for me.

Timehost: Speaking of your intention to make chapters longer...

merrysue2 asks: Do you re-write a lot?

James Patterson: Yeah, I think most writing is really re-writing and editing. I'll write 7 to 10 drafts of every novel. My first draft usually takes a couple of months, and then subsequent drafts usually take a month.

Made_Line asks: Can you give a new writer tips on how to convert dreams/nightmares into workable story ideas?

James Patterson: I've never used dreams or nightmares myself, at least I'm not conscious of doing it. I write about things that are kind of day-mares. In "When the Wind Blows" there's stories about crazy things that are going on. Just last week there were stories about making human cells in a lab, and the company that was funding the research, and this was on the front page of the New York Times, They said they are in the business of cell immortality. There was a time when that kind of sentence would be seen as science fiction, but right now, it's science.

Timehost: Here's a couple of follow-up comments...

merrysue2 says: Yes, I agree about the re-writing. I tell my students that's what makes a writer.....

Timehost: And our fourteen year old novelist says...

StckFigure says: You've inspired me to seriously get going on my novel (about halfway done).

James Patterson: I have a question for all of you: Who do you see as the actor for Gary Soneji in the movie they're making of "Along Came a Spider?"

Timehost: Send in your suggestions now!

venom1966 asks: Do you think the growth of the Internet is good or bad for the book industry?

James Patterson: It's a mixed bag. I think that once everything shakes out, it will be terrific for the book business. People are probably writing more now than they have in a long, long time, I mean literally writing on their computers. In the short term, just the novelty of this, I think people are spinning a lot of wheels on this now, just because it's novel. But as it gets more sophisticated, it will be great for books. As we're sitting here reading, we're shooting the breeze.

Timehost: Okay, we've got a few casting suggestions for Gary Soneji....

mearlynn2 says: Sean Penn

Mattzilla3 says: How about Gary Oldman?

stylist23 says: Gary Sinise

Gods_Scion says: John Malkovich, or Gary Sinise

James Patterson: Gary Sinise has come up before, I'd thought of him too. Sean Penn is a new one, I like that idea, that's kind of cool. I also like the idea of going against the grain completely, with like Tommy Lee Jones or that kind of a guy who you're sort of used to being a good guy, especially since Soneji is supposed to be a teacher and everything. Okay, I've got another question: Should Alex Cross get married?

Timehost: Send in your suggestions -- play a matchmaker!

Timehost: A few more casting suggestions for Soneji while we're waiting...

switchkid says: The guy who played the cop in terminatorII

larile says: Anthony Edwards of ER

Gods_Scion says: Malkovich is crazier, but Sinise would look commonplace like Soneji was, I think.

James Patterson: That's kind of interesting. Right, Sinise would be good.

Timehost: We've got some good comments about marriage for Alex Cross...

switchkid says: He's supposed to.. But you should kill her off.. that would make a good start to the next Cross novel.

James Patterson: Okay.

larile says: Definitely, either Oprah or Tyra Banks, Alex needs a good woman.

James Patterson: Oprah? Okay. We'll make it Oprah if she makes the book club selection.

Mattzilla3 says: My feminist wife says he needs a very independent wife :)

James Patterson: Okay, Christine's pretty independent, the lady in "Cat and Mouse." Your wife will really like the women in "When the Wind Blows."

Mattzilla3 says: I think he should, but the books shouldn't become "husband and wife" books.

James Patterson: That's the danger, isn't it?

StckFigure says: Marriage is too much of a commitment.

James Patterson: Okay. Well, that's good, I'm interested in the input on that one, because it's something that I'm struggling with.

Timehost: One more suggestion for Soneji.... I mean two more...

mearlynn2 says: how about Woody Harrelson?

roxianne77 says: I think Edward Norton would be good. Isn't he mean enough?

James Patterson: Woody could definitely play the good guy/bad guy part, Yeah, I guess the only trick with Norton is it's a little close to the role he played in "Primal Fear." But he's excellent.

Timehost: And a final vote on marriage...

Gods_Scion says: NO MARRAIGE!!!

James Patterson: All right.

Timehost: Back to questions...I know you said that the next book is going to feature Alex Cross...we've got lots of questions about it...

DizzyFlores_79 asks: When can we expect to see the next Alex Cross novel?

James Patterson: It's called, "Pop Goes the Weasel." The publisher has it now. It's set mostly in D.C. It involves someone I think makes Gary Sinise seem like a Sunday school teacher. The worst villain of all. He's involved with the British embassy in Washington, and he has diplomatic immunity, which gives the book a lot of interesting twists. including what happens between Alex and Christine.

Timehost: I think we're going to have to wrap things up...any closing thoughts?

James Patterson: In general, as you find books that really turn you on, spread the word, because unlike movies, books don't get all that advertising and space on all the talk shows, and whatever. So people out there, get books, read, If you find one you like, tell the world!

Timehost: Thanks again for joining us...it's been great having you...and I know our audience feels the same way!

James Patterson: Well, thank you and hopefully we'll do it again with the next Alex Cross book. In the meantime, see what flying is all about, in "When the Wind Blows." See what it's like to fly.

StckFigure says: I just wanted to say thanks for giving your time to come tonight.... I've learned quite a bit :)

mary___1 says: Hope you continue James.... forever

James Patterson: Thank you all. Thanks for spending an hour with me. I loved it.

Timehost: We did too!

James Patterson: Now one more Rolling Rock, and sleep. Then I'm on to Lexington, Kentucky, Atlanta, and Birmingham. Those are my next three stops.

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