:00:00. > 3:59:59constituency, but you know, how is he going to do that? Never a dull
:00:00. > :00:00.moment. Agnes Poirier Thank you for coming
:00:00. > :00:08.in. Now its time for Meet
:00:09. > :00:10.the Author with Rebecca Jones. The thriller writer David Baldacci
:00:11. > :00:12.has enjoyed the kind of success most His first book, Absolute Power,
:00:13. > :00:16.became a bestseller and it was turned into a film,
:00:17. > :00:18.starring and directed David Baldacci has gone
:00:19. > :00:21.on to write 30 novels, which have sold more
:00:22. > :00:23.than 100 million copies His latest is called The Fix
:00:24. > :00:30.and it's his third book about the detective Amos Decker,
:00:31. > :00:33.who witnesses a seemingly senseless and random murder outside
:00:34. > :00:35.the headquarters of the FBI, David Baldacci, I'd like to start,
:00:36. > :00:58.if I may, by rewinding the clock back to your childhood,
:00:59. > :01:01.when your mother gave you a notebook Had you always wanted
:01:02. > :01:07.to be a writer? I was probably about seven
:01:08. > :01:14.or eight years old. I was telling tall tales
:01:15. > :01:19.all the time, usually to get myself out of trouble with school officials
:01:20. > :01:21.and other parents. And my mom came and
:01:22. > :01:23.brought me a journal. And she said, "Honey,
:01:24. > :01:27.you know, some of the stuff you've been talking about,
:01:28. > :01:29.why don't you try writing it down?" So my pen hit the paper
:01:30. > :01:32.and I was kind of like, this epiphany just went off
:01:33. > :01:34.in my head. I can take my imagination,
:01:35. > :01:37.put it down on paper, and people can And years went by and I went back
:01:38. > :01:42.to my mom and I said, "Thank you for such a gift, Mom,
:01:43. > :01:46.for this, it changed my life. And she said, well, I'm so glad it
:01:47. > :01:49.worked out for you but, quite frankly, I just wanted
:01:50. > :01:51.to shut you up! You know, because moms need
:01:52. > :01:53.a little peace and quiet. I will always love you,
:01:54. > :01:56.but you just never stop talking. So, there you go, it
:01:57. > :01:58.worked out in the end. It worked out in the end,
:01:59. > :02:01.but in the interim, Well, for, like, 15 years,
:02:02. > :02:06.I wrote short stories only, and you can't make a living
:02:07. > :02:09.selling short stories. Maybe you could if you were
:02:10. > :02:11.John Updike or John Irving, but not David Baldacci,
:02:12. > :02:14.so I never even got paid They would give me a bunch of free
:02:15. > :02:19.copies of the magazine and said that So I became a lawyer
:02:20. > :02:22.and I did very well. I practised for ten
:02:23. > :02:24.years from Washington, High school, college, law school,
:02:25. > :02:28.ten years of practising law. I wrote short stories, novellas,
:02:29. > :02:30.screenplays and then finally novels. And Absolute Power just really
:02:31. > :02:33.was the turning point for me. And then you were able
:02:34. > :02:35.to commit to it full-time. Fast-forward now dozens of novels
:02:36. > :02:37.later to your latest novel, The Fix, and this tells the story
:02:38. > :02:41.of a man who shoots a woman outside the FBI headquarters and then
:02:42. > :02:43.turns the gun on himself. So it's a whydunnit,
:02:44. > :02:45.rather than a whodunnit. Well, this is the third instalment
:02:46. > :02:49.of my Amos Decker series. He is.
:02:50. > :02:58.We first saw him in 'Memory Man'. And he has a perfect memory,
:02:59. > :03:00.hyperthymesia, because of a brain And he is the most
:03:01. > :03:03.unlikeliest of heroes. He is not your knight
:03:04. > :03:05.in white shining armour. He is a big, sloppy, obese guy
:03:06. > :03:08.who has no personal skills, ticks everybody off,
:03:09. > :03:12.nobody really gets along with him. And I thought, yeah,
:03:13. > :03:14.that'd be a great series guy! He wants to find out the truth,
:03:15. > :03:20.no matter where it takes him. And so he looks at the scene.
