Popularity: -1
Vote:   | Ah, there's nothing like music. It's seductive, it's all-consuming, it's emotional, it's infinitely creative . . . . I was a singer-songwriter, not particularly talented musically but drawn to the craft of songwriting. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | But there is an analytical component - a left-brained component - to writing crime fiction that I think is an element of such professions as law, and medicine as well. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Directing films is extremely arduous work and I wouldn't want to do it for any money. |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | For me a thriller is a very carefully structured story. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | Hardcover books are fairly expensive these days and to read one requires a significant commitment of time in our busy society. So I want to make sure that when readers buy one of my books they get something they're familiar with. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | I also try very hard to create characters - both heroes and villains - with psychological depth. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I have to say that there are certain books that exist to tell a particular story and then there are books that exist in the context of character. |
Popularity: -3
Vote: | I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I like the writing area to be silent (or with jazz or classical accompaniment occasionally) and either windowless or shaded. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | I liked the challenge of writing in a very concise structure in which both meaning and form are important. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | I performed and taught music in clubs in the San Francisco Bay area and Chicago. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I spend about eight months researching and outlining my book. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I was editor of my high school literary magazine and a reporter for the school newspaper. |
Popularity: -3
Vote: | I wouldn't say it comes easily to me but I thoroughly enjoy doing it so I'm lucky in that sense. I revise a great deal. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | I write pretty much anywhere - on planes, in hotel rooms, anywhere in my house. |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | I've always written, all my life, and when I was very young I developed an interest in poetry. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | Ideally, I like to integrate the human issues into the suspense story itself. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | If I'm setting a book outside of New York (where I lived for twenty years) or where I live now, I'll travel there and spend some weeks researching. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say. |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | In general, I think, less is more and that if a reader stops reading because a book is too icky then I've failed in my obligation to the readers. |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | It's accurate to the extent that I explore the psychology of crime and crime detection in my books: the minds of the criminal and his hunters. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | My publisher doesn't even get a peek at my manuscript until I've revised it at least twenty or thirty times (and I mean major revisions). |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Of course, I write crime stories, and I have to describe violence and the aftermath of violence. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | Rule one: Write about settings you're familiar with. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | The easy answer is that writing novels is a lot more fun than practicing law. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | The recent fascination, I think, reflects the shift in approach by law enforcement officials to embrace technology as wholeheartedly as the rest of the world. |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | There were probably some things I would have done differently but my expertise is in writing novels, not making movies. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | . There's nothing wrong with over-researching but there's a problem when you put too much of your research in the book. All the technical details have to further the plot. |
Popularity: -4
Vote: | To answer that I have to describe what I think is my responsibility as a thriller writer: To give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of. |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | Trying to write books with a subject matter or in a genre or style you're not familiar with is the best way to find the Big Block looming. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | When I find myself frozen - whether I'm working on a brief passage in a novel or brainstorming about an entire book - it's usually because I'm trying to shoehorn an idea into the passage or story where it has no place. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher. |