Interview

James Frey describes what it took to write A Million Little Pieces

I started writing A Million Little Pieces in the Spring of 1996. For two or three years previous, I had been trying to figure out how to write it. I would sit down, start to work, and whatever came out was not what was in my head. The work did not have the strength I felt was going to be needed, it was not as simple as I wanted it to be, it was not able to carry the emotions I needed to express to tell the story. I kept at it, kept working. I wrote in my free time. I spent hours and hours and hours yelling at my computer, pacing across my floor back and forth back and forth, clenching my fists and clenching my jaw, writing and erasing, writing and erasing. It was never right, never even close, never what I thought, never what I felt. I needed to be able to write what I felt in my heart. I kept working. I kept working.

I sat down one morning. I had a cup of coffee strong and hot, I had a pack of cigarettes and ashtray. I read my latest attempts and they made me sick. I dragged them to the trash and sent them away bye-bye and good riddance. I opened a new document, took a deep breath, and without thinking or analyzing or struggling or even trying, I started to write....