'The Chosen,' if you recall, was based on the Chaim Potok novel and featured Robbie Benson's persuasive performance as a Hasidic Jew.
Six years after I wrote the first draft of 'Plan B,' I received my first paycheck as a writer. It included both the $3,000 in deferred option money as well as half the fee for performing the initial rewrite. The amount was scale according to the Writer's Guild guidelines, but a lot, according to me.
The sense of not knowing where I came from let me be as smart as I wanted to be.
People transform in some ways, and they remain exactly the same in others. Often, the thing you'd like to change the most about yourself is where you will forever remain stuck.
I wouldn't say that my family is normal.
I could never really choose a favorite book, but whenever I'm asked what my favorite movie is, I always say 'Withnail & I,' a British film from 1987. It's funny and sad and absolutely gorgeous to look at. It's the film I can watch over and over again.
I was on a few surveillance jobs as part of a big team. I would be the person to follow the subject on foot when the need arose. But most of the time, we were sitting in a car doing nothing.
I am a huge Mel Brooks fan. And I do think that not seeing his canon of classics is a bit criminal or clueless.
I was young, maybe 4, when I learned where babies came from.
When I was 6, I learned where I came from, which was one step removed from the usual circumstances. I was adopted.
I didn't feel a strong bond with the parents who raised me, and I had anything but a happy childhood. My mother was overly sensitive; my father, ascetic. I was neither. I felt as if I were living with complete strangers. I suspect that my parents felt the same way.
Humor is the only way to tell a story. Especially the dark ones.
I've got no business giving advice to anyone. Even a fictional character.
While I had no intention of ending the series after 'The Spellmans Strike Again,' I did close many doors in that book and, with the fifth one, I was opening a lot of doors and not finding anything behind them and then opening another door and another until I found something. It was a while before I found my stride.
I loved writing the Spellman novels, but I never had any plan to only write in one genre.
I tend to start books with a very broad outline, but I always leave room for happy accidents. With 'The Passenger,' there were perhaps too many of those.
I don't feel like I'm a writer who works under any influence.
There's no reason why a writer shouldn't explore and use different genres.
You can't be suspicious 24/7. It's too exhausting.
If you're trying to hide, avoid using your own name. Have a couple spares that you can pull out of your pocket anytime, the more thoroughly documented the better.
