Module II: Sponges and Writers

Tom Clancy
Best-Selling Author

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My dad was a mailman. I worked my way through college as a plumber. Got into the insurance business, which was financially comfortable, but not intellectually demanding. So...in my case, as opposed to John, writing was my dream. In high school I decided I wanted to see my name on the cover of a published book, and it took me 20 year. That's the bad news, guys. It takes a long time to get going in this business, but once you're there, it's actually kind of nice. I got a question on the Internet -- I surf the Net -- not to long ago:, "How do I get my ideas?" And I replied, "Mainly in the shower." I could go into a relatively long discourse about how showers and driving cars are good for creativity. But at your stage, if you want to be writers, number one, learn the mechanics of how language works, because writing is about writing. It's about plugging words together in a way that is clear, and maybe a little elegant. Number two, writing is about people, so find yourself a job where you're in contact with a lot of people. Bear in mind the fact that there's no such thing as a useless fact. Everything you learn will be useful some day. Bear in mind the fact that every person you meet is an opportunity to learn something. Literally, every person you meet knows at least one thing that you can learn from them. No matter if he's driving a garbage truck or he's an eye surgeon, he knows at least one thing you need to know. I guess I'll finish by saying I have a friend who just retired from the FBI -- he's from the Dallas field office -- and I called down there once and Buck was on the phone and I was talking to his secretary and she said, "You know what Mr. Vale says about you? He says, 'He's a sponge. He's gonna remember everything you say, he's a sponge.'" Well if you want to be a writer, you've got to be a sponge. Okay? You've got to learn a lot. It's going to take you 15 -- starting now, you say, "Okay, I want to write a novel, or a good history, or a play, or anything of book length, you're talking a minimum of 15 years, from where you are now. Okay? A scary thought. Social security, the whole thing. But you've got to learn. You've got to learn about people, you've got to learn a lot of facts. You have to just view the world as a great big opportunity to accumulate and assimilate and synthesize knowledge.