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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is writer Michael Connelly. Michael, Hey, how

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Speaker 1: are you? Thanks for having me on your show. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so where are you right now? I'm in Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: on lockdown, hunkered down status, whatever you want to call it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So you're living in Los Angeles now? Yeah? Yeah, okay.

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Speaker 1: So how's the self quarantining working for you? Well, I

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Speaker 1: can't complain because I'm somebody who from most of my

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Speaker 1: life I've worked from home, you know, writing books and

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Speaker 1: solitude and uh, up until I got involved a TV show,

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Speaker 1: that was what my life is like. So this is

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Speaker 1: a bit of a throwback to the way I've been

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Speaker 1: for most of my um creative life. So are you writing?

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Speaker 1: What is filling your time these days? Well? It's interesting because, uh,

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Speaker 1: I raped very contemporary stories set in Los Angeles and

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Speaker 1: the um you know, the virus thing happens and you

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Speaker 1: don't know the end of it, so it's very hard

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Speaker 1: to be creative about it. And I was in the

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Speaker 1: middle of a Lincoln Lawyer book that was actually set

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Speaker 1: in April of this year, and that doesn't work anymore

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Speaker 1: so because I don't know what's gonna happen. So I

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Speaker 1: lost about a month and a half of creative quandary,

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Speaker 1: wasn't really doing much at all. And then I kind

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Speaker 1: of said, I'm going to back the book up started

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Speaker 1: in December instead of April, and bring it up into

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Speaker 1: the start of this virus and maybe reflect a little

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Speaker 1: bit on that um. And then I got going again

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Speaker 1: and I got some good momentum, and that's where I'm

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Speaker 1: at now. Now I'm now though, I'm I guess bothered

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Speaker 1: by the question of will people want to read about

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Speaker 1: this virus after we've all lived through it. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's not gonna be the main emphasis of my book,

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Speaker 1: but it's gonna be on the news, and the impending

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Speaker 1: plague coming is going to be part of it. You know.

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Speaker 1: I think that's over analyzing because I remember yesterday in

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Speaker 1: the New York Times they had Jury Seinfeld interview and

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Speaker 1: he taped his special before the coronavirus, and they're worried

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Speaker 1: about what people can handle. I think primarily people are

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Speaker 1: reading your books because they're fans of you, and then

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Speaker 1: they turn other people onto the books. Would you agree

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Speaker 1: with that? Well, that's the hope, you know, that's the

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Speaker 1: domino effect, you think. You hope it has, you know

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Speaker 1: that people read the book and spread the word about it. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do think that there's a part of this audience

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Speaker 1: that my audience, that's that's gonna go with me where

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Speaker 1: I go. And that's great to have. But you know,

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Speaker 1: these questions always kind of filter into your thinking anyway. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's let's when you do right, to what degree are

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Speaker 1: you thinking about the audience? Um? Not a whole lot.

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Speaker 1: I mean you do in general, you know, like um,

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Speaker 1: in terms of I try to be very as I said,

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Speaker 1: you were reflective of what's going on in the world,

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Speaker 1: and and that includes politics and so forth, and so

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Speaker 1: I you know, I wrote a book, for example, uh,

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Speaker 1: maybe a year ago I think it came out or

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Speaker 1: two years ago called uh, two kinds of Truth. I

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Speaker 1: think it was called It's Weird I'm having my own books.

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Speaker 1: But in that was was you know, a meditation on

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Speaker 1: what is truth then? And who should be telling the

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Speaker 1: truth no matter what? And this was at a time

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Speaker 1: where in politics people were constantly talking about is the

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Speaker 1: president lying as the president not lying? And and and

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Speaker 1: and it's and truth became a political issue and that

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Speaker 1: wasn't really what I wanted to put into the book,

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Speaker 1: but that's how people read it. And you know, so

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Speaker 1: you do get social media. Um, you get social media

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Speaker 1: return on what you do. I do as well, and

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Speaker 1: so it was interesting to see people take my meditation

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Speaker 1: on the truth and what it means in the wrong

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Speaker 1: way and take it through a political um uh strainer,

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Speaker 1: if you will, um and react negatively in a lot

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Speaker 1: of cases to my books and positively in other ways. Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess being specific about that, since you wrote about

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Speaker 1: truth and tomp Trump, I would assume the negative feedback

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Speaker 1: came from supporters of Trump, irrelevant of the misinterpretation. As

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Speaker 1: you move forward, are you anxious about alienating that part

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Speaker 1: of your audience. I would say earlier in my career,

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Speaker 1: I would have I would have had to have been.

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Speaker 1: But now I'm on the tail end of my career

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Speaker 1: and I have a I don't care type of attitude

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Speaker 1: towards that. But I but definitely, early in your career,

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Speaker 1: you know you're trying to sustain a career, and you

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Speaker 1: just sustain it through readership and growing readership. So don't

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Speaker 1: do anything that might dampen that readership. I mean I

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Speaker 1: write about law and order. These are things that normally

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Speaker 1: skew towards conservatives, and so there's a big population of

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Speaker 1: conservatives I believe that read my books. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: this is all anecdotal. This is not anything I can

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Speaker 1: say that we've done studies or anything like that. We're

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Speaker 1: not that sophisticated in the publishing business. Um. But I

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Speaker 1: was more aware of it back then that I was

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Speaker 1: in the last decade or so of my career. And

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Speaker 1: that's why something like this could happen. That I just

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Speaker 1: put something in there that, um, you know, I think

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Speaker 1: the line was even president's lie, president's plural, and that

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Speaker 1: really set some people off, even the president. Sometimes president

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Speaker 1: must have to stand naked, as Bob Dylan said. But

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Speaker 1: I'm interested. I'm just a couple of years older than you.

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Speaker 1: Do you think your attitude changed about this when you

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Speaker 1: turned sixty. You're a few years past sixty. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if I would. Uh, I didn't have like a

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Speaker 1: big sixties moment. I think I had more one when

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Speaker 1: I was fifty turned fifty about being on the You know,

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Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm thinking about you're walking up a

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Speaker 1: roof and at some point you hit the top of

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Speaker 1: the riff and you're going down and it's and it's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be easier, although it really isn't. Um that

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Speaker 1: happened to me when I was fifty. Um, sixty kind

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Speaker 1: of came and went from me. So I don't think

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Speaker 1: that that had that kind of effect on me. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm the reverse fifty was a breeze. Sixty I'm still

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Speaker 1: trying to recover from. But uh, now, the whole landscape

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Speaker 1: of media has changed. As you've alluded to earlier, the

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Speaker 1: book business is rather archaic. But if you the only

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Speaker 1: person with universal mind share is Donald Trump, so what

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Speaker 1: do we know? You have an established audience, you still

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Speaker 1: have to make them aware of the fact that a

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Speaker 1: new book is coming out. But did you have any

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Speaker 1: dream of even further cultural penetration which is now frustrated

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Speaker 1: as a result of so many messages and it's hard

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Speaker 1: to get any worry out there? Um, I don't think so.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a pretty deep question. And you

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Speaker 1: know I can always retreat to, hey, I write mysteries,

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Speaker 1: but you know the reality is that's that's the front

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Speaker 1: of the book, and I wouldn't be doing this for

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Speaker 1: so long and it's such a every day applying my

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Speaker 1: trade level of it, if I didn't have at least

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Speaker 1: secret motivations to tell story of a higher meaning or

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Speaker 1: a higher connection or a higher residence. And you know

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Speaker 1: they again not going back to sixty, but a coincide

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Speaker 1: it kind of I'm like about to turn sixty four,

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Speaker 1: so kind of coincided with when I turned sixty. They're

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Speaker 1: the divisiveness that has entered the politics of our world

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Speaker 1: has spilled out into everything, and therefore it does become

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Speaker 1: um here, you know, writing a story about a guy

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Speaker 1: just trying to solve a murder in Los Angeles becomes

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Speaker 1: political without that being your intention. Um. And so that

