Article: In Aug of 2005, I decided to take a sabbatical from my 15 year vocation of pro wrestling. I desperately needed to get away and take a breather from the backbreaking world I had basically grown up in and I was looking forward to doing nothing. A week later, I got a call from my agent asking me if I'd be interested in writing the story of my life. I thought about and agreed, as I had always wanted to write a book. Two weeks after that I had an offer from Warner Brothers (Grand Central) to publish said autobiography.
"Cool," I guffawed to myself, "How hard can writing a book be?"
Two years later (and counting) I will now ceremoniously pull my size 10 sneaker out of my size 20 mouth. What a meticulous and taxing project it was kiddies!
I started the whole process by making lists of all of the experiences I wanted to write about. I gave myself the goal of 100 stories for each of the phases of my career; Mexico, Japan, Germany, Canada, United States etc. I stretched and bent and strained until I reached that goal. Then I flew to New York to meet with my collaborator, Pete. Pete brought his tape recorder and I proceeded to do one of my favorite things - talk about myself - for a total of 70 hours. After talking about myself for what added up to a long weekend combined, even I was sick of me!
Then Pete edited out all of the stories he felt weren't relevant or didn't fit and put the rest into some semblance of chronological order. He turned the whole mess over to me and I began writing. Now let me explain that I have twin daughters who were 4 months old at the time and a son who had just turned 3. So for the next 5 months my schedule was to put my son to bed by 9pm, write for 5 hours until 3 am and then wake up at 7 am with my son.
That's right bucko, I said 7am.
What happened to all of this hoopla about writers renting a rustic cabin in the Poconos and sleeping in till 2pm while gathering their thoughts and harnessing their muses in the calm, quiet wilderness?
If this 4 hours of sleep thing was the true life of an author, it's no wonder that Ernest Hemingway, Ambrose Bierce and Virginia Woolf decided to check themselves out early.
I finally finished my epic masterpiece and submitted it to my editor - who gave it a lukewarm reaction and scolded me for being 65,000 words over budget. I promptly had a temper tantrum and held my breath until she agreed to allow me an extra 30,000 words.
So I edited and edited, cutting precious word by precious word. A thankless task as every letter was pure gold - after all it was the story of my life right?
I felt like Scorsese having to continuously chip away at an Oscar winning film (maybe someday I'll release A Lion's Tale-The Director's Cut) but to my chagrin, over time I realized that my superiors actually knew what they were talking about and after all of their suggestions and guidance my book ended up being a much better read. 5 months and 7(seven!) edits later, I was finally finished.
As a result, after two years (and change) of backbreaking work I'm proud to say I don't think this book could have turned out any better. I'll also say that I promise to never ever again snicker at how easy those High Falutin' Author Types™ have it...especially since I am now one of those High Falutin' Author Types™
Now where did I put that pipe and ascot?
Maybe I should have stayed in wrestling after all?
Read an interview with Chris Jericho at www.aroundphilly.com.
Copyright © by Chris Jericho
