“Inspiration comes every day,” Baldacci says, helped along, no doubt, by being an avid reader and a man with many interests and endless curiosity about what’s going on in the world. As he explains, “Some mornings all I have to do is open the blinds to find a story.” Great if you’re a prolific writer of best sellers, but given his proclivity for action-packed thrillers, it might make his neighbors a bit nervous if they knew. Unlike authors who rely on regimented rituals and routines to get their words on the page, Baldacci is constantly writing in his head, finding source material all around him. For Baldacci, there’s no perfect place or time to write. If the best attorneys are also good storytellers, then his years practicing law only helped him to further hone his writing skills, teaching him to be organized and disciplined and to take a long term approach to the process. Also, it helped, he says, that his was an Italian family, full of colorful tales of their own, which further underscored storytelling as a integral part of everyday life and which he credits with helping to launch him and his siblings into professional and creative careers where good story telling informed and elevated their endeavors. The Making of a StorytellerĪs to how his skills as a storyteller really developed, Baldacci readily points to his grandmother who lived with the family in Richmond and mesmerized him from an early age with stories of her home in Southwest Virginia. Twenty-four years on, Baldacci says he’s never regretted the decision to seize “the chance to do the job I love”, where, for him, work is play. With one book and a young family, Baldacci wasn’t completely sure he’d be able to make a career out of writing, so stayed with his “day job” at the law firm for another year before he finally took the plunge and became an author, full time. It was Baldacci who was right-they couldn’t put it down-with every publisher vying for the rights to his first novel, Absolute Power (later to become a major motion picture starring Clint Eastwood). Sent as much in the belief that his work was as good as any thriller on the shelf, it was also a bold challenge to the editors he was sure would relish the opportunity to prove him wrong. The finished manuscript was submitted to the (then) dozen or so publishers of note, with a cover letter promising them a read they wouldn’t be able to put down. It was a story that sprung from an observation: “I was practicing law in DC and worked near the White House, where I would occasionally see the presidential motorcade and secret service agents, which, of course, gave me an idea.” While he continued to practice law, he surreptitiously worked on his first novel, which was written, rewritten and polished over three years. “I suppose my stories were ahead of the trend when it came to the types of movies studios were interested in producing at the time”, Baldacci says, “so I switched from screenplays to novels.” A way to record the stories that seemed to constantly spring from his imagination, as well as observations about the world around him, the habit of filling that notebook ignited a spark of creativity that helped the budding writer to emerge.īy the time Baldacci had graduated UVA Law School and moved to Washington, DC to practice law, he had turned his hand to writing screenplays, even securing an agent in Los Angeles, but failed to catch the attention of Hollywood. Baldacci recalls fondly that his mother gave him his first writer’s notebook when he was just a boy in Richmond. With 37 novels for adults and six books for younger readers published to-date, you might conclude that David Baldacci has been writing all his life, which isn’t far off the mark. We spent our time together talking about storytelling, creative inspiration and his newest release, Long Road to Mercy. It was a distinct pleasure, therefore, to have the opportunity to meet this well-known “neighbor” at his Reston office, which is equal parts writer’s retreat and literary power hub, a book-lined reader’s paradise that exudes the serene charm of a beloved bookstore. A native Virginian, he and his wife of nearly 30 years, Michelle, are long-time residents who have raised their two children in the area. But it might surprise you to learn that David Baldacci lives, works and plays in in our community. You know him as a best-selling author of page-turning thrillers, with over 130 million books in print.
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