I feel like having an actual taxidermy-ed mammal would get gross, like its hair would get dirty and stuff.

In fiction, I have a residual guilt when I focus on story over language or mood or whatever - the more "literary" things. In screenwriting, I don't have that guilt because story is the only thing. Character, dialogue, everything else - they feed into and drive story.

Fiction and screenwriting blend for me. I feel like being a TV writer/screenwriter has definitely made my fiction writing better, although I have less time to do it.

Los Angeles is more hospitable to writers [Than NY]. It's less claustrophobic. It feels more unpredictable and dangerous, and the landscape is less structured. You see coyotes lurking all over the place. It just feels wilder and more dangerous.

I feel like having an actual taxidermy-ed mammal would get gross, like its hair would get dirty and stuff.

I own some bugs encased in lucite or something. I also have a big cat's eye - a fake one - made for a taxidermist. I really like animals.

I encourage all novelists to move to TV right now, that is the way to go. I was living in New York working at a bank as a day job about seven years ago. I was writing novels at night and decided, "Wow, there's so much great TV, and they're telling the complex, interesting, psychologically nuanced stories that, as a novelist, you dream of telling. And it's a healthy, exciting, thriving medium - that's where I need to be."