Over the past year, Michael Lewis has emerged as one of the top writers of the 21st century. With a blockbuster movie still in theaters (Moneyball) and Boomerang, his new bestseller, out at bookstores all over the world, it seems like Michael Lewis is at the top of his game. He didn’t always know that he wanted to be a writer, though. When he finished college, he didn’t know what he wanted to do, and he took a job on Wall Street. The culture on Wall Street at the time led him to write his first book, Liar’s Poker, which was an early indictment of reckless investment banking practices.
“No one would have guessed that I would have become a writer,” Lewis said. “My habits as a kid weren’t the habits of someone who’s destined to become a writer.” He didn’t know any writers growing up, and he didn’t even know anyone who knew any writers. He did read all the time, though, but “not in a geeky way.” He also credits his sense of story to his childhood in New Orleans, where the oral storytelling tradition is alive and well. The real reason he became a writer, though? “No one ever told me not to do it,” he said. Once his writing career started, he “received almost nothing but encouragement from the publishing industry,” and he has since published fourteen books and countless articles for publications like The New Republic and Vanity Fair.
When talking about his writing strategy, he admitted that, like most people, he procrastinates until the last minute, but the key, he says is “when you sit down to write, if your first goal is to not be boring, that’s not a bad goal to start with. Just don’t be boring, and after that whatever happens is gravy.”
Lewis’s new book Boomerang examines the effects of the financial crisis on distressed economies all over the world. He is currently writing a pilot for HBO, and working with ABC to develop another pilot based on his book Home Game, which is a fatherhood memoir about his own family. Don’t bother pitching him a new book idea, though. He gets pitched them daily, and has never written anything based on a pitch from someone else.
Click below to see Jesse Draper, the Valley Girl’s full interview with Michael Lewis on “The Valley Girl Show” or visit www.ValleyGirl.TV.
“The Valley Girl Show” features interviews with the top CEOs and entrepreneurs in the world. Past episodes have featured everyone from Eric Schmidt to Ted Turner, and USA Today called it “must see TV for startups.”
