Show Notes

• The blizzard of 1979
• Bestseller statistics
• What causes a novel to be great?
• What prolific authors do that others don’t do
• Nora’s workday routine
• The 3-step process for writing a book
• “The idea is the easy part”
• The importance of a good editor
• The beauty of the writing profession
• J.D. Robb
• Drive and discipline
• “I just want to write the best book I can at that time”
• When you love what you do….

Connect With Nora Roberts

Website: https://noraroberts.com/
Website: https://jdrobb.com/
Blog: https://fallintothestory.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/norarobertsauthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdrobbauthor/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noraroberts
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jdrobbauthor

Summary

Nora Roberts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 240 novels. There are currently more than 500 million copies of her books in print, and the New Yorker has dubbed her “America’s favorite novelist.” Nora shares the story behind her success, and reveals her three-step process for writing a book.

Full Transcript

Brian  

Welcome to another episode of Life Excellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers, and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success. Nora Roberts is the number one New York Times best selling author of more than 420 novels, including Night Work, Legacy, The Becoming, Hideaway, The Chronicles of the One trilogy, and many more. She is also the author of the best selling In Death series written under the pen name JD Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print. As you can imagine, Nora has received numerous accolades through the years. She was the very first inductee into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. She was also awarded that organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which was later renamed the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Time Magazine named her one of its 100 Most Influential People in 2007, and the New Yorker has dubbed Nora America’s favorite novelist. Welcome, Nora, and thanks for joining us on Life Excellence.

Nora  

Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian  

Nora, I’m always fascinated by how people start out in their chosen careers. I just couldn’t wait to get on the show with you. When did you first start writing and how did that evolve into publishing your very first novel?

Nora  

Well, I always loved to read, I come from a family of readers. Very lucky there. So books and stories were always a part of my life and I thought everybody made up stories in their head. I never really thought about being a writer. And then I was snowbound with two preschoolers, in the blizzard of ’79. I live in a rural area, back a lane about a quarter of a mile, and three feet of snow, no morning kindergarten, I was stuck. And so I just started; I got a notebook and a pencil, and started to write down stories. I fell in love with the process and just kept at it.

Brian  

Today, of course, Nora, you’re one of the world’s most successful novelists. I read that since 1999 – and you can tell me if this is true – I read that every one of your novels since then has become a New York Times bestseller; that the total now is up to some 180 novels that have ranked on that list and that 53 of them – and this is dated information – but at the time, 53 of them debuted in the number one spot. I’m sure the numbers are even more impressive today. Do you know how many New York Times bestsellers you’ve had? Or have you lost count because there have been so many?

Nora  

No, I’ve never really kept count, other that people do that. I just write the books.

Brian  

Well, of course, most authors will never be able to relate to that level of success. Even having one New York Times best seller for an author is a tremendous accomplishment, as you know. I’d like to ask you about something, though, that everyone can relate to and that’s rejection. You wrote for a while before you were able to sell your first manuscript. How did you overcome the early rejection, as you were writing – and it probably continued after that snowstorm that you were describing – before you finally got published? What advice do you have for anyone who feels so strongly about something they believe in, whether it’s a book idea, book that they’ve written, or a business idea, but they’re encountering difficulty convincing others that it’s a great thing?

Nora  

Well, if you give up, it’s gone. You don’t have a chance if you give up. I really loved the process. I really just loved to write. So even when I wasn’t selling, couldn’t get anybody to buy my stuff, I just wrote another book, because I really loved doing it and I kept sending them in, you know, hope springs. Then I hit and I got lucky enough to sell a book and just went on from there. But if you don’t…if you really love something, then you do it. Whether you do it because you’re selling your product or your art or yourself, whatever it is, if you stop your chances go down to zero.

Brian  

Did you ever think that one of those books that you were writing would eventually become a New York Times bestseller or would be that widely read?

Nora  

That was real pie in the sky stuff. It was amazing to sell a book, and then to see the actual physical copy of it with my name on it, those were all amazing things, and then to keep selling and then to eventually hit the Times list was huge. And then that didn’t happen overnight; that happened over the course of years and a lot of books.

