It's impossible for me to disentangle how much of my storytelling urge is the product of growing up with novelist parents and how much is a genetic legacy from those same parents.
It's always been a struggle to differentiate myself, but I like my parents. I enjoy doing events with them, and I don't feel I should purposely avoid something just for the sake of being different.
I used to live in New York, and I know a number of people who have friends who work at galleries. I spent time hanging out with them, going to openings. It was a good way to do research, to hang out and to look at the art that was present.
Crime novels have a clear beginning, middle, and end: a mystery, its investigation, and its resolution. The reader expects events to play out logically and efficiently, and these expectations force the writer to spend a good deal of time working on macrostructure rather than prettifying individual sentences.
Being a member of the Nintendo generation, I've got a really short attention span.
I had some trepidation about working with someone else, especially a family member. You don't want work to affect your personal relationship.
Writing is just something I've always done. It's just kind of the reality of who I am.
The final product in a play is not just the written word. It's the production, the performance. The script is, of course, a very important piece; but it's only one element. Ultimately, yours is one of several voices. People can change your work in a play for better or worse.
People are interested in writing, and often there's an unjustifiable sense of people to believe my talking to them for the book is going to accord them any sort of fame. Which it won't. At the same time, they can be more circumspect if they know they're on the record.
The most important lesson my parents taught me is that writing is a job, one that requires discipline and commitment. Most of the time it's a fun job, a wonderful job, but sometimes it isn't, and those are the days that test you.