Someone just sent me this link to a Q&A interview I did some time ago with Soho Noir. I missed it when it originally went online. Here’s an excerpt:
What inspires your writing, where do your ideas come from?
When I was a kid, what inspired me was the sheer pleasure of writing and living in my dreams. Now my inspiration is equally driven by fear…the terror of not being able to pay my bills. My ideas can come from anywhere…an article in the newspaper, an overheard conversation, a "what-if" thought while driving in my car, a life experience. I never seem to be at a loss for ideas…it’s the details that kill me.
Novelist, scriptwriter, producer, you have been very successful at all three, and we are interested to know if you have a preference. If you had to choose between the three which one would it be?
If I could make the same amount of money writing books as I do from writing/producing TV shows, I could see walking away from screenwriting. I love TV, but the politics you have to deal with and the games you have to play can be exhausting and infuriating. On the other hand, being a novelist is a solitary pursuit and in television, you’re surrounded by enormously creative people and it’s inspiring.
There is a lot of fun in your work, is it difficult mixing crime with humour and why put the two together?
I can’t imagine writing anything without humor. There’s always something funny in every situation, it’s the balance that’s hard. But I find that humor is often what humanizes a character and makes the unbelievable believable.