Brian  

How long was it between the time that you started writing during the snowstorm and when your first book was published?

Nora  

I started writing in February of ’79. That’s the blizzard and my first book came out in May of 81.

Brian  

Okay, so you weren’t an overnight success but you didn’t have to wait too long. I think some people wait a lifetime.

Nora  

That’s actually fairly quickly. But at that time, because I had two small children and I love to read, I could chain them down for a nap and read a category romance, which was Harlequin. That was pretty much it. So I started writing that – something that I was enjoying and understood and I got to have a lot of mothers that were in my exact situation, you just have that finite amount of time. Harlequin was not buying but then Silhouette opened up, and they use the Harlequin framework. They were looking for new American writers. I was new and I was American. So I got lucky with the timing.

Brian  

So you were in the right place at the right time. (Nora:  Yeah.) Oh, that’s great. Well, I have to confess that while I read about a book a week on the average, most of my reading is not romance novels, it’s actually business nonfiction, with a few biographies thrown in here and there. But I have to say, though, anytime I read a novel, especially a good one – and the only time I do, it’s something that’s highly recommended, recommended probably by more than one person – I get completely captivated, almost immediately, and literally can’t set the book down until I finish reading it. What is it, from your standpoint, that causes a novel to be great?

Nora  

Well, for me, it’s always the characters; the characters or plot. You can have a great story, but if the people in it don’t appeal to you or draw you in or make you care, then what’s the point of the story? So I have to love or hate or relate to the characters in something that I’m reading and in something I’m writing. 

Brian  

And that’s exactly how it is. I’m actually reading Black Hills right now and I wish I had finished it prior to the show. But I think it’s 400 and some pages long; it’s going to take me a while to get through it. I’ll finish it. But what you said is exactly the case. You have such a wonderful talent, Nora for creating a vivid picture. Like I said, right from the very first page, it made me feel like I was not only watching the story unfold, a good story causes you to have this picture. And everybody might have a slightly different picture of what that looks like. But it’s so well explained that everybody has this picture of what it looks like. The other thing that I noticed with Black Hills is that almost immediately I resonated with and started to feel all the emotions of Cooper Sullivan, and again I’m not far enough along to talk about what happens at the end of the book or even toward the end; I’m probably about halfway through it. But you’re right about that, that it’s the characters and you gravitate – obviously there are multiple characters in the story – but I think we tend to gravitate toward or relate with or just maybe sympathize with or empathize with a particular character and we want to see how that turns out, don’t we? 

Nora  

You want to know what happens to them, what they do and why they do it and you want somebody to win; or I do when I’m reading. I want somebody that overcomes and at the end gets what they want, because they earned it.

Brian  

Yes. And you have a hand in that, obviously, figuratively and literally being able to make that happen, don’t you?

Nora  

Well, the characters really drive the story so I have to trust them. Once I create them, I have to understand them well enough to know where they would go, what they would do, why they would do it.

Brian  

How does that happen?

Nora  

I have no idea, at all. Absolutely none. [Laughter]

Brian  

But you do it so well despite of that. Nora, one of the very basic things that I’ve learned about successful people – the show is obviously called Life Excellence so we have guests like you who have achieved significance in their chosen careers – one of the things that I’ve learned is that successful people do what most people aren’t willing to do. And for successful, prolific authors – and I know a few of them – that means they write, they write consistently, they write a lot. Stephen King, for example, has said that he writes every day, including on Christmas Day. I’m interested in your schedule, and how writing a lot plays out for you. What does your work day look like?

Nora  

I write every day. I am an early riser, not by choice, it’s just wiring. I get up. I have my long commute upstairs to my office and I’ll look at emails and headlines and all of that stuff for a while. Then I get to work. I work all day, six, eight hours, consistently. That’s my wiring again. Then I get up and I go work out because I’ve been sitting on my butt all day. Then I cook dinner and that’s my day.

Brian  

So it’s really like going to work, not unlike going to work. 

Nora  

It’s absolutely like going to work. That’s my job. And I worked my job five, six days a week, consistently. I really love my job, that helps a lot. I have a fast pace, that helps a lot. But that’s just wiring again. And I have a lot of discipline; I sit down and I stick with it.

