This is what noir is, what it can be when it stops playing nice--blunt force drama stripped down to the bone, then made to dance across the page.

Life's so much easier when you're not always maintaining two worlds: the one formed of lies, which feels real, and the one you live in, which often feels like lies. So easy to get them confused.

When I am writing a novel, though, then it's usually three or four hours a day. Ideally, right after lunch until three or four, but sometimes picking up again around ten, going until a touch after midnight. I rarely write in the morning, unless I'm on deadline. I do like rewriting in the morning, though. Guess it's the way my brain's put together. Or, the way it's falling apart.

Art isn't and shouldn't be responsible. If it is, it isn't functioning as art.

Angels, demons, sex. Heaven, hell, war. Blood and royalty, history and magic, fire and ice. And a story you cannot put down. This is fantasy at its best.

I do love the challenge of screenplays. They're so difficult, such an alien form. It makes them endlessly fascinating. Something I can't keep my fingers out of.

It's just the garbage in/garbage out trick. If you're not taking any fiction in, good or bad, then how can you be spitting any back out (good or bad)? I can't even imagine trying to write without reading. Really, I can hardly write a novel at all if I'm not reading just book after book.