Harlan Coben

There was no indie presses.

There was no sort of things like that.

You had to get published by a real big publishing house.

And that was my dream.

I was like, if I could just one day, one day have one book published.

I just want to be a published author.

I want to walk past a bookstore one day and just see one copy.

You know, that was my first goal.

From the moment I started to write, that was it.

I mean, I always wanted to be a pro basketball player, but that dream kind of started to fade around 15 or 16.

And by 21 was pretty much, you know, I was a good college player, or maybe, but I was not going to be a pro basketball player.

So this was the dream.

And it was something, once I attached myself to it, I just, I knew.

I don't want to, I hate when people say stuff like that and sound corny and make you sound highfalutin or anything like that.

But I just, I was not going to give up on it.

And I wrote three full novels that never saw the light of day.

Gosh.

three full novels, and people will say, wow, that's like a, but what a better way to learn how to write.

The problem also, people think, this is also strange to me, that I wrote a novel, I should be able to get it published, but you never have any experience or, it's like, you could have the talent of LeBron James.

If you've never played basketball before,