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đź“ť Michael Lewis' Writing Routine
"I write mainly in the mornings but as the deadline approaches I write all the time. I edit in the afternoons and the evenings. I edit it in my head a lot."
Famous Writing Routines
February 09, 2024
Welcome to Famous Writing Routines, where we explore the daily habits, writing process, and work routines of some of the most renowned authors throughout history.
Michael Lewis is an American author and financial journalist, best-known for his books Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game and The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.
There’s no simple explanation for why I write. It changes over time. There’s no hole inside me to fill or anything like that, but once I started doing it, I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else for a living. I noticed very quickly that writing was the only way for me to lose track of the time.
Michael Lewis was just 28-years old when he quit his job as a bond salesman at investment bank Salomon Brothers to become a writer. It was a shot in the dark for someone who had no clue on what the writing path looked like.
“I had no idea of how to go about being a writer. I didn’t know any writers. I didn’t know anybody who knew any writers. There was no one in my family who could kind of provide guidance,” he told Tim Ferriss.
Lewis spent four years writing on the side as a freelancer, making a paltry sum of $3,000, then he decided to make the full-time move. It was also just after he received his $225,000 bonus from Salomon Brothers that he decided to trade in the lucrative investment life for a $40,000 book advance.
“There is an incredible serendipity in my career,” Lewis said at the 2017 National Book Festival. “The fact that I wanted to be a writer and I got this job in the very best place on Earth to write about Wall Street in the 1980s. I was given the leisure by my parents to fart around for two or three years after college. If they hadn’t done that, I doubt I would have become a writer.”
It would have seemed crazy at the time, but looking back at it now, it’s pretty safe to say Lewis made the right career choice. Since embarking on his writing career in 1989, he has published several bestselling books which have been turned into Oscar winning films, including Moneyball, The Big Short and The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. He’s also been the contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 2009.
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Read the rest of Michael Lewis’ writing routine here.
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