'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' is my first book, and it's the fulfillment of a life-long dream. I had always wanted to be a cartoonist, but I found that it was very tough to break into the world of newspaper syndication. So I started playing with a style that mixed cartoons and 'traditional' writing, and that's how 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' was born.
I feel lucky I didn't become that newspaper cartoonist I wanted to be because in the U.S. so many newspapers have suffered circulation declines, and some have folded. What's fun about being an author is I reach a much bigger audience, and there is something special about launching a book you've penned.
At any comic book convention in America, you'll find aspiring cartoonists with dozens of complex plot ideas and armloads of character sketches. Only a small percentage ever move from those ideas and sketches to a finished book.
I feel like there are comic book artists who are comic book artists, and then there's comic book artists who are cartoonists.
Writing about 2,000 words in three hours every morning, 'Casino Royale' dutifully produced itself. I wrote nothing and made no corrections until the book was finished. If I had looked back at what I had written the day before I might have despaired.
So far as the government is concerned, there is only one holy book, which is the constitution of India. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.
'Gathering Blue' was a separate book. I wanted to explore what a society might become after a catastrophic world event. Only at the end did I realize I could make it connect to 'The Giver.'
I was in Kenya when I read 'Catch-22,' and I associate this book that has nothing to do with Kenya - whenever I think of 'Catch-22,' I think of Nairobi.
In 1952, when I was 15 and living on Governors Island, which was then First Army Headquarters, I encountered the newly-published 'The Catcher in the Rye.' Of course, that book became the iconic anti-establishment novel for my generation.
Any book that can help you survive the slings and arrows of adolescence is a book to love for life; 'The Catcher in the Rye' did just that, and I still do love it.
'The Catcher in the Rye.' When I was a teenager, that was my book; yes, somebody gets it, somebody gets adolescence.
The room-service Caesar salads with soggy croutons, the distant relatives who show up at readings pitching weird, far-fetched investment schemes, the fans who have you sign a book to 'Cathy' and then tell you, 'No, it's Kathy with a K' - it gets challenging after a while. It tests your stamina.
I was shocked that I even got the opportunity to audition for 'A Wrinkle in Time.' Meg Murry is a Caucasian girl in the book.
While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything.
What did people do prior to cell phones? Read a book? If I'm stuck in a car, and I don't have my phone, I'm like, 'What am I doing?' Car rides used to be one of my favorite things.
Don't use your advance to buy an antique sports car, diamonds by the yard, or a bottle of wine from Thomas Jefferson's cellar instead of investing in your book.
I wrote a book of essays about New York called 'The Colossus of New York,' but it's not about - you know, when I'm writing about rush hour or Central Park, it's not a black Central Park, it's just Central Park, and it's not a black rush hour, it's just rush hour.
Every word I wrote in my book is documented, certified, true, and correct. The truth wins, and that is my picture.
A western audience might not appreciate 'Chanakya's Chant' because of its dependence on history and ancient statecraft. My book is a modern-day thriller that draws on a bedrock of history. My primary object is to entertain, not educate.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
