I do want to write about Jane Whitefield again, but only when I have a good enough idea - something I've figured out about her that's news and that's worth a reader's time.

There is no place so benighted and godforsaken that some moron won't go there on vacation. People could be living in an open sewer and swallowing dirt to stop the hunger, and there'd be a couple from Larchmont wearing comfortable shoes there to take pictures of them.

Once you have invented a character with three dimensions and a voice, you begin to realize that some of the things you'd like him to do to further your plot are things that such a person wouldn't, or couldn't, do.

There are days when I intentionally don't write. For instance, I never write when I'm traveling, because travel is a situation where I can learn more by looking and listening than by working.

I do try not to spend much time reading in the suspense genre.

Contrary to what many writers imply about the process, nobody forces a writer to sell his work to the film industry.

Yes, in my books I do edit myself to keep from becoming the Village Explainer.