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Speaker 1: you know, I probably haven't even answered your question. I've

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Speaker 1: going off on a tangent here, but said something. You

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Speaker 1: said you had goals. I guess let me make it

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Speaker 1: more to the point. I believe when someone is an artist,

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Speaker 1: and you're an artist, your main goal is to reach

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Speaker 1: as many people as you can with your message. Of course,

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Speaker 1: you want to be remunerated, but you want to reach

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Speaker 1: as many people. That is inherently difficult for everybody. So

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Speaker 1: was that part of your dream or did you reach

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Speaker 1: an establish your audience a million books per book, and

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Speaker 1: that was satiating. Oh, I see what you're saying. No,

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Speaker 1: And I don't think I'd ever be satiated. And I

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Speaker 1: wish I could get to that level of a million

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Speaker 1: uh readers a book. I don't think I'm there, but

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Speaker 1: um there maybe in a list of libraries are doing

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Speaker 1: a lot of work for me that I'm there. But

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Speaker 1: um yeah, I mean I think you know. And and

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Speaker 1: it's not like I'm trying to be high salutin or

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Speaker 1: uh you know, didactic of anybody. I'm not trying to

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Speaker 1: tell anyone how to think. I'm trying to write about.

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Speaker 1: For the most part, let's just talk about Harry Bosh.

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Speaker 1: He's the guy who's the through line of my creative life.

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Speaker 1: Um started with him and hopefully will end with him,

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Speaker 1: whenever that is. And I just think he sets an

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Speaker 1: example of fairness. You know, everybody counts or nobody counts.

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Speaker 1: That's his message, and that would be my message. And

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Speaker 1: that's that's pretty simple, and that's and you'd think it

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Speaker 1: was something that would have universal agreement, but it turns

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Speaker 1: out it doesn't. Um, there's the politicalness in that statement.

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Speaker 1: Everybody counts. M nobody counts, um, you know, and and

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Speaker 1: so that kind of has infected That's probably too strong word,

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Speaker 1: but that's kind of infiltrated into my thinking and into

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Speaker 1: my work and how and how it's responded to. And

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Speaker 1: you know that's something I, you know, really can't control. Okay,

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Speaker 1: someone like you with a profile, you a lot of

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Speaker 1: opportunities to, let's just say, hang out with the people

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Speaker 1: on the other side of fairness. Are you more of

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Speaker 1: an introvert or do you uh take the opportunities to

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Speaker 1: go to parties, to go to yachts, to hang out

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Speaker 1: with some of these household named people. I'm definitely, I

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Speaker 1: mean it goes to that question about how my faring

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Speaker 1: with the lockdown. Um, I'm definitely an introvert. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: it's just a weird contradiction because I think most writers

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Speaker 1: are You're comfortable being in your own little world. You know.

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Speaker 1: My little world is my laptop and what I put

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Speaker 1: into it, and then I send it out into the world.

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Speaker 1: And so once a year, usually for about four weeks,

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Speaker 1: I have a book come out, and I'm supposed to

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Speaker 1: be the opposite of that. I'm supposed to be out there. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, touring talking about this being on podcasts that

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Speaker 1: are very cool and so forth, and um, that's not

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Speaker 1: really my lifestyle. Um so I don't, you know, to

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Speaker 1: use your examples parties and and things like that. I

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Speaker 1: don't do a lot of that. I am lucky in

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Speaker 1: that my books have um connected with some people that

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Speaker 1: are well known and culturally important, and um, I've been

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Speaker 1: invited to meet with them and things like that. And

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's that's been, you know, pretty amazing that

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Speaker 1: that I'm drilling down on the fair in his thing.

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Speaker 1: Obviously we're talking to coronavirus era and David Geffen posted

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Speaker 1: on Instagram that he was self quarantining on his yacht. Now,

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Speaker 1: he's well known for choosing people to come hang on

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Speaker 1: his yacht. So if somebody chose, somebody invited you, whomever

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Speaker 1: it is, to come stay on their three d FT yacht,

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Speaker 1: would you say wow, great opportunity, or in the back

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Speaker 1: of your brain say well is this fair? Should I

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Speaker 1: be doing this? I see what you mean. Well, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's uh, at first of all, that's never happened

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Speaker 1: to me, but um, well they must have the private

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Speaker 1: jet example where someone is saying, hey, I'm going here,

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Speaker 1: come ride with me, or let's go for the weekend somewhere.

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Speaker 1: I think you're giving me more social and cultural importance

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Speaker 1: that I deserve because that that hasn't really happened to

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Speaker 1: me either. But um, you know I I I think of, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, different gatherings that I've been invited to, like

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Speaker 1: intellectual or cultural gatherings that I've been invited to, and

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Speaker 1: I actually find that my introverted nature comes out of

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Speaker 1: these things and I don't contribute in a fair way

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Speaker 1: to to the ideas being exchanged and so forth. So

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Speaker 1: usually those kind of invites a short lived I don't

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Speaker 1: get invited to the next one, you know, that type

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Speaker 1: of thing. Um, but I enjoy being there when I can. Well,

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Speaker 1: the interesting thing is you're very articulate and you have

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Speaker 1: no problem speaking. Many introverts I was just stroying the

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Speaker 1: Times about this the other day, once they can be

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Speaker 1: dragged to the situation, all of a sudden, they light up.

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Speaker 1: Does that happen to you? Or you're anxious and you're

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Speaker 1: still anxious when you're there a little bit of both. Um,

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Speaker 1: It's funny you start with the idea that you're an

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Speaker 1: introvert you're You're fine being in your room by yourself.

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Speaker 1: But I'm a storyteller, and there's something very egotistical about

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Speaker 1: announcing that you're a storyteller and that you're going to

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Speaker 1: write books, because that means you think your book should

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Speaker 1: be read and they should be translated into movies and

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Speaker 1: in the TV shows and everyone in the world should

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Speaker 1: know your stories. That is not an introverted um view

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Speaker 1: of the world. Um, And I can I can kind

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Speaker 1: of knock it down to to something that's happened to

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Speaker 1: me in recent years, and that is part you know,

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Speaker 1: it's that roof again. For part of my career, I

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Speaker 1: was going walking up the roof are I was climbing

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Speaker 1: up the roof, trying to get established, trying to get

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Speaker 1: more readers, trying to get more attention. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: I did like forty city book tours and things like that.

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Speaker 1: And in each of these things, you you stand up

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Speaker 1: and you you explain yourself, and it's a speech, and

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Speaker 1: it would weigh heavy on me coming up of what

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Speaker 1: I would say. I didn't like the idea of doing

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Speaker 1: it by road and saying the exact same thing, right

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Speaker 1: down to the little side jokes. Every every night. I

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Speaker 1: just don't do that, And so I would be trying

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Speaker 1: to tailor every night a new discussion that centered around

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Speaker 1: the same thing for sure, um And it just was

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Speaker 1: so hard and it was so debilitating that at some point,

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Speaker 1: when I passed the crest of the roof and was

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Speaker 1: on the downside, I said, I'm not doing any more speeches.

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Speaker 1: I told my publicists and so forth in my publisher

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Speaker 1: I'm not doing any more speeches because it's not just

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Speaker 1: the thirty minutes that you're giving that speech, it's the

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Speaker 1: days leading up to it, thinking about that speech and

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Speaker 1: worrying about it and and and it takes away from

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Speaker 1: what I do, and that is writing my book. So

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Speaker 1: I stopped doing that, and I said, anytime someone wants

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Speaker 1: me to be on the stage, put someone with me,

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Speaker 1: and let's do a Q and A. That's how I

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Speaker 1: do it, exactly. And and and what happens is that you

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Speaker 1: go on and on and everything, like right now, every

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Speaker 1: answer becomes a speech. But because you were asked the question,

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Speaker 1: there's some kind of of a social acceptance and being

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Speaker 1: asked the question that you can just go on and

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Speaker 1: on and and and you know, keep talking. And I

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Speaker 1: think it's more interesting that way. I think it was.

