Writing is flat, so if you only have part of one eye working, you still can do the job. It's just that you sit there and you're angry, which doesn't help.

Whenever things sound easy, it turns out there's one part you didn't hear.

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me.

Parker wasn't supposed to be a series. He was supposed to be one book, and if he was only going to be in one book, I didn't worry about it. And then an editor at Pocket Books said "Write more books about him." So I didn't go back at that point and give him a first name. If I'd known he would've been a series, I would've done two things differently. First, I would've given him a first name because that means for 27 books, I've had to find some other way to say, "Parker parked the car."

New York doesn't exactly have neighborhoods, the way most cities do. What it has is closer to distinct and separate villages, some of them existing on different continents, some of them existing in different centuries, and many of them at war with one another. English is not the primary language in many of these villages, but the Roman alphabet does still have a slight edge.

Years ago, I heard an interview with violinist Yehudi Menuhin. The interviewer said, "Do you still practice?" And he said, "I practice every day." He said, "If I skip a day, I can hear it. If I skip two days, the conductor can hear it. And if I skip three days, the audience can hear it." Oh, yes, you have to keep that muscle firm.

Writing is flat, so if you only have part of one eye working, you still can do the job. It's just that you sit there and you're angry, which doesn't help.