Brian  

Yes. Do you have daily production goals, like word count or pages written or…?

Nora  

No, what happens happens, but I’m going to work that six or eight hours whatever I write that day. Some days, it’s going to flow right out of me. Other days it’s like carving in granite with a toothpick. It depends. But I’m going to sit there, I’m not going to walk away.

Brian  

Do you get stuck a lot?

Nora  

Not writer’s block stuck because I refuse to believe in it. If you walk away, you’ve broken the habit. Writing habit, as well as a job and an art and a science, you have to keep up the habit. And if you walk away, you’ve given up and you can’t fix what’s wrong. I can write absolute crap on a page. It’s just terrible. But I put something on the page and I can go back and fix it. If I’ve written nothing, I got nothing to work with.

Brian  

Okay, so you keep writing. 

Nora  

Most important thing is to have written; the most important thing, because you can always fix it.

Brian  

It’s interesting. I’ve been around some very prolific writers and I’m not…I enjoy writing and have published a couple books but I’m not prolific, certainly not compared to you or a few other people that I know. They get asked a lot – I’m sure you get asked a lot – for writing tips. The question usually comes out like this; I want to write a book, what do I do to write a book? And the answer that I always hear – and you tell me if this is the one you give – is write.

Nora  

Write; as in the chair, fingers on the keyboard, mind in the book. Those are your three steps and keep at it. I think it’s important to read. If you don’t love to read, why do you think you can write? And you should write what you enjoy reading. If you don’t enjoy it, why should anyone else?

Brian  

That’s a great point. How many books are you writing a year on average? Do you have a consistent count?

Nora  

I don’t know, I think four, I think…generally, again, it did depend. But I usually published two Robb’s – two In Death books – a year and one suspense novel in the late spring, early summer, and then part of a trilogy in the fall. That’s usual.

Brian  

That’s remarkable. For our listeners listening and our viewers watching this on our YouTube channel, they’re hearing you talk about writing and publishing four books a year, and they’re still trying to get that one book out of themselves. It’s really quite impressive.

Nora  

Well, there’s no right way or wrong way, someone else’s pace isn’t going to be your pace. But if you just keep going over the same thing, trying to polish it, you’re just going to polish it into nothing. At some point, you have to let go.

Brian  

With as many books as you’ve written, Nora, you obviously know what you need to do to be successful. I imagine that at this stage in your career, the process has become kind of formulaic; you actually talked about that a little bit in terms of when you write certain books, and how many of each book you write during the year. How do you approach each book; starting from an original idea to the manuscript?

Nora  

You have to come up with an idea, but idea is the easy part. It’s formulating and articulating that idea into a story on paper; that’s the sweaty part. It’s just page one, chapter one every single time, every book you write you’ve never written before. So you have to approach it as something brand new every time. You’ve never written this book about these people in this situation before. So what excites you about it? What are you trying to say? What do you hope to say? Usually, what you think you’re going to say, or hope you’re going to say, it’s not what turns out anyway. For me – again, everybody’s process is different – I’m organic, we’ll say, in that I don’t do a lot of planning ahead of time. I do some research, then I research as I go because I don’t know until I need to know what I need to know. So I research through the first draft of the book. And I figure things out as I go, I don’t go back. That’s my process. I write however many pages I write today, tomorrow, I start where I left off; I don’t go back and review that, I push forward until I write a lean kind of crappy first draft and then I go back to page one, chapter one and start fixing it. Then I’ll go over it a third time, from page one, chapter one, to polish it out. Hopefully, that’s it. But if it needs more, I give it more.

Brian  

And you have input through that process from others, from an editor?

Nora  

Absolutely not. They all better shut up and leave me alone. Absolutely not. Nobody sees it until I’m finished with it. (Brian:  Oh, really?) Then I have input from my editor and if she wants changes, we’ll discuss; she’s usually going to be right, she wants revisions, or whatever. But she doesn’t see it until I’m satisfied with it, then I send it to my agent and editor, then I get the editorial input.

