You just touch on things. You don't go round the room describing the furniture.
Changing writing styles is like an actor taking on a different part.
It's a matter of style. The Evan Hunter style and the Ed McBain style are very, very different.
I began using pseudonyms early in my career, when I was being paid a quarter a cent a word for my work, and when I had to write a lot to earn a living. Sometimes I had three or four stories in a single magazine without the editor knowing they were all by me.
I was a blond-haired kid with blue eyes, growing up in an Italian ghetto. I had a very high IQ. In elementary school, I skipped ahead twice. I was 10 years old when everyone else was 12.
I know that all cops are not sterling characters. But you have to have someone to root for. I balance it with rotten cops who will take a bribe, who will beat somebody up.
I've never been a cop nor hope to be a cop, thanks.
A detective sees death in all the various forms at least five times a week.
I enjoy what I do every minute of the day, even when the going gets tough. When I first began writing, I used to work at a desk in the bedroom, of a small development house. My three sons all under the age of 3 would come running in and out of the room every minute.
Depending on what I'm working on, I come to the writing desk with entirely different mindsets. When I change form one to the other, it's as if another writer is on the scene.
I think of myself as a softy. I think the 87th Precinct novels are very sentimental, and the cops are idealistic guys.
I would certainly never suggest that any lesbian should be ashamed of her sexual preference.
Readers are what it's all about, aren't they? If not, why am I writing?
It seemed to me... that the only valid people to deal with crime were cops, and I would like to make the lead character, rather than a single person, a squad of cops.
I have a book coming out in September, for example, where the plot concerns counterfeiting, and I had to do a lot of research on that. Or on any legal matters, for example, I have to do a lot of research online.
I never take ideas from the headlines. I feel that if a story is good enough, a real story that is, then it's already been covered by the media, and if it's not good enough, why would I want to bother with it?
I wanted to be an artist. I was studying art. I wanted to be a great painter. When I went into the Navy, there wasn't much to draw at sea. So I began writing, and I began reading a lot.
I try to keep all my novels in print. Sometimes publishers don't agree with me as to their worth.
I would like to win the Pulitzer Prize. I would like to win the Nobel Prize. I would like to win a Tony award for the Broadway musical I'm now working on. Aside from these, my aspirations are modest ones.
My first wife kept calling me Sal, and I finally said to her, 'Why do you think I changed my name, honey? I really didn't like the old name.'
