Virgil Flowers fishes in the St. Croix where I fish for muskies near my house.
The difference is this: If you write a good book, it'll get published. If you have a great screenplay, there is no guarantee.
Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations.
I have a problem with the way the media deals with a lot of law enforcement issues.
A lot of journalists are talented enough to write a mystery novel, and I would say that most of the top-end mystery writers actually started out as reporters. But there is more to it than just the writing; there's a learning process, and most journalists aren't willing to do it.
Books set in Brooklyn and L.A. are often about people who are rootless, who want to go somewhere else. In the Midwest, though, the stories are about people who want to stay where they are - who like where they are.
Most people in protest mobs are pretty sincere and don't want to fight cops or break things.
I'm an outdoors kind of guy.
If you do outline, you have to be aware of the problems that that kind of thing can cause.
My kids, who are grown now and living in L.A., are used to me packing up and taking off to somewhere weird.
A lot of my friends were retiring from the newspaper business, and the newspaper pensions are not enormous.
You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life.
