I write pretty much anywhere - on planes, in hotel rooms, anywhere in my house.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

For me a thriller is a very carefully structured story.

It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block.

Trying to write books with a subject matter or in a genre or style you're not familiar with is the best way to find the Big Block looming.

My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.

I write pretty much anywhere - on planes, in hotel rooms, anywhere in my house.

To answer that I have to describe what I think is my responsibility as a thriller writer: To give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of.

When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level.

Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise.

The recent fascination, I think, reflects the shift in approach by law enforcement officials to embrace technology as wholeheartedly as the rest of the world.

Of course, I write crime stories, and I have to describe violence and the aftermath of violence.

When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.

Hardcover books are fairly expensive these days and to read one requires a significant commitment of time in our busy society. So I want to make sure that when readers buy one of my books they get something they're familiar with.

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire.

I spend about eight months researching and outlining my book.

Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.

Ideally, I like to integrate the human issues into the suspense story itself.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

I was editor of my high school literary magazine and a reporter for the school newspaper.

The easy answer is that writing novels is a lot more fun than practicing law.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.

Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

I liked the challenge of writing in a very concise structure in which both meaning and form are important.

Rule one: Write about settings you're familiar with.

If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say.

I've always written, all my life, and when I was very young I developed an interest in poetry.

I also try very hard to create characters - both heroes and villains - with psychological depth.

In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures.

I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

So the guy that we're really targeting our system at this year is one of the guys who brought a 16bit system three or four years ago and has pretty much had it with that, and he's ready to buy something new.

Grissom is pretty asexual. He's not that interested in anything other than work - except for Lady Heather. She's the closest to getting his heart of anyone.

The student body was huge at UT and you had to mature pretty quick, very quick actually. I enjoyed it and it helped me a lot in my life in general - not only in the classroom but on the baseball field as well.

It was pretty extensive - we worked out 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, which I think is more than anybody in the Olympics. I thought well I don't need this, the girls need it, but it was a gift.

Will Arnett is one of the funniest guys I know. He has seen it all and done it all and come out the other end pretty savvy and pretty strong.

I was pretty taken with Patti Smith, she was my heroine.

A lot of people have gotten into comedy because of certain influences in their lives or events that were painful, and I really have wracked my brain to figure it out. I pretty much have had a normal childhood. Maybe it was too normal.

When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. We got 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, although those three electoral votes turned out to be pretty important last time around.

In the past I've made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can't really hate them. You can discard them, but you can't really hate them.

It's pretty simple, pretty obvious: that people's first impressions of people are really a big mistake.

I felt pretty comfortable with Westerns, apart from the fact I couldn't ride.