Brian  

And how many revisions are typically made, like percentage wise, are you 98% done? 

Nora  

There is absolutely no average or percentage. A lot of times, they’re just fine. You just have to tweak a tiny little bit here and there. Other times you may have to go back and do more, totally depends. And it depends on how my editor – my first reader – she and my agent, how they perceive it because they’re the first ones. They’re going to have their own viewpoint, which is what you want; somebody who’s not you to look at it and tell you where it’s right, where it’s wrong, or if you can do just a little bit to make it better.

Brian  

Have you worked with that same person for a long time? Because I was thinking it would ideally be someone you trust, someone who knows you.

Nora  

Oh yes, you’ve got to trust your editor. I’m very lucky. My agent too, I’ve worked with my agent since 1980. I have the same agent. She’s amazing; best agent ever. Lesley Gelman is my editor, and I’m going to say since the mid ’90s, I’ve worked with her.

Brian  

So long time with her too. Getting back to the ideas. I think most people would have the misconception that coming up with the ideas is the difficult part. You said it’s the easy part (Nora:  Ideas are a dime a dozen.) Yeah, so how do you know when you’re ready to start writing? I’m sure you have – I’ll exaggerate and say a million – you have lots of ideas. Lots of great stories. If you were telling me about every one of them, I’d say oh, yeah, that’s great. How do you know that that idea is ready to be put into into book form, that you’re ready to start writing?

Nora  

You have to start it, you have to start telling it. That’s the only way I know. When I do the In Death books –  I’ve been doing them for since the mid 90s, I guess – I know the people, I know the world that I built way back when, so I don’t have to think about that. But what are they going to do this time? Why does it matter? She’s a homicide lieutenant so who dies and why; all of that. If I’m doing a fantasy trilogy what is the thread that’s going to weave through the three books and be resolved at the end? How does each book stand on its own? You tell a complete story until you move to the next. If I’m doing a suspense, who are they? Where are they? Why are they in this situation or how does this situation happen that pulls them into it? A lot of times I’ll think of the setting, first. Oh, I want to set a book in Alaska. That’s actually how I started writing Northern Lights. I wanted to set a book in Alaska. Other times, it’ll be I want to tell a book about this profession. I want to know more about why people do that. It just depends. And then you build, or I do, from there. I want to set a book in Alaska. Well, what are the people doing there? Why does this guy go to Alaska, and so forth, and so on. So it just builds. Then I just have to start; page one, chapter one. Let’s get going and see what happens next. A lot of “what ifs”.

Brian  

You make it sound like such an easy process.

Nora  

Oh no, it’s miserably hard. It is. But it’s fun even when it’s miserably hard. I’m doing it in my own home, in my pajamas if I want to. I don’t have to get in the car and drive to an office; I’m my own boss, and I am a really hard ass boss, I am. You don’t give yourself any slack. No, I do not. But that’s why I’ve written so many books because I don’t take any guff from my employee.

Brian  

That’s a good way to do business. You mentioned your home and in having the luxury, the comfort, of being able to write there. I want to ask you about environment, both where you live and also where you work. I know you were born in Maryland, and you’ve lived in the same small town for years. How important is environment to you, not only in terms of creating the lifestyle you want to live, but also in setting the tone for your writing?

Nora  

Well, I don’t actually live in a small town, I live a few miles outside of a small town. I live in a very rural part of Maryland in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. I’ve lived here a very long time, I raised my kids here, it’s home, it’s it, for me. That’s very important that I love where I am. I could write anywhere. I have written anywhere. When I was on the road touring or when I’m on vacation, or whatever. I wrote with little kids fighting in the next room. So I can write anywhere. But this is my place where I’m happiest; it’s home. I love being, living in the country, living in the woods. I don’t see any houses. It’s just me, my husband now, and the dogs, and trees, and my gardens and that sort of thing. But I could write anywhere. That’s the beauty of the profession; is whether you use a pen and paper or computer or a tablet or whatever, it’s portable. And you’ve always got your brain with you, hopefully.

Brian  

So environment, you mentioned your office in your home, it’s not imperative that you write there. It’s just, it’s more comfortable. You said you like to get up in the morning and you go to your office, but you feel like you could write…I mean, could you write on a subway in Manhattan? 