:03:21. > :03:24.He was a witness to this crime. He was walking down the street
:03:25. > :03:27.and the guy pulls out a gun, shoots a woman, then turns
:03:28. > :03:29.the gun on himself. And he keeps going
:03:30. > :03:31.back to that scene. He keeps going back,
:03:32. > :03:35.his mental frames flipping through. Did he really see
:03:36. > :03:37.what he thought he saw? And so constantly, throughout
:03:38. > :03:40.the entire novel, the reader - over his shoulder -
:03:41. > :03:42.going back and looking I wanted to make it really
:03:43. > :03:45.claustrophobic, you know. I wanted people to be hammered
:03:46. > :03:48.with that scene over and over again. Because, look, as a lawyer,
:03:49. > :03:50.I know that eyewitness accounts People can't remember
:03:51. > :03:53.anything they saw. Or even if they do remember
:03:54. > :03:55.it, it's all wrong. So I thought it would be
:03:56. > :03:58.kind of cool to put that As you say, Amos Decker
:03:59. > :04:02.isn't your typical hero. What appeals to you
:04:03. > :04:04.so much about him? So many of my other characters
:04:05. > :04:07.are kind of like, you know, they're fit and well trained and,
:04:08. > :04:09.you know, they're sort As a writer, I think if you don't
:04:10. > :04:13.expand and challenge yourself, So I wanted to write a character
:04:14. > :04:17.totally different from anything I mean, he is not your typical hero.
:04:18. > :04:22.I channel him so easily, though. You know, he's really
:04:23. > :04:24.weird and quirky. And my wife will say, yeah,
:04:25. > :04:26.I can understand why you channel him so easily,
:04:27. > :04:29.cos you're that too! I was very struck by how
:04:30. > :04:33.topical the book is. The murder turns into an issue
:04:34. > :04:38.of national security. You also deal with Isis,
:04:39. > :04:41.cyber hacking, cyber security. How important is that to you,
:04:42. > :04:44.to make the book feel current? Plausibility, I'm
:04:45. > :04:48.bound by plausibility. Fortunately for me, it
:04:49. > :04:50.seems like these days, So I can write about anything
:04:51. > :04:54.and people will say, yeah, I think I read that
:04:55. > :04:59.in a newspaper last week. So for me, it's to take
:05:00. > :05:02.life as we know it now. And I'm very curious
:05:03. > :05:04.about the world. I try to read everything
:05:05. > :05:06.I can possibly read. So take life as it is now
:05:07. > :05:08.and try to extrapolate it out, so I can say,
:05:09. > :05:11.OK, what is it gonna be And so I can sort of push
:05:12. > :05:15.the envelope and see what's I had an intelligence
:05:16. > :05:18.guy one time tell me... I'd written a scene
:05:19. > :05:21.and I thought it was gonna be I said, read this, let me know
:05:22. > :05:26.if I need to pull it back. I said, no, just read it and let me
:05:27. > :05:31.know if it's too much. He said, because if you can imagine
:05:32. > :05:37.it, we've already done it. And it's interesting you say
:05:38. > :05:42.you had a conversation with an intelligence guy,
:05:43. > :05:44.because I know you talk to members of the FBI
:05:45. > :05:47.and the Secret Service, don't you? What kind of things
:05:48. > :05:50.do they tell you? It's funny, they're
:05:51. > :05:51.wonderfully helpful, Sometimes, they'll say,
:05:52. > :05:54.I'm gonna tell you this, And it never does,
:05:55. > :05:59.cos I do play fair. So they've got a lot of stuff that,
:06:00. > :06:02.you know, I would not want to be them because it must be hard
:06:03. > :06:05.to sleep at night sometimes. I was struck by how
:06:06. > :06:07.meticulously plotted the novel was and I wondered,
:06:08. > :06:10.do you start from the outset knowing exactly what's going to happen,
