The Write Stuff

“Even paranoids have enemies” is a quote usually ascribed to Henry Kissinger, although some people claim Golda Meir said it to him when he accused the Israeli Prime Minister of being paranoid about her Arab neighbors. Personally, I like to think Henry stole it from Golda. I’ve always thought he was too sneaky for his (and our) own good. But whoever said it, the quote could be a motto for thriller writers. At the very least, it could be my motto. I’ve written about where I get my ideas for my thrillers, which basically explain how I get them. I noted that some ideas – reworked, of course – come from old movies (thank you, Turner Classic Movies); many from current events, and even some from dreams, when I can remember them. I used to keep a pad next to my bed to jot down notes of what I can recall when I wake up; most of such scribblings I quickly destroy, lest they appear in a future commitment hearing. Now, I keep my iPhone handy, and usually email myself a note. (Thus, no d...

In a spate of articles, various publishing “experts” have questioned the growth of e-books. They suggest that traditional printed books were making a comeback at the expense of Amazon, which dominates the e-book landscape. They also claim that the increasing numbers of small, independent bookstores is a sure sign that the e-book revolution is slowing. They quote booksellers and readers who said they preferred the feel of printed books. (I don’t doubt that; I have several e-book readers, but still also enjoy reading the printed page.) Their arguments are flawed, because the folks who wrote them only looked at the sales of the e-book versions of books also published in print . Those e-book sales may indeed be slipping, most likely because the so-called “legacy” publishers are keeping their prices relatively high. For example, take a novel selling at Barnes & Noble for $17.13 in hardcover and $14.99 as an e-book. For what amounts to a $2 difference, many people might indeed opt...

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” I have this quote, from Eugène Ionesco, prominently displayed on my website. It’s also taped to my work desk at home, where it shares space with several hundred other notes and jottings I consider absolutely crucial, such as lists of groceries I was supposed to buy but didn’t. Which explains why dinner tonight will be leftover pizza. Ionesco was an avant-garde Romanian playwright and must have been a bit of a strange bird. In Romania, the official language is, not surprisingly, Romanian. According to Wikipedia, the country’s other spoken languages include Hungarian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Slovak, Romani, Ukrainian, and German. Ionesco wrote in French, perhaps because the French came up with the phrase “avant-garde”. In any event, I think he is spot on with the quote in whatever language he wrote it. I cannot remember a day when I didn’t ...