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Speaker 1: It was one of those things like, Man, I can't

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Speaker 1: believe for fifteen or twenty years, I had to work

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Speaker 1: on all these speeches all the time, when when the

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Speaker 1: people who are in attendance are the people who are listening.

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Speaker 1: Got much better insight into who I am and what

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Speaker 1: I do and what my characters are about. When I

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Speaker 1: answer questions as opposed to just, you know, trying to

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Speaker 1: pontificate with a speech, well, as I say, I totally resonate.

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Speaker 1: And I felt good about it because I once interviewed

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Speaker 1: Michael Lewis uh and it was the same thing. He

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Speaker 1: has a question. I can make up my own questions,

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Speaker 1: but you don't have to cogitate and speak at the

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Speaker 1: same time. It's much different when you can just answer

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Speaker 1: the question. You can go down your nooks and cranny,

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Speaker 1: but if you're speaking, you're saying where you're going. Let's

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Speaker 1: go back to this issue with fairness. Okay, two things. One,

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Speaker 1: this is your personality in general to how do you

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Speaker 1: try to send the message such to change the world.

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Speaker 1: I think it does come out of my personality because

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Speaker 1: it comes out of my you know, growing up and

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Speaker 1: I had a big family, and then there's always fairness issues,

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Speaker 1: like with six kids, and my parents had this. So

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Speaker 1: it's not something I've originated. It's just something that was

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Speaker 1: bred into me by my parents and my brothers and sisters.

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Speaker 1: And so I've tried to, you know, uh, put it

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Speaker 1: into my books and and I just you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: not trying to change the world, as you say, um Forthfully,

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Speaker 1: I put the message in people in my books who

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Speaker 1: are very to my to my this is my take,

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Speaker 1: and you know I'm not saying it I'm right. I'm

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Speaker 1: just saying this is what I think. I think the

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Speaker 1: characters I've about face long odds and what they're doing,

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Speaker 1: they face difficulty, and most often they have to they

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Speaker 1: come to a point where they have to make a

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Speaker 1: choice to do the right thing at great expense to

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Speaker 1: themselves and those they love. And that's like the noble

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Speaker 1: moment of of every book. And and that's where the

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Speaker 1: fairness comes from. So I'm not trying to announce to

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Speaker 1: the world everybody counts, but nobody counts. I'm just writing

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Speaker 1: about a guy who has that at his core, and

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Speaker 1: hopefully that message comes across and um and it wins

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Speaker 1: people over or people take it as a social cue

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Speaker 1: or take it like, hey, I want to be like that. Um,

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Speaker 1: I want to I want to be uh noble too.

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Speaker 1: And you know, that's just a little ripple. It's a

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Speaker 1: pebble in the in the lake. And maybe the rings

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Speaker 1: go out and change some same lives and and in

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Speaker 1: a way, maybe that helps change the world. Um, so

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Speaker 1: you're talking about now you're on the downward slope. I

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Speaker 1: won't give it a negative connotation, but speak to your

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Speaker 1: motivation to continue to write books. I'm just the luckiest

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Speaker 1: guy I know. I mean, I have this facility to

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Speaker 1: do this in the first place, which you know, there's

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Speaker 1: there's a part of it is learned and part of

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Speaker 1: it is practiced, but a lot of it is just

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Speaker 1: mystical and it just has happened, and um, I can't.

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Speaker 1: You know, I have to treasure that. I have to

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Speaker 1: nurture it. I had to take care of it. And

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Speaker 1: that means writing every day. That's I mean, that's my answer.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I got to write every day. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So hypothetically, if you wrote and you knew no one

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Speaker 1: would read it, would you still write? I think I

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Speaker 1: would because that's how it started. For me, I wrote,

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Speaker 1: you know, my first book was published when I was

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Speaker 1: thirty five, but I've been writing for myself and at

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Speaker 1: night and learn. I mean part of it as a

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Speaker 1: learning experience, obviously, but but I was having great fulfillment

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Speaker 1: doing it. And you know, I wrote two books that

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Speaker 1: I didn't think we're good enough, and no one has

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Speaker 1: ever read other than myself. And I love those books

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Speaker 1: because the second one was way better than the first,

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Speaker 1: and so I could see myself getting better. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I think at some point you'd finally get swallowed by

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Speaker 1: like the feelings of fruitlessness and in it. And I

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Speaker 1: didn't have that, luckily. But it was a long time

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Speaker 1: from the point, you know, I said, hey, I want

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Speaker 1: to write novels. I want to and very specifically, I

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Speaker 1: said to myself and my parents, I want to write

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Speaker 1: crime fiction. That's what speaks to me. And it was

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Speaker 1: like almost twenty years later before I was holding a

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Speaker 1: book that I that, you know, a real book that

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Speaker 1: was that was getting published. Um, And so that was

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Speaker 1: a long time. But I don't look at it as like, Wow,

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Speaker 1: what a long journey, what a difficult up up slope

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Speaker 1: or whatever you wanna call it. It was. It was

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Speaker 1: a fun time because I didn't know anything about the

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Speaker 1: world of wishing, and I didn't know about the pressures

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Speaker 1: and and other things that would come once I did

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Speaker 1: get published. So I don't know. It's one of those

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Speaker 1: answers where I say, yes, I would still be doing

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Speaker 1: it for myself. But I think most people listening to

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Speaker 1: this would go like, yeah, right, Well, let's go back

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Speaker 1: to the beginning. There are how many kids in your family?

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Speaker 1: Six including me? And where are you in the hierarchy? Um? Second, um,

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Speaker 1: the oldest boy. Okay, so you got a little because

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Speaker 1: normally the oldest gets all the attention. Uh. This goes

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Speaker 1: back to our earlier topic in terms of feedback. But

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Speaker 1: in the world we live in, yes, the world we

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Speaker 1: grew up in, there was more attention towards the mail.

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Speaker 1: So to what degree were you the fair haired boy?

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Speaker 1: Was there attention on you? Um? I think my parents

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Speaker 1: were pretty equal and and um and delving out the

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Speaker 1: pats on the head and so forth. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think I was a fair haired boy. Um. But the

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Speaker 1: way it went was my sister was born, and then

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Speaker 1: three boys, and then two girls, and so the three

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Speaker 1: boys were I think we're five total five years apart.

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Speaker 1: All together, we were born in a five year period,

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Speaker 1: and so we've always been close and we always did

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Speaker 1: things together, like you know, with our father, we had

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Speaker 1: a natural golf force on them, for example, and we

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Speaker 1: would all go golfing and things like that. So I

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Speaker 1: think there was you know, my brothers would be first

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Speaker 1: say yeah, I was a favorite. I think there wasn't one. Okay,

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Speaker 1: now there's been a lot of documentation. Uh, there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of children and Mormon families, and the Mormons

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Speaker 1: tend to win the reality shows the people from Utah

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Speaker 1: because they can get along. So growing up with five siblings,

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Speaker 1: are you the kind of guy who's an iconic lass

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Speaker 1: or you can get along? No, I think I can

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Speaker 1: definitely get along. I mean, I don't know how rare

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Speaker 1: it is, but we're Uh, the six of us are

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Speaker 1: all still live. I think the six of us was

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Speaker 1: you know, Irish Catholic family. So I think all six

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Speaker 1: of us were born in less than ten years. And uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, we get together all the time. Uh, we

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Speaker 1: have traditional get togethers at Thanksgiving and at least another

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Speaker 1: time during the year and still a very close knit family.

