"That is probably the thing that's kept me going," Payne says of his rabid, ravenous fans. "Literally every 20 minutes, I would decide to hang up the typewriter--in this case, the computer--and get on with my life and do something else. I still think that probably several times a week, just because I've gotten so many knocks along the way. That's the thing that sustains me. I've read a lot of books in my life, and I think I've only written one fan letter to one author, so when I started receiving them, I thought, "Gee, this is kinda strange to hear from all these people when I've sold only a handful of books.' It's Nick's readership that has kept me going. Definitely. But really, I just write Nick for myself, and so far I haven't been writing to please book editors--and God forbid I should ever do that--and I figure the readers are going to have to take it or leave it. I don't know quite where I got this attitude from. Maybe it's from being knocked around so much."
Kind of like Nick Twisp.
