I Spend Eight Months Outlining

I've Often Said That There's No Such Thing As Writer's Block; The Problem Is Idea Block. When I Find Myself Frozen-whether I'm Working On A Brief Passage In A Novel Or Brainstorming About An Entire Book-it's Usually Because I'm Trying To Shoehorn An Idea Into The Passage Or Story Where It Has No Place.

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 Outline Is 95 Percent Of The Book. Then I Sit Down And Write, And That's The Easy Part.

I Write Pretty Much Anywhere - On Planes, In Hotel Rooms, Anywhere In My House.

Ideally, I Like To Integrate The Human Issues Into The Suspense Story Itself.