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Speaker 1: Even though we're far flung in six different states. That's

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Speaker 1: kind of funny. Okay, so you're born where Philadelphia and

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Speaker 1: then you at what age you moved to Florida. I

401
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Speaker 1: was twelve and we moved to South Florida. Okay, we're

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Speaker 1: in South Florida, Fort Lauderdale. Okay, did you go to

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Speaker 1: the Inankee training gamps? I did? I remember they moved

404
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Speaker 1: to Fort Lauderdale. That was a big deal. Yeah, I, Um,

405
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 1: I actually worked. I mean it's kind of tied up

406
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Speaker 1: into my life as a writer too. I worked at

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Speaker 1: a hotel on the beach and Fort Lauderdale, and that's

408
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Speaker 1: where the Yankees stayed. And um, you know, they would

409
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Speaker 1: lock off the elevator. They had two floors. But I

410
00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 1: was somebody who delivered towels to the floors and all

411
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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff for housekeeping, and I had interactions

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Speaker 1: with several of them and they would give me tickets.

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Speaker 1: Um at that time, there's no pro no MLB in

414
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Speaker 1: in um Florida like they have now. But um so

415
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Speaker 1: that was the baseball game in town to go see

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Speaker 1: the Yankees. And so even though I'm from Philadelphia have

417
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: uh don't really have a connection to New York. The Yankees.

418
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Speaker 1: Um where my favorite team for most of my life.

419
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Speaker 1: They were always my favorite team. And I grew up

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Speaker 1: in the mirrors mantel years and even then when they

421
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Speaker 1: were shitty. But once Steinbnner came in and they were

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Speaker 1: winning and everybody became a Yankee fan. Maybe that's my

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Speaker 1: personality kind of turned me off a little bit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they weren't uh that those days they had like um,

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Speaker 1: Reggie and I remember like Lupinel gave me a lot

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00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: of tickets to games and stuff like that. Um, when

427
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: I was working at that hotel. Okay, so you're growing

428
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:01,919
Speaker 1: up and your father is doing what Uh he's always

429
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: he was always kind of involved in development and Um

430
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 1: he went from building houses in Pennsylvania, designing and building

431
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: houses to like being a realtor for a little while

432
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 1: in South Florida to working for a huge development company

433
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: where he put together shopping centers, helped lease the shopping centers,

434
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: helped design shopping centers. Uh. So he was kind of

435
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 1: like all over the place in terms of real estate

436
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: and development. And was that you know, if you go

437
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:35,400
Speaker 1: on Wikipedia, because a lot of this stuff is available,

438
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: said of Gainesville, you studied that. Yeah, I went up

439
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: to UM, the University of Florida. UM. I worked summers

440
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: for my father's companies and so forth, going all the

441
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,800
Speaker 1: way back to when I was twelve and eleven in Pennsylvania,

442
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: and uh, I just thought i'd What I liked about

443
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 1: him is he would design a lot of his stuff,

444
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: then he'd take it to an architect to get it,

445
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 1: you know, completely blueprinted and all that stuff, and then

446
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: he built it. And I liked the whole aspect of

447
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: doing all of that. So I went up there to

448
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: kind of following his footsteps. UM. They actually had a

449
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: major call Building Construction Sciences UM, and that's what I

450
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: was in for about a year. So I flunked out,

451
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:20,120
Speaker 1: literally flunked out. Yeah, yeah, definitely flunked out. I mean,

452
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: you know, they had a they had a class I

453
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: took called the Introduction to Concrete. That's a hard course,

454
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: as they say now believe believe it or not. There's

455
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: like seven different kinds and there's seven recipes and you

456
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 1: know how much error is in it all the you know,

457
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 1: it was really was a science and I wasn't prepared

458
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 1: for that. Um. You know, I just knew how to

459
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: you know, turn to things so that the concrete came

460
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 1: out and went into the form UM. So anyway, I

461
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 1: did a lot of stuff that kids do, um when

462
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: they first get away from home. And so I was

463
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 1: asked to take a year off. And what did your

464
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: parents say about that? They weren't be um but UM,

465
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: I had two little sisters, um, who were still like

466
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: in elementary school at that point, and so my punishment

467
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: was I had to get up every morning and get

468
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:13,719
Speaker 1: them to school, so they're gonna make sure I didn't like,

469
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 1: you know, stay up all night drinking and smoking or whatever,

470
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: and then sleep till noon. I had to get up

471
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: at seven every day to get my sisters to school.

472
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: And your your mother all day she was working in

473
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: the house or working outside the house. She it's hard

474
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: for me to remember exactly those years. She was a

475
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: bank teller through most of at least my high school years,

476
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to think if she was when I

477
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: came back for that year off. I did stay at home,

478
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: well forgetting that year. Who was watching the kids and

479
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:48,239
Speaker 1: she's working at the bank, or she just worked when

480
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: everybody was in school or what. Um. Back then, banks

481
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 1: were largely open when we nine to three, so she

482
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 1: had just nine to kind of eight thirty or three

483
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 1: thirty type job which kind of co side with school

484
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: school hours. My older sister, Susan really um was the

485
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: one who kind of ran things at home till my

486
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: parents got home. Um. But um, yeah, my the like

487
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: my remember I told you my three me and my

488
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 1: two brothers were kind of a triumvirate way and there

489
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: was like city parks and stuff that we would go

490
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: to together and you know, play sports and stuff like that.

491
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: So growing up, were you a big reader? Yeah? You know,

492
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: it doesn't appear. The appearances are not good. A guy

493
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: gets kicked out of school, he gets a job as

494
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: a dishwasher at night at a hotel, and then his

495
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: taking his sister to school and picking him up afterwards.

496
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: But I was voraciously reading that whole time, and that's

497
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 1: where I kind of formed the idea that, hey, I

498
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: want to try to do this. So even though on

499
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: paper it looks like probably one of the down years

500
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: or the worst years of my life, it was really

501
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: the best because I found my direct And Okay, how

502
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: much of a reader are you now? I still read

503
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: a lot, but I don't like Back then, I was

504
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,959
Speaker 1: reading crime fiction. I was looking for hard boiled stuff

505
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 1: and and really forming my likes in terms of a

506
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: crime fiction. And now I still read it because I

507
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: want to be aware of what's going on out there.

508
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: But I've been doing this for like thirty years, and

509
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: you can kind of see between the lines. You can

510
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:28,399
Speaker 1: see the writer back there and what they're doing. It's, um,

511
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like in the last seven years,

512
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: I've been involved in producing a TV show, and so

513
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 1: now when I watched TV with my family, I'll just say, like, man,

514
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: that costs a lot of money, that show. You they

515
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,479
Speaker 1: ruined it for you. Yeah, And I've I'm ruining it

516
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: from my family because they're telling me just I don't

517
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: really we don't really need to care, we don't really

518
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: need to know all that stuff. Just let's watch the show.

519
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: But that's that's how I became with crime fiction, and

520
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: so it's it's become it's not a totally is not

521
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: an escape for me anymore. Okay, but you write about

522
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: current events. Are you a voracious reader or reader at

523
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: all of periodicals or newspapers? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I have

524
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: several subscriptions, you know, Internet subscriptions to newspapers and magazines

525
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: and so forth and uh yeah, I mean part of

526
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: it is just wanting to know what's going on in

527
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: the world, but part of it is, yes, I'm looking

528
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: for something that um can somehow be folded into what

529
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: I'm doing, you know, just an offbeat story or uh,

530
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: you know anything. It's it's weird how different things will

531
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: inspire me, um and end up in books. How do

532
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: you decide to become to go back to school to

533
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: become a journalist? What's the whole process there? Well, that

534
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:53,239
Speaker 1: was just basically it. I had to sit down with

535
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: my I told my parents, I don't want to be

536
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be like Michael and my dad's name

537
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: is Michael to Michael con only and son, uh construction.

