Now, when I was in the Army, writing was my hobby.

We've got one life and the older we get the more we come to realize how short it is.

But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.

Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.

But while our parting was mutually acceptable and even expedient, still it was painful. And I would like to think it hurt both of us, for I certainly felt it: a wrenching inside, like some small but improbably necessary organ was no longer in there, that it was missing, torn or fallen out. And at the time I'd thought that was the end of it; what was missing was gone forever

And I have to consider myself fortunate, because there are plenty of writers who spend most of a lifetime looking for that certain something without ever finding it.

The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs.