The Writer & the Deep Blue Sea

Best-selling novelist James Patterson shares his lifelong, deeply personal attachment to the ocean-particularly that view just out his window

- James Patterson

I love watching the ocean.

I don't swim, though my wife Sue was All-American in swimming at the University of Wisconsin. She does laps every day in our pool, which I call "Lake Susan."

I don't surf or sail or even own a boat-a rarity in Florida, home to over a million registered boats.

I don't fish, even though people call Palm Beach an angler's paradise.

But I love looking out over the water. It's the view that interests me.

Palm Beach has miles of beaches, but my favorite is the one I see from my desk. I don't get writer's block but sometimes I do pause and look up from my pencil and notepad. And it's pretty great to see the water when I do.

I grew up in Newburgh, New York. My childhood house overlooked the Hudson River, and I loved the view from the second-story windows.

Windows let the light in. Most local beachfront houses have traditionally small windows. Sue and I convinced the town of Palm Beach to let us put in large ones. We also compressed the horizon by raising the front lawn four feet. Now instead of the street, our view is the grass and the sea.

Palm Beach, Florida, is far from the publishing mecca of Manhattan, and even farther from Hollywood. But we wanted to live on the ocean. And we didn't want to be in a big city. But it's no desert island. Sue and I have around 9,000 neighbors here-20,000 more join us for the winter season.