538
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go back and do that. I

539
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: want to go back and uh you know, uh pursue writing,

540
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: writing as a career, being a being a writer. And um,

541
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: my father was it was interesting. I didn't know this

542
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: at the time, but he was a frustrated artist. He

543
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: wanted to be a painter when he was my that

544
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: same age that I was going to him and saying

545
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: I want to be a writer. At that age in

546
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: his life, he wanted to be a painter, and he

547
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: had gotten into a prestigious school in Philadelphia to learn

548
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 1: how to paint and all that, but he had to

549
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: make a living and it didn't work out for him,

550
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: and he got back into painting many years later later

551
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: and later in his life. But when I kind of

552
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: very intimidated, I went to them and said, I don't

553
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 1: want to do I don't want to go back to

554
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: introduction to concrete. I want to learn how to write

555
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: and um, and yeah, I didn't even know whether I

556
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: should go back to school to learn how to write,

557
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: but that's what I said. And um, my father's idea

558
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: was to go back into and get go into the

559
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: journalism school. Because I was very specific with them, I

560
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: want to write crime fiction, crime novels. Uh, not just novels,

561
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: crime novels. And so his suggestion was, you know, go

562
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: be a newspaper reporter and that will hopefully get you into, um,

563
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: into situations and relationships with people that you want to

564
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: write about. You know, cops use your press pass to

565
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: get into police stations and crime scenes and things like that.

566
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: So I followed that suggestion and it turned out to

567
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: be pretty genius. Um, and I think I had to

568
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: go down that road to be in a position to

569
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: do what I'm doing now. So you graduate from college,

570
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: what's your first journalistic job? It wasn't that great, um,

571
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: because it doesn't really matter what your grades are or

572
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: anything in journalism or you know, in UM, your pedigree

573
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's what you can put on a paper,

574
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: can you write? And so I applied to jobs. I

575
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: didn't have very many clips. UM. I kind of worked

576
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: part time at the college newspaper, but they didn't pay anything,

577
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: and I had I was sending my I was paying

578
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: my way through college, so I had a real job.

579
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: So I ended up with not a lot of clips

580
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: compared to other people in my class. So I really

581
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: ended up with a kind of a second tier job,

582
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: which was just an hour or two down the road

583
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: from college and Daytona Beach working for a paper called

584
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: the Daytona Beach News Journal. And I was I was

585
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: signed out in the sticks. I wasn't on the beach

586
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: or I never saw any water. I was like way

587
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: out in the boonies, UH, covering four cities and anything

588
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: that happened from city council meetings to crimes. And I

589
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: lasted nine months doing that, and I covered one murder

590
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: and it happened to happen UM. I think the day

591
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: after Ronald Reagan was shot, so that news took over everything,

592
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: and my my big murder story. I finally got a

593
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: murder story, and it was very it was cut to

594
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: like six inches. Anyway, anyway I got. I was there

595
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: for nine months, and UM was constantly checking in on

596
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 1: my hometown paper and Fort Lauderdale to see if there's

597
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: any openings. And something came open. I went down, applied

598
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: for a job there, and moved there. So my first

599
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: job only lass than nine months. And then when I

600
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: got the job at Fort Lauderdale Paper, I stayed there

601
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: for seven years. And what was your beat there? It changed,

602
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: but it was primarily crime. What changed about it was UM.

603
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: Initially I was in their Palm Beach County UM addition,

604
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: because back then newspapers were fat and happy and they're

605
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: spreading everywhere. And the Fort Lauderdale News was also called

606
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: the Sun Sentinel and the Sun Sentinel. How at outposts

607
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: UM from Miami up to West Palm Beach, and I

608
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: was in the West Palm Beach office covering crime the

609
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: city of West Palm Beach and so forth, and um.

610
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: Eventually though, I became a police reporter in Fort laud

611
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:15,359
Speaker 1: Ordal And did you feel like your dream had come

612
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: true or were you saying, hey, there's something beyond here.

613
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: I felt pretty good about it. I felt I was

614
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: in this stage where I mean, I'm writing it at night.

615
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 1: I'm trying to write fiction and trying to learn how

616
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: to write fiction. So I was always doing that, but

617
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,280
Speaker 1: I was also feeling like that is a long shot

618
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,399
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't come through, this is a very

619
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 1: interesting job. So I can be happy with it. Not

620
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: a lot of money in it, but I can be

621
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 1: happy here. And this was before the internet, and so

622
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: you really had this sense that you were an insider

623
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:48,399
Speaker 1: like you were. I used to call myself the prince

624
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: of the city. I felt like, at the end of

625
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:52,879
Speaker 1: the day, I knew so much about this town that

626
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: no one knows. They're not going to know it till

627
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: they read my my story in the paper in the morning.

628
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: And it was a very heavy thing to have at

629
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: you know, when you're in your mid twenties. And so

630
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that job, and um, you know, if

631
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: if it didn't work out, uh that I wrote with

632
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: the book stuff that I was gonna be okay with it.

633
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: But the first two books I wrote that no one's

634
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: ever read. We're all setting for Lauderdale and so how

635
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: did you get out of Fort Lauderdale. Um. I eventually

636
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: was going up the ladder at the paper, and UM

637
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,280
Speaker 1: they put me on the Sunday magazine to write feet

638
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: crime related features. And I wrote a story about a

639
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: plane crash with two other writers. We spent a whole

640
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 1: year and they actually cut us loose for a year

641
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: to write the definitive. So for that, for that entire

642
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,320
Speaker 1: year with the newspaper, you only researched and wrote about

643
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 1: the plane crash. Yeah it was, you know, it's a

644
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: Delta crash. It was. It left Fort Lauderdale and crashed

645
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: in Dallas and people survived, and so this is the

646
00:35:55,400 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: wind Shear crash. Yeah, yeah, I believe was. And Uh.

647
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 1: The the interesting thing was that most people, mostly a

648
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 1: huge crash like that has no survivors. This one had

649
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: twenty nine survivors. So we, me and two other reporters

650
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 1: spent a year tracking those people somewhere the flight with

651
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: Fort Laurida, the Dallas, Dallas of l A. So people

652
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 1: were from Texas. People from California and people were from

653
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: South Florida, and we we got to all of them

654
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 1: except for one, and you know, so we kind of

655
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: weave this story about surviving that and and some people

656
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 1: were survived without a scratch, some people had devastating burns

657
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:39,919
Speaker 1: and so forth, and so it's all these levels of

658
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: what surviving is and how to cope with it. And

659
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: then we go also not this not to my credit

660
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: to one of the other reporters, credits he got the

661
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: um the investing in the MTSB investigation they got he

662
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: got the file before it was public, and so we

663
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,760
Speaker 1: were able to piece together what happened on that flight

664
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: and the wind shear and all that, and it was

665
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: all part of this three part magazine story that broke

666
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: new ground around the crash. But also it was just

667
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: a really good human story about surviving and it got

668
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: the attention of the Los Angeles Times because several of

669
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: the people were from l A. And so I got

670
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: a call from uh, the l A Times to come

671
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,399
Speaker 1: out to interview, and I ended up going out there,

672
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: And that's a whole that was a whole different level

673
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: of journalism. What was the gig at the l A Times? Again,

674
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:37,879
Speaker 1: it was crime. Um. I started in the the northern

675
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: part of the county, the or the city of the

676
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: Valley as it's called San Fernando Valley, where there was

677
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: six l a p D Division. So like, my first

678
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: job was covering those six divisions and anything that happened there.

679
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: And then eventually I was covering a lot more. Okay,

680
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: so you're writing at night, and at what point in

681
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 1: this do you get married. I got married when I

682
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: was about halfway through my gig in four lauder deal.

683
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: And then you have a child. When did that child arrive? Oh,

684
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: that didn't happen until I had already retired from journalism. Okay,

685
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: so what does your wife say when you're driving around

686
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: the valley all day long and then come home and say, hey, honey,

687
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: I gotta go to the bedroom and right, Uh, that

688
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: was a deal. We had to make a deal. I

689
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 1: mean it was a big impact on her life because

690
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 1: we moved to Los Angeles and we didn't know anybody.

