T.J. Newman's 'Stewardess to Riches' Story Is a Dream Come True

T.J. Newman is living her wildest dreams – she went from making $35K as a flight attendant to fielding seven-figure deals for her two books, which will both be made into blockbuster films.

Her first thriller Falling (think Speed at 35,000 feet) became a publishing sensation and debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list.

T.J.‘s second novel, Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421 is out today. After taking off, a plane tragically plunges into the ocean, leaving its crew and passengers stranded inside as it sinks. Among the individuals trapped are an engineer and his 11-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, the girl’s mother, who is estranged from her husband, is a member of an elite rescue team that races against time to save the passengers before they run out of air.

Warner Brothers recently won the film rights for Drowning for $1.5 million but other Hollywood heavyweights who expressed serious interest include Steven Spielberg, Alfonso Cuaron, Damien Chazelle, Nicole Kidman, The Russo Brothers, M. Night Shyamalan and Jerry Bruckheimer.

T.J. spoke exclusively with Just Jared about adapting her films to the silver screen, her failed career in musical theater, and her big plans for book release day for Drowning!

Click inside to read T.J. Newman’s full interview with Just Jared…

Your stewardess-to-riches story is a reminder to never give up. You received a yes on your 42nd try at publishing your first book but there are people who have been rejected hundreds of times. How would you encourage those people to keep on pushing through? Each of those forty-one rejections hurt. I felt every single one. And I’m sure anyone who has been rejected like that knows exactly what I mean. As my rejections stacked up, the temptation to quit became stronger and stronger. I desperately wanted to give in to the voice in my head that was telling me: This book isn’t good enough, you’re not good enough. Give up.

But every time I almost pulled the plug, I’d come back to this: I didn’t come this far just to come this far. And I’d pick myself up and keep going. Remember: you can have a million Nos and that’s fine…because you only need one Yes.

Have you seen The Flight Attendant on MAX? Thoughts? I read the novel by Chris Bohjalian that the show is adapted from when it first came out. I actually bought it, in uniform, at a bookstore in LAX in-between flights I was working. I loved the book and I read it as I was finishing up writing my first book, Falling. I had just started researching how to get a literary agent and I remember feeling validated that I should keep going with my book and that an agent should want to represent Falling because the response to The Flight Attendant was proving how much people love to hear about the aviation industry. They love to hear all the behind the scenes stuff — what flight attendants talk about, what goes on behind the galley curtain during a flight. That book showed me the public’s appetite for our view of the aviation industry and as a result, it became a big motivator for me to keep going.

You’re currently working on the manuscript for Falling. Have you written one before? How has the process been compared to writing the novel? Adapting Falling has been a fascinating learning experience. Writing a script is all about compression. How do you take a scene that needs ten pages to be told in the book and compress it into a single page in the script…without losing anything. It’s a highwire act. And learning to do that well has been a real challenge and also very helpful for my novel writing. It’s helped me develop a laser focus on what the exact story is that I’m trying to tell.

Besides Top Gun, do you have any other favorite airplane movies? Top Gun Maverick. I saw it eight times in the theatre last year. Opening night, I went with my friends and afterwards we went out to dinner…which I then left and went back to the theatre to see the movie again by myself.

As to how many times I’ve watched it since it’s been available at home? I’d prefer to keep my dignity and not say.

Who’s on your ultimate dream casting list for Falling? What about Drowning? All my characters are completely fictitious, and I never envision an actor as I write. One, because a movie deal is a rare and privileged opportunity that I would never take for granted by assuming that someday an actor would be playing any particular character. And two, as the writer, I need to figure out who this character is, not who the person who would play him is. If I’m thinking of Harrison Ford, then I’m going to write Harrison Ford, when I should be writing the character. An actor plays a character, not the other way around.

I’ve been lucky enough that both my books have film deals, and I feel confident that the people who know what they’re doing—the casting directors—actually do know what they’re doing. I’ll leave it to the professionals, and I’ll just keep writing characters interesting enough that great actors would want to play them. That’s my job.

What are your plans for release day of Drowning? I’ve got a bunch of Zoom interviews starting at 6am, then I’ll finish packing for my two-week tour, then I’ll go to a local indie bookstore called Poisoned Pen for my pub day book event, then I’ll head straight to the airport and take a midnight flight to LA.

Could you give us any insight / teasers about your third novel? I can tell you this. Drowning was a much bigger book in every way than Falling and my third book is significantly bigger than Drowning. It’s been a huge challenge to write but it is going to be an absolute thrill ride of a novel and a huge summer film.

What are your all-time favorite fiction books? Any favorite authors? All-time favorite fiction novel would be East of Eden by John Steinbeck. If we’re talking thrillers though, I’d have to go with what is, to me, the perfect thriller: Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. Don Winslow’s City on Fire (the second in a trilogy that is being adapted to the screen and to star Austin Butler) is the best fiction I’ve read this year. Barbara Kingsolver is probably my favorite author, I’ll read anything she writes. And I don’t consider any book a guilty pleasure. I firmly believe people should read whatever entertains them. Why should anyone else have a say in what you enjoy?

You say you “failed miserably” at musical theater. Do you have any fun stories? What are your favorite musicals? I’m a sucker for the old-school classics. My favorite musical (which was also the first Broadway show I ever saw on my first trip to New York City for my 16th birthday) is Kiss Me, Kate. Cole Porter standards, killer large ensemble dance numbers, a play within a play. What’s not to love?

I’m not sure I’d define any of the stories of my years in New York failing miserably as “fun”, but a true standout moment was the audition where I stood in the room waiting for the casting director and director to look up from their papers so I could sing my 16 bars. After several minutes of standing there silently, they looked up and were visibly startled to see me. They didn’t even know I was in the room. So the accompanist starts playing, I start singing, and about 4 bars into my audition song I get cut off with the dreaded “Great, thank you.” I’ve never felt more invisible.

Any fun summer plans? Publishing Drowning on May 30, followed by a whirlwind two-week nationwide tour! After that? I’m taking a vacation. I don’t know where I’m going, and frankly I don’t care. All I want is my feet up, a margarita in hand, and no morning alarm set.

Can you share 10 fun facts about yourself? See below!

1) I take my coffee black. All day, every day. At about 10pm I switch to decaf.
2) My cool party trick is I can guess what drink you’d order when the flight
attendants come out with the cart.
3) I don’t have any tattoos.
4) Baseball is one of my life’s great loves. It goes: my family and friends, then
baseball.
5) I love to travel and my favorite way to travel is solo.
6) I broke my ankle skateboarding a few years back and now my left ankle is all
full of metal and it tells me when it’s going to rain.
7) I used a flip phone until 2013. Nothing would make me happier than returning
to that state.
8) I consider sleeping to be one of the things I do best in this world.
9) I can’t do math. Like, not at all. I use a calculator to figure out the tip at a restaurant.
10) Since junior high high, I’ve gotten a new perfume with every big new chapter in my life. That way when I smell it, it takes me back to that period of time.

Drowning is now available on Amazon.com!