Nora  

If I had to. Am I on deadline? I could write anywhere on deadline.

Brian  

So that goes back to your discipline.

Nora  

Like when we were in Italy, I guess three days, not for a long time. I’m with my family and I want to be with my family. But one day, they all were going off and the roads are very twisty and I get motion sickness. I’m going to stay back. We had a beautiful place and had a beautiful view of Tuscany, and I sat outside at the big table and wrote. So I went somewhere else in my head while the place was quiet.

Brian  

That sounds like a peaceful, serene setting that’s conducive to writing.

Nora  

Yeah, it was pretty great. But I’ve also written in hotel rooms. When my youngest grandson was born, I finished a book. I was helping out, I was there first, [with] my son and his wife, my daughter in law and I wrote the last of the book with the infant in the crook while they were taking a nap. You can do it, if you want it badly enough.

Brian  

That’s a great point. If you want it badly enough. Nora, one of the most interesting things I learned about you, and this was years ago, was realizing that you’re JD Robb. I love bookstores and I remember, for years  I would walk by the fiction section on the way to business nonfiction, but I would look and they have the best sellers. It seemed like if there were ten or 12 books, that three or four of them would be yours. I noticed that, and didn’t know you at that time, obviously, but knew that you were a best selling author and repeatedly. But the other thing that I noticed – and I remember this vividly – was seeing this guy, or so I thought, named JD Robb. And I thought, wow, that’s interesting, too. Like there are these novelists who consistently have these books on the New York Times bestseller list. I remember when I learned that you are JD Robb, I was so surprised. I thought it was so awesome that you were writing under both names – under your name, obviously and the pen name JD Robb – how was it that you started writing under a pseudonym? Where did the name JD Robb come from? I’m guessing “Robb” is some form of Roberts but where does the rest come from?

Nora  

Well, the name is my sons initials, my two sons, Jason and Daniel. That’s where that came from. A lot of people think, oh, she wanted to have people think she was a man. That really didn’t enter into it. I thought it would be cool to use my sons initials. I didn’t want to take a pseudonym. My agent and my publisher at the time – the amazing Phyllis Gran – at Putnam…Phyllis called me one day and she said in that New York voice, Nora, you need a hobby. Because I write fast and they were having trouble keeping up with me. And I said I don’t want a hobby. She said you know, you can take another name and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to write a book that didn’t have my name on it. Why should I go to all that trouble and slap somebody else’s name on it or a fake name? And then my agent said to me one day – which is only one reason she is the best agent ever – said Nora, there’s Pepsi, there’s Diet Pepsi and there’s caffeine-free Pepsi. The light bulb went oh, it’s marketing. It’s marketing and I could be two popular brands. So I said, I’ll try this, if and only if, I can do something different than what I do under my own name, because I didn’t see the purpose. So I had this idea for the character of Viv Dallas, she’s very dark and bitchy and a murder cop in the near future in New York. I said, it would be fun to play with that. I never knew what to do with her until this; this was the opportunity. So I started with a three book contract, what I thought would be a trilogy, and boy, did I fall for that cast of characters. I had so much fun writing them, they were much darker than my usual stuff at that time. The books took off, under – they kept my name out of it – JD Robb. But the books took off so another three book contract, let’s do that. And now it’s been 50 some, I think I’ve written (Brian:  Wow.) of the In Death series.

Brian  

How long did you go writing under JD Robb before you went public with it?

Nora  

It was years before they let out that it was me as JD Robb. I think it was Betrayal In Death because here’s the tag:  you’ve been betrayed. And JD Robb is a pseudonym for Nora Roberts.

Brian  

Yeah. Oh, that’s great. What a great story. How was that received? So I imagine – I don’t know this for sure – but I imagine you have a such a large group of raving fans at this point, probably in each genre – but when it became public that you were JD Robb, how was that received by your Nora Roberts fans?