691
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 1: We just had each other. But I had this long

692
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: term dream or goal of writing a book and publishing

693
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: a book. So I made a deal with her that

694
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: four work nights a week I would work in we

695
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: had a two bedroom, and I set up the second

696
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: bedroom as my writing room. Four nights a week and

697
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 1: one weekend. I had to dedicate to this. And I

698
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: told her I'd have a book. I'd sell a book

699
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,439
Speaker 1: in three years if she could live, if she could

700
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,320
Speaker 1: make that deal, and she did, and I was wrong

701
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: by two years. It took me five years to get Um,

702
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 1: once I moved to l A. Took me about five

703
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: years to get a book published. Okay, So how long

704
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 1: does it take you to write your first book, which

705
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:21,760
Speaker 1: is a bosh book? Um, it's hard to say. I'll

706
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:26,320
Speaker 1: just throw out three years because I overwrote it. But

707
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 1: but I I came to l A and the weekend

708
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: I got there, there was a crime that inspired the book.

709
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: So in a way, you could say, you know, my

710
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: first book came out in two so you could don't

711
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:42,879
Speaker 1: could claim it took five years, but it really took

712
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:47,799
Speaker 1: about three. Okay? Uh? And did you know you had

713
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: something when you were done? I felt I did because

714
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: I had written those two previous books, and any writer

715
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,120
Speaker 1: is going to be their harshest critic, and and I

716
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,760
Speaker 1: know that those two books could should not be published.

717
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: I they were missing something. It was it was something

718
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,320
Speaker 1: in the character. The lead characters were not connecting enough

719
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: with the reader, which at the time was just me.

720
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, like, if if my own creation is

721
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 1: not connecting with me, then there's something seriously wrong here.

722
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 1: And so I moved on and I had to write

723
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: those two books to write the third one, which was um,

724
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: the Bosh Book. And so at the when I when

725
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: I had that book, I felt, you know, and again

726
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: I'm at this point, I'm still a voracious reader of

727
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,239
Speaker 1: crime fiction. I just felt this should be published. I

728
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: didn't know if it would be published well, or or

729
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: be embraced or anything like that. I just knew from

730
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: my sampling of reading contemporary crime fiction, this book fit

731
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: in and should be published. So I had did have

732
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,399
Speaker 1: that confidence. How hard was it to get the deal

733
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 1: and what was the reception once it came out? The

734
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 1: hard part was getting an agent. Um, you know, and

735
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 1: again this is dating ourselves there, you know. It's pre internet.

736
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,399
Speaker 1: So like I'm going to a library and looking up

737
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: agents in books and stuff like that, and I came

738
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: across one of my favorite writers still to this day.

739
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,720
Speaker 1: His name James Lee Burke, and um, he writes about

740
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: New Orleans most of the time, or or Montana sometimes

741
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: Texas crime fiction. And he's just an amazing writer. And um,

742
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: I was reading one of his books and lo and

743
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: behold is dedicated to his agent, you know. And I'm

744
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,319
Speaker 1: kind of like groping around in the dark, you know

745
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 1: about like what what makes a good agent? How do

746
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: you find a good agent? And um, you know, so

747
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: I wrote to this guy's names Philip Spitzer and um,

748
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: and he said, I'll read I'll read the book. This

749
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 1: is all done by letters. It takes forever, like six weeks.

750
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: You hear it in the answer and um, he said,

751
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: I'll read your manuscript if you promised me. I'm reading

752
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: it exclusively because I don't want to be in competition

753
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,279
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other agents. And I said, yes,

754
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: you haven't exclusively, which was a big lie because I

755
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:08,439
Speaker 1: had already sent it out to some to some other

756
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: agents who had asked for the exact same thing. But

757
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: you know, at that pace it would take five years

758
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: to get get everybody, you know, um, the manuscript, uh solo.

759
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: So anyway, he ended up calling me on a Saturday afternoon, um,

760
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,840
Speaker 1: which is I thought was unusual. Um, and saying he

761
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:31,879
Speaker 1: went he liked the book and he wanted to wrap it.

762
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 1: And this was probably eleven months into my process of

763
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 1: trying to find an agent. And so there I had

764
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: an agent. And if I had ranked my top ten

765
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 1: choices of agents I sent to, he would be number one.

766
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: So I got very lucky there because I loved James

767
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: Lee Burke's books, and I thought anyone who would dedicate

768
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: a book to an agent, that agent has got to

769
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 1: be honest, and the agent has got to have the

770
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,319
Speaker 1: long view of what you're doing. And so AS really

771
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: ecstatic that um PHILP. Spencer took took me on, and

772
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: and I knew enough from what I was reading to

773
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 1: know that, you know, agents don't make any money unless

774
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 1: they sell your books. That are not going to take

775
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: you on as a favor, whereas for a lark. So

776
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: I felt confident. He felt he could sell this thing

777
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't take too long, and it didn't. It

778
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: took it took about uh two months, and he sold

779
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:29,320
Speaker 1: it to the second editor he sent it to. And

780
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: how much did you change the book after it was accepted? Um?

781
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 1: Not a whole lot. Um. So it's actually hard for

782
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: me to remember. Um, I had my editor the editor

783
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: who bought it left. She did some editing on it

784
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 1: and she was very good, and then she left before

785
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,760
Speaker 1: it was published. And then I got assigned to a

786
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 1: to a new guy they had just hired, and then

787
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 1: I was with him for like twenty some years and

788
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: he's still now. He graduated out of editing, is the

789
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 1: CEO of the company, so I'm still have a relationship

790
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 1: with him. He just doesn't edit my books. But um,

791
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: editing is. I've always benefited greatly with my books and editing.

792
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: So while I don't remember exactly what happened with my

793
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: first book, I'm sure it was it went through some

794
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: editing and um, and it was improved. So in any event,

795
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,359
Speaker 1: your book is published, Okay, how long after that does

796
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 1: it start to take off? Well, the one thing was

797
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 1: which I didn't understand when I went into this was that, um,

798
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 1: they have to find a hole in the schedule to

799
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: stick you in because I'm a new writer. And and

800
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: so it was a bad thing and a good thing.

801
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: They didn't publish my book for twenty months, and I

802
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: was like, I had told people, Hey, I sold a book,

803
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: and then after about ten months people thought I was lying.

804
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: But anyway, what was good about that was they said,

805
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: you can avoid the sophomore slump with by writing your

806
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: second book before this one even comes out, and then

807
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: you don't have any of the pressures of following something up.

808
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,439
Speaker 1: You don't know any of the things you're gonna learn

809
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: once your book comes out. You can just it's a bubble,

810
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,760
Speaker 1: take advantage of this bubble and write your second book.

811
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: So I did that, and so my book came out

812
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: twenty months later, and um, I already had a second

813
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 1: one already done, and which you know, it was. It

814
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: was interesting they gave me that advice because they didn't

815
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 1: have I didn't have a two book deal or anything,

816
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 1: you know, So then I then I was in a

817
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 1: position with to negotiate it. And you know, I'm not

818
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:40,240
Speaker 1: an overnight John Grisham like success. They put published twelve

819
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: thousand copies of that book and probably sold half of them,

820
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 1: and so it's very incremental. Um, but that was the

821
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: book business was different back then. They allowed that. I

822
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: don't even know if they do that anymore. It seems

823
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:54,359
Speaker 1: like all the publishers just want to get a big

824
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 1: hit right away and they don't allow a writer to

825
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: grow and to learn and so forth. And um, what

826
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: happened about a year later was that first book, One

827
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: an Edgar, which is like the Oscars of of crime

828
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: writing for best first novel, and that really established me

829
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: and bumped up my sales of books that came out

830
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: afterwards and so forth. So that was the key thing

831
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: that happened to me. And you know, very fortunate too

832
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 1: for that to get that recognition. Okay, let's talk about

833
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 1: your style. If you read the first book, The Black Echo,

834
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: it's very dense, and now I'm reading Poet, and Poet

835
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: is a lot less dense. Did you see an evolution

836
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 1: of your style? I think so. I mean, you really

837
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 1: got to kick out the first book because you don't

838
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 1: know what you're doing in terms of publishing, and and

839
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 1: it's like, um, you know, it's your heart and soul,

840
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: so you you baby that thing for so long. And

841
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:58,760
Speaker 1: I over written or over wrote that book. I kept

842
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: rewriting it. I kept it in the little details I'm

843
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: picking up on the police beat and all the stuff.

844
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: So it is very dense. And it's because the whole

845
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 1: time I was writing it was like this is my

846
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: one shot. I got throwing everything but the kitchen sink,

847
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: and that's what I did, and um, you know, and

848
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:21,280
Speaker 1: so uh, you know, through editing, through counsel from editors

849
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 1: and so forth, you know, you learn to let a

850
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: little bit more air in. You learn more about momentum.

851
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:32,399
Speaker 1: Density slows down momentum, And the key to reading and

852
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:34,839
Speaker 1: writing is momentum. You gotta have momentum in the day

853
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 1: that you're writing. You know, you want you want to

854
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: put a lot of words on the page, and then

855
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: you can go back and sculpt them, you can edit them,

856
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: you can do a lot, you can kick hundreds of

857
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: words out, doesn't matter. But you want to keep moving

858
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: because what happens in the writing process is going to

859
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 1: happen in the reading process. And so in those first

860
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 1: few books, I kind of learned that. And um, it's

861
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 1: interesting you mentioned the poet. So the Poem is my

862
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: fifth book. But it was the first time I broke

863
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: away from Harry Bosh and started writing about a world

864
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,320
Speaker 1: I knew much better than I knew, um, the police world.

865
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 1: You know, I was writing about a reporter. I was

866
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: basically writing about an alter ego. And um that um,

867
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 1: I think you know, entered into the writing process and

868
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:23,439
Speaker 1: and made that book. I don't look at in terms

869
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: of it's less dense, but it just moved quicker, um

870
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 1: you know. And there's the style that developed of short sentences,

871
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: staccato writing, keep keeps the reader's eyes moving, keeps them

872
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: going through pages, and that became something that was very

873
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: conscious of at that point in my writing. Let's jump

874
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:47,919
Speaker 1: all the way today. So you essentially write a book

875
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 1: a year. What's the process? Do you ever do two

876
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: books at once? Or you start one and you're on

877
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: that one until you're done. As far as books go,

878
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: it's one and done one until done. Um, I've never

879
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: done that. I mean yes, sometimes, like this year, I'm

880
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 1: I'm actually publishing two books, but I wrote them in

881
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 1: consecutive one. The one thing that I have been able

882
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:12,360
Speaker 1: to do is to break away from writing a book

883
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:17,360
Speaker 1: to writing scripts for the TV show based on Bosh.

884
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe because it's the same character and

885
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: the same um mil you. I don't seem to have

886
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: a problem with that. So I've been able to spend

887
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 1: days like where I love getting up early to write,

888
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:31,760
Speaker 1: so I'm usually writing by about five thirty or six

889
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 1: in the morning in a day. In my life for

890
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: the last four or five years has been writing to

891
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: about writing a book until about ten and then going

892
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: to a studio and sitting in a writing room or

893
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 1: actually writing a script um for a few hours, and

894
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:52,439
Speaker 1: then coming back to my book in the afternoon, and

895
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:55,760
Speaker 1: and I'm writing about Harry Bosh, who's very different from

896
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,240
Speaker 1: They're different. The guy in the book is very different

897
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: from the guy in the show. The guys in the

898
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:03,760
Speaker 1: book is like ten ten, at least ten years older.

899
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: He's not even a cop anymore. So, so it's the

900
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: same character but a totally different set up. So it's

901
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 1: always been surprising to me that I can jump from

902
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: one to the other, and I don't think it. I

903
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: think I do that jump pretty seamlessly. Um, But I

904
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: can't do that between two book projects. Are you more

905
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: of a get it down right first? You're more of

906
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 1: a rewriter? Uh, definitely a rewriter. Um. I go through

907
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: my books two or three times, and the first draft

908
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: is always to me unreadable. I wouldn't want anyone to

909
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 1: see it because I think, I it's always too long.

910
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: I always cut pages as I go through my rewrites,

911
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: and I kind of like sharpen it down to what's

912
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: important and what counts. Get rid of a lot of

913
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,799
Speaker 1: superflous stuff. And then I also find ways of disguising

914
00:50:57,400 --> 00:50:59,799
Speaker 1: where I'm going, or trying to disguise where I'm going.

915
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,520
Speaker 1: I take out stuff like that's too much of a hint,

916
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:05,800
Speaker 1: that type of thing. Yes, you're more of a rewriter.

917
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:09,359
Speaker 1: But let me ask you this, Uh, do you have

918
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: to be motivated? I mean, do you ever sit down

919
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 1: and you say, hey, you know it's time to write.

920
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: But I'm not really in the groove. And is that

921
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:19,399
Speaker 1: stuff you right end up being usable? Or when you're hot,

922
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: is this stuff better? Well? He goes back to your

923
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 1: question about rewriting. Yeah, I rewrite. So I feel like

924
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:30,680
Speaker 1: even on a bad day, if I get you know,

925
00:51:30,719 --> 00:51:33,879
Speaker 1: if I moved the story along, I'm going to have

926
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: something I can, you know, rewrite and make better later

927
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 1: on my next go round. Do you ever one day

928
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 1: accomplished or nothing? Yeah, but you know before the virus,

929
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 1: those were few and far between. I just have this

930
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: weird drive. I mean, I had this teacher at University

931
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: of Florida named Harry Cruz who was a great novelist,

932
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 1: one of my heroes, and I don't remember anything he

933
00:51:57,600 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: taught me. I had two classes with him other than

934
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: he just one time said, if you're gonna be a writer,

935
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:03,919
Speaker 1: you got it write every day, even if it's only

936
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:07,760
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes, because if you write for fifteen minutes,

937
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: the story is gonna keep swirling in your head all

938
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: through the day. And he was very right about that.

939
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 1: And so I've I've practiced that where I write for

940
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: at least fifteen minutes, even if I'm I got the

941
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 1: flu or whatever, I try to power through. And I

942
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 1: just had this conversation with my wife a couple of

943
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,920
Speaker 1: days ago that during the virus, the beginning of the virus,

944
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: I was so creatively unmotivated that six weeks went by

945
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: without me writing. And I think that was, um, the

946
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:41,439
Speaker 1: longest I've ever gone without writing in my life. Um,

947
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 1: you know, since I was twenty, since I was working

948
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: at newspapers. Um, it was like a long time not

949
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 1: to be writing. And I was not a pleasant guy

950
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:52,759
Speaker 1: to be with and all that. But finally, and I

951
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: can't explain why, my mojo came back, and I started

952
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: writing about two weeks ago at a very high clip.

953
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 1: I think I was making for the six weeks before, UM,

954
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: and it was going very quickly. And and I think, well,

955
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 1: I don't go back. I don't you know. I usually

956
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: start my morning by reading what I wrote the day

957
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: before and editing it, so I kind of have a

958
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 1: build in edit, but I don't have the big picture.

959
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: Um I won't. I won't see that till I finished

960
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 1: this book and start over at the page one. So

961
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: why do a series on Bosch and then why jump

962
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 1: from Bosch to start a couple of news series? UM,

963
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 1: I don't know. Just to stay fresh, to stay stay involved.

964
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 1: I do think Bosch is, you know, what I'm about

965
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: as a writer, but I think it's good to take

966
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: breaks from him kind of let kind of my mind

967
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: wonder what's he doing that kind of thing, or I

968
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 1: can't or to build up this idea of I can't

969
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:55,040
Speaker 1: wait to write about him again. And you know there's

970
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 1: other every everything I guess is you know that rights

971
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 1: around the um, crime and justice and all that, but

972
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:06,719
Speaker 1: there's different angles on it. So I like this thing

973
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:11,760
Speaker 1: like having a defense lawyer's angle, having a journalists angle

974
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:15,240
Speaker 1: on it, and uh, I think it keeps it interesting

975
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 1: to me in terms of being the writer. I mean,

976
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 1: I think there's a bigger fan base for Harry Bosh,

977
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 1: but I just don't feel I can write about him

978
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: every time. Okay, so you're talking about writing screenplays. That's

979
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 1: a different art, and it's generally speaking difficult to write dialogue.

980
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:34,360
Speaker 1: You know. You say there was essentially no learning curve

981
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, the the learning curve for me was

982
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: not dialogue. It was when I write a book. When

983
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 1: I write a Harry Bosh book, for example, you're in

984
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: his head. You know what he's thinking, you know what

985
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:47,840
Speaker 1: he's feeling, you know what hurts him, you know what

986
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: aggravates him. All that is inside his head, and you

987
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 1: and you you you, that's a third of it, you

988
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 1: know third. One third is interior, one third is um

989
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:01,880
Speaker 1: action what he does, and one third is dialogue. And

990
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 1: so when you go to script, you lose a huge component.

991
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:07,879
Speaker 1: You lose a third of what what you have when

992
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:11,040
Speaker 1: you're writing a book. And you know, there's people who

993
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 1: come out of school and just write scripts and that's

994
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 1: their lives, so they don't even know what they're missing.

995
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 1: But I, you know, I came to the show after

996
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 1: almost twenty years twenty five years almost of writing novels,

997
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: and so to me, it was a huge change to

998
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:28,800
Speaker 1: have to write a story without saying what someone is thinking.

999
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 1: And that's where I um, it's you know, I think

1000
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 1: the scripts I wrote in the first couple of seasons

1001
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:40,280
Speaker 1: needed needed, uh to be rewritten, and they were UM.

1002
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 1: And I think I've kind of overcome that um impediment

1003
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:49,280
Speaker 1: uh that I felt in scriptwriting in the more recent years.

1004
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 1: But that was the tough part, not the dialogue, because

1005
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: dialogue has been important to me ever since I was

1006
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 1: a reporter, you know, and you had to um, you

1007
00:55:57,239 --> 00:55:59,600
Speaker 1: had little space to write. You know. Crime fiction was

1008
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:04,400
Speaker 1: the whinted stepchild in newspapers, not crime fiction, crime reporting,

1009
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,759
Speaker 1: and and so you were never given enough space to

1010
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:10,000
Speaker 1: tell what you thought was a great story or an

1011
00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:13,840
Speaker 1: interesting story. So you learn to use dialogue to advance

1012
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 1: the information delivery. Um, you had get an ear for dialogue.

1013
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:24,439
Speaker 1: Dialogue that advances the story. It doesn't just uh say

1014
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:28,320
Speaker 1: what was already said. And so dialogue, you know. So

1015
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:30,279
Speaker 1: I carried that into my books, and I carry that

1016
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: into my scripts. I just don't feel like dialogue is

1017
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:36,920
Speaker 1: being a barrier to me. It's more like losing that

1018
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:40,560
Speaker 1: interior thought that that's been tough to deal with. So

1019
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: tell us about the development of of Bosh the TV show. Yeah,

1020
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 1: well Blash had been down the tortuous road in Hollywood. Um,

1021
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: you know, initially what looked like great success. Um. By

1022
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 1: the time the second book was published, Hollywood came calling

1023
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 1: and they made a big deal to buy the first

1024
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 1: three books. UM. I got involved. They said you could

1025
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:06,880
Speaker 1: write one of the screenplays, and so everything looked like

1026
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:10,560
Speaker 1: it was going somewhere. Um. It was bought by Paramount,

1027
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:13,640
Speaker 1: assigned to the producers who made the Tom Clancy movies

1028
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 1: with Harrison Ford, and we were tailoring scripts to Harrison Ford. UM,

1029
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they'll all look good, and then

1030
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 1: it didn't look good. He passed on them, and the

1031
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: stuff got on the shelf the way Holly Hollywood. Um

1032
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 1: deals are. Um, things stay on shelves for a long time.

1033
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 1: You need a lot of money to to leverage them out.

1034
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 1: And so the books kind of were basically gathering dust

1035
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 1: for almost two decades, and then I finally got the

1036
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: rights to them back. And it was really at a

1037
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 1: time when TV was really fantastic. There was a lot

1038
00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: of serialized television going on, UM, a lot of good

1039
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 1: character studies. And so I just told my reps, my

1040
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:01,400
Speaker 1: agent and so forth that I'm not interested in. And

1041
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:03,520
Speaker 1: and also at this point I had several Harry Bosh

1042
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 1: books written. I said, you can't cover this guy in

1043
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: a two hour movie. Let's try to get a TV

1044
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 1: deal somewhere. And so that was the initial um start

1045
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 1: of it. And then also at the same time, Amazon

1046
00:58:19,080 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 1: was deciding to get into UM streaming television and so forth,

1047
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:28,400
Speaker 1: and um, you know, we kind of went from there,

1048
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 1: and uh, it was weird. This goes back to the Yankees.

1049
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:36,640
Speaker 1: I I had a friend I lived part of the

1050
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:39,320
Speaker 1: year in Tampa, Florida, where now the Yankees do spring ball.

1051
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 1: So I had a friend who was a former publisher

1052
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:44,480
Speaker 1: come down from New York to go to a spring

1053
00:58:44,480 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 1: training game with me. And he had left publishing to

1054
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:50,440
Speaker 1: go to work at Amazon because they were also trying

1055
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 1: to get into publishing. So anyway, I was driving him

1056
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:54,680
Speaker 1: to the airport and he said to me, you know,

1057
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:58,840
Speaker 1: they're gonna start making TV shows UM to stream on Amazon.

1058
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 1: Would that be something you'd be interested in. I said, yeah, sure,

1059
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: because I've thought of the nexus of book sales and

1060
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: TV and so forth. And so that was my entree

1061
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,280
Speaker 1: into Amazon. So it was very much unlike a normal

1062
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: process in Hollywood where you pitch your show and they

1063
00:59:17,520 --> 00:59:21,360
Speaker 1: develop and all that stuff. Amazon just basically I probably

1064
00:59:21,400 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 1: punched up a couple of numbers to see how what

1065
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 1: my book sales were and said let's do it. So

1066
00:59:26,760 --> 00:59:29,920
Speaker 1: that's where it came from. How long after that conversation,

1067
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 1: it's bring training until they say yes, no. I mean

1068
00:59:35,880 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 1: what happened was what what this was all new to

1069
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 1: Amazon as it was to me, and uh so they

1070
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 1: were very accommodating. And they also this is like when

1071
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 1: I go in to have a meeting, there'll be two

1072
00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:53,440
Speaker 1: people there. Now when I go into a meeting, they

1073
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:56,560
Speaker 1: have a long board room, uh you know, and there's

1074
00:59:56,600 --> 01:00:00,160
Speaker 1: like fifteen or sixteen people. So Amazon was learning as

1075
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 1: they were going and that gave us great freedom. And

1076
01:00:04,080 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 1: as far as you know, I'm not really involved in

1077
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:08,959
Speaker 1: the money, but as far as I know, we told

1078
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 1: them what we would need to make the show the

1079
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:14,240
Speaker 1: way the way I wanted to make it, the way

1080
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:16,960
Speaker 1: my partners wanted to make it, and they gave us

1081
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 1: that money. Um, one of the key things to me,

1082
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:24,680
Speaker 1: and I actually got this in a contract with my partner.

1083
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 1: So before I went to Amazon, I should say when

1084
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:32,000
Speaker 1: I told my agent, let's look at TV. He hooked

1085
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:34,480
Speaker 1: me up with a production company. Amazon is not the

1086
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 1: production company, Amazon is the delivery system. So I made

1087
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 1: a deal with a producer of television and I got

1088
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 1: him to sign an agreement and put it in a contract,

1089
01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: which is almost unheard of in Hollