Cassady himself wanted to become a writer, or a jazz musician, but he was not a success at either. He tried to take saxophone lessons, but did not stay with them very long. He mostly worked as a laborer or a brakeman on railroads, before and after "On the Road" was published. Some of what he did write was published as a memoir, titled "The First Third", but it was his only book. He was more successful at writing letters to friends. One was about his seductions of different women during a train trip. He recorded long talks with Kerouac and Carolyn, about their lives and thoughts, and parts of these went into a later book by Kerouac, titled "Visions of Cody". ("Cody Pomeray" became Cassady's new fictional name, as Kerouac changed publishers.)