:06:11. > :06:12.or does the story evolve I've never known the ending of any
:06:13. > :06:17.book I've sat down to write. I've always thought that
:06:18. > :06:22.if I knew the ending, I wouldn't be creating a novel,
:06:23. > :06:25.I would be typing to the end, you know, a manuscript,
:06:26. > :06:27.not really writing. I might sit down in front
:06:28. > :06:32.of the computer and think, er, Oh, my God, OK,
:06:33. > :06:35.let me just try this. And if it doesn't work,
:06:36. > :06:39.I can always go back, hit the delete So that spontaneity is an integral
:06:40. > :06:42.part of creativity. So for me to plot along an outline
:06:43. > :06:45.that I've thought about before I've even created a character,
:06:46. > :06:47.I mean, how dull and And I think that boringness
:06:48. > :06:51.would come through in the pages. So for me to discover the page
:06:52. > :06:54.as I'm writing it, for the reader, I think it's gonna be
:06:55. > :06:56.stunning to them. But that must be even more difficult
:06:57. > :06:59.because you sometimes have more than one novel
:07:00. > :07:01.on the go, don't you? I mean, you have a
:07:02. > :07:03.phenomenal workload. You write two, sometimes
:07:04. > :07:05.three novels a year. This is what I do and it's
:07:06. > :07:11.what I love to do. I think if I didn't love
:07:12. > :07:13.to write, I probably I've written a lot of books,
:07:14. > :07:17.and maybe I would just But every day, I get
:07:18. > :07:20.up thinking to myself, it's so fortunate that I can tell
:07:21. > :07:22.another story today. I'm an eight-year-old kid,
:07:23. > :07:25.with a piece of paper and a pen, and I'm just using this in my head
:07:26. > :07:28.and putting it down And I tell an aspiring writer,
:07:29. > :07:33.I say, make sure you're in it If you can live without writing,
:07:34. > :07:38.go do something else, Because that will get
:07:39. > :07:42.you through all the bad times. That will get you through all
:07:43. > :07:44.the rejection and criticism It's like bullet-proof armour you're
:07:45. > :07:47.putting around yourself, that joy of writing,
:07:48. > :07:49.because no matter what they hit Nonetheless, how difficult
:07:50. > :07:53.is it to keep coming up I think the one attribute a writer
:07:54. > :07:57.needs to have is this non-stop curiosity about the world and life,
:07:58. > :08:00.and I certainly am. I go to places, I talk
:08:01. > :08:03.to people all the time. I just absorb knowledge
:08:04. > :08:05.and information like you wouldn't believe, because I think if you know
:08:06. > :08:09.a lot about a lot of different things, you can bring those
:08:10. > :08:11.disparate elements together and, all of a sudden, you're writing some
:08:12. > :08:13.really unique stories. Writing is not a job,
:08:14. > :08:17.it's not a hobby, it's not even a passion for me,
:08:18. > :08:19.it's a lifestyle. This is who I am and it permeates
:08:20. > :08:22.throughout my entire life. I'm sitting here right
:08:23. > :08:25.in the studio, but I'm also thinking about,
:08:26. > :08:27.you know, I'm looking around and seeing stuff
:08:28. > :08:29.and ideas are coming to me. Well, you know, I love to write.
:08:30. > :08:35.I relax by writing. I love to read.
:08:36. > :08:38.I love to go out on the water. I'm a big boater, I like to do
:08:39. > :08:41.all the watersports and stuff. It's just nice, you know,
:08:42. > :08:43.I have a nice family But at the end of the day,
:08:44. > :08:48.it's that book and the pen My wife gave me a journal
:08:49. > :08:51.on Christmas Day. I tell people, never give a writer
:08:52. > :08:55.blank paper on a major holiday,