Nora  

Oh, there’s a lot of overlap there and there already was. If you’re an avid reader, you often don’t just stick with one genre, you just want a good story. At least that’s certainly in my case. But there were a lot of men who thought JD Robb was a guy who were kind of stunned. Women still tend to buy more books than men do. Men will pick them up because they’re sitting on the coffee table or the nightstand. I know I’ve had several female readers tell me that their husband or boyfriend or something went on about the Robb books. And boy, that guy, when they said that’s actually Nora Roberts, it was like, no way. No, she’s a girl. She can’t write this stuff. But they liked the books. So, suckered them into it.

Brian  

You duped them. I mentioned earlier, Nora, that successful people do what others aren’t willing to do. Besides consistent writing, what other qualities have gone into creating the level of success you’ve achieved? You mentioned discipline being one of them.

Nora  

Drive and discipline, they’re pretty important. A lot of times people are out shopping or having lunch and taking a day off and I don’t do much of that. I don’t go out, have lunch with the girls. I have time with my girlfriends. I’m going away for a week with a group of them and that’s going to be great. But I’ll probably work a little bit while we’re there. I don’t think sacrifice anything. This is the life I want to live. So I’m pretty lucky to be able to live it on my terms and to be able to do something I love and make a really nice living so that I can live this life that’s really fairly simple in the long run. We live in the same house. It’s quiet. We don’t have staff or anything like that. We’re private people. We don’t want all of that so we take care of things ourselves mostly.

Brian  

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Nora  

Well, besides reading, TV. I love TV. I like stories. I love to read, I love movies and television. And this time of year and in the spring through the fall, I love to garden. I have extensive gardens, they are a lot of work, but they give me a lot of pleasure. Fortunately, my husband likes yard work, too. He likes to be outside and do stuff, so I can count on him to dig holes if I can’t do it.

Brian  

I’m guessing that you’re asked to speak at writing conferences and to share your advice with aspiring writers. I’m not going to ask you for any more writing advice, but more broadly, what advice do you have, Nora, for our listeners and viewers who want to be the absolute best in their chosen profession, whatever that might be?

Nora  

Well, I think you have to practice, you have to do it. You have to put yourself out there and be prepared to fail or not reach the pinnacle as you see it. Not everybody’s going to be the best; you be the best that you can. If I sit down to write a book, I just want to write the best book I can at that time, may not be the best that I’ve ever written. It’s certainly not the best book ever written in the history of books, but it’s the best I can do. And I think it’s really important to understand the best you can do, and then try to do better next time.

Brian  

You mentioned pinnacle. You’ve accomplished so much in your career and in your life, you have – unlike a lot of people; people listening, people watching, most people in the world, who won’t reach the pinnacle of their field – you did that a long time ago and you’ve remained there ever since. What are you most proud of having accomplished?

Nora  

Oh, raising my boys, I guess, that really, that’s what comes down to it. I love my work but family, I was a single parent for a while and that’s tough. That’s tough stuff. I have a beautiful family, I have terrific grandkids, have a pretty great husband, and I have a really nice body of work that I can be proud of. But other people judge the work, I can only…I don’t write anything that I don’t love but really, the reader is the one that judges the work.

Brian  

Will there ever be a time when you, I guess, put down the pen or close the laptop and decide that you’re done? Or do you think you’ll just write forever, as long as you can?

Nora  

I don’t know what I would do with myself or with the stories inside my head. I really…I love the work. Like I said, my commute is up a flight of steps so that’s no hardship. I love what I do. I can’t imagine what I would do with myself all day if I wasn’t writing.

Brian  

I know your readers are happy to hear you say that and are looking forward to the ongoing development of the stories and the characters that you write about. Nora, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s great to see you. I really appreciate you taking time to share your wonderful wisdom and insight.

Nora  

Oh, thank you, Brian. It’s been great. It’s nice to see you too. I’m not seeing a lot of people since COVID so it’s nice to see you.

Brian  

I understand. Thank you and hopefully you’ll start to see more people and hopefully we’ll see each other again soon.

Nora  

You take care of yourself.

Brian  

Thanks, you too, Nora. Thanks for tuning into Life Excellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with novelist Nora Roberts on social media, and leaving a rating and review. You can learn more about me at BrianBartes.com. Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.