The Painted Man: Novel Written On Blackberry Becomes MultiMillion Dollar Movie

A commuter who typed out his first novel on his mobile phone on the New York subway has signed a lucrative deal to make a multi-million dollar film trilogy that producers say will be the "next Lord of the Rings".

Peter Brett wrote his fantasy novel The Painted Man while on the 'F' train from his home in Brooklyn to Times Square, busily pressing away on the keys of his HP Ipaq 6515, a phone similar to a BlackBerry, while other passengers dozed or read the newspaper.
. . .

"When I met him I thought he must have extremely muscular thumbs.

"The only thing I can imagine was that there were a lot of people with tattoos on the subway and that inspired him. It's epic fantasy."

Commuter who wrote fantasy novel on his phone on verge of multi-million dollar movie deal

I think this is truly amazing.

Most subway communters would probably just read the paper, a magazine, the sports section, listen to their iPod, but this person was resilient and creative enough to write a complete novel using nothing but his Blackberry.

Excellent example of how to take advantage of personal downtime to be extremely productive.

I wonder if this guy plays video games?

I am as open as the next person, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that a novel was "written" or created on a Blackberry. While I can believe that he used the Blackberry to review his novel while on the subway, I do not believe for one minute that he did not use his home PC to do the majority of his work on the novel. Any work he may have done on the subway was more of an edit or proof read and not the awe inspiring moments where genius meets paper with the author pecking away into the night following some thoughts that have to be worked into the novel .

While the media may credit the Blackberry mention and try to paint the author as some truly dedicated and driven author, I think this is where the media is merely looking for some "Spin" for their news coverage and in doing so, embellished the Blackberry mention to make the story more Hollywoodish.

These are my thoughts on the matter, because I also truly love to write and I also own a Blackberry and as such, I know first hand how hard it can be from time to time just to answer an email. I usually don't if I am out of the house and I usually wait to get home before using my laptop in sync with my Blackberry to write any email responses. I can only write short emails and anything lengthy is best done on the full sized laptop or home PC computer and not the Blackberry. This is a fact that makes me say what I say about this posting.

I have been a Blackberry owner for over five years now and while I love my Blackberry, it is not the means by which I would write a novel. I would use it to edit and such, but to actually write a novel on a Blackberry is ludicrous at best and as such, I for one do not believe the propaganda that claims some author wrote a novel on just his Blackberry.

I may be a hard case, but I am also a pragmatist and something tells me this whole story is just an embellishment for the sake of ratings and an effort to begin the mystic that will no doubt go into the making of some Hollywood movie with action and adventure mixed with a beautiful music score.

Thanks for the posting.

Well I live in New York City, so i can absolutely believe that he wrote the whole thing on his blackberry. The amount of different people you run into is amazing. Each person has a story to tell. From the tattooed commodities broker, to the tramp stamp wearing young mom.

Inspiration is everywhere.

maxblack's issue with the story isn't the inability for this guy to find inspiration. it's the unlikeliness of actually being able, without threat of violence, to write an entire novel using the input method of a blackberry.

and i'd agree. except, people can and do do weird stuff; this guy spending twenty minutes twice a day typing into a blackberry - it's possible when you consider what humanity's capabilities. people collect bottle caps their whole life, then build houses out of them. we do weird stuff sometimes to the point that this isn't even that weird. it just seems it would drive me crazy with the relentless typos.

if it's true, its wild. and i wonder had he not had the commute (and the blackberry) if he ever would have written the novel.

but yeah, there's a certain hollywoodish twist to this story that wreaks of some pr department's brilliant twist on the author saying "i once edited a chapter on my blackberry!"

[edit on 4/19/2010 by Hadrian]