I don't know how the editors are going to take it or how it may be received. But to some extent I'm hoping that with the next book, when people pick it up and read it, it will scare the pants off of them.

I can't tell you how hard I worked the last year. In fact, I worked so hard that I know I can't maintain that same work level in 2001, so I've got to quit something.

I'm real bent on dialogue. I'm just a little bit crazy and when you put that along with 20 years as a criminal lawyer, it's pretty easy to come up with some interesting plots.

The law has no compassion. And justice is administered without compassion.

I suppose that one of the reasons I wrote "In Contempt" was because of the money. After the trial I came to realize that there were things that I needed to do if I was to protect myself and my family, so there were some selfish reasons for it.

I chose to go to law school because I thought that someday, somehow I'd make a difference.

That's the thing about us lawyers - if at all possible, we will consume each other.

It would have been easier to have a male protagonist, but I didn't want people to assume that Nikki Hill was me in her entirety because a lot of people just don't like me and I don't think they would be interested in reading about me, even in the fictional context.

The events of the day inspired me to become a lawyer.

In some ways I'm still recovering from the trial. My health is not as good as it ought to be. I've gone back to practicing law and it seems to have taken a toll for whatever reason.

I no longer teach law. But when I did I advised my students that they should never accept a case if it meant that by doing so you couldn't sleep at night.

I think it hurt my performance because I stopped being me. That won't ever happen again.

I began writing in the 4th grade. As a matter of fact, I produced a play for the entire school. It was about Leif Ericson and the discovery of America.

Writing is hard work, but a lot of fun, too. It allows me to live out some of my fantasies.

It's too late for that - trying to second guess it. It's over. I'm worried about how to get the kids through school and still write and practice law and take power of attorney.

It's much like writing a screenplay with someone else and that's how we view it, I think.

All I can really say is it's bloodier than hell. In this one I'm going to be much more direct and honest in my description of the actual killings and the crime scene.

I don't know how the editors are going to take it or how it may be received. But to some extent I'm hoping that with the next book, when people pick it up and read it, it will scare the pants off of them.

I did not think that I was angry, but clearly anger was reflected in my writing. I did not think that I had been affected emotionally, but it was clear from my writing that I was still very emotional about the trial some six months after it ended.

That's an interesting question. I would say that in general Americans know very little about the law. It's one of those things that most of us take for granted.

I think that the mere fact that I'm doing it ought to inspire someone. In junior high school the counselor suggested that I focus on wood shop and metal shop.

Something's going to happen that's going to make us all pay attention at the type of sentences some people are serving and the conditions in which they are served.

I just did something on a show on UPN called "Girlfriends" that will be on television in February. I am actually a much better actor today than I was in 1996, believe it or not.

I think that as I continue to write, my writing I hope will become more controversial and more provocative.

I am a struggling writer. A middle-aged man with two little kids and I'm just trying to earn a living. So buy this book - or my kids will have to go to foster care.

It did not prepare me for writing or "Power of Attorney." However, what it did is that it forced me out of the DA's office. I stopped getting that county check.

In fact, some reviewers have said that as they got into the story they forgot that the protagonist is a black woman. They were moved by the story - by the people as a whole - and not by the little things.

I just did something on a show on UPN called 'Girlfriends' that will be on television in February. I am actually a much better actor today than I was in 1996, believe it or not.

I suppose that one of the reasons I wrote 'In Contempt' was because of the money. After the trial I came to realize that there were things that I needed to do if I was to protect myself and my family, so there were some selfish reasons for it.

It did not prepare me for writing or 'Power of Attorney.' However, what it did is that it forced me out of the DA's office. I stopped getting that county check.

Honestly, I expected to get a cold reception because of my subject matter. But when editors took a look at the story I had to tell, and saw that this was not a parochial story at all, they really warmed to it.

I think that they had afforded me many opportunities to do good work there, and I think I did. It was a wonderful four years. I really worked with some great people, terrific producers, terrific editors.

So I went out and bought myself a copy of the Writer and Artist Yearbook, bought lots of magazines and got on the phone and talked to editors about ideas for stories. Pretty soon I found myself hired to do interviews and articles and went off and did them.

If it were not for the fact that editors have become so timorous in these politically correct times, I would probably have a greater readership than I have.

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into.

There are plenty of bad editors who try to impose their own vision on a book.

Writers would submit scripts to me, and if I liked one well enough to submit to magazine editors, I had the know-how whether the story was good or bad.

I wrote poems in my corner of the Brooks Street station. I sent them to two editors who rejected them right off. I read those letters of rejection years later and I agreed with those editors.

If there had been three public editors before me, the body might have absorbed it a little bit better.

The Bush administration works closely with a network of rapid response digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for 'undermining support for our troops.'

Editors of open anthologies actively seek submissions from all comers, established and unknown. They are willing to read whatever the tide washes up at their feet.

The first version of The Beautiful Room Is Empty was the first mss. I'd ever submitted to New York editors.

And I remember that the editors wanted to have a witness to say that this was really the case, because it was a very sharp picture of the just the face, the head of the fetus inside the womb.

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all "bottom line" editors; everything depends on the money.

You're at the mercy of the editors' hands.

Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but I've gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.

There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.

I've had editors over the years who couldn't find a clue if it was stapled to their butt.