That's one of the ways language evolved, by some very obscure form becoming common usage. And I must say that I'm very intrigued by use of language and slang, and criminal underground terms.

I started doing radio pieces with no clear, preconceived idea, except that I have a tendency to be theatrical.

One of the reasons I don't like to use the word "tricks" , I do think of them as theatrical pieces, and as pretentious as that might sound, there's a real reason for it. It's not the idea of tricking you; it's the idea of taking you along on this particular journey the way you would in any other theatrical situation. But, hopefully, you're going to be fooled at the end.

Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.

I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs.

Once you get into the era of the printed book, it gets a little easier. After years and years, you make a serious survey of that literature, and then you make it more specific depending on what kind of case appears. I never set out to collect material on cheating at bowling, but I found out that after 20 years, I had a lot of material on cheating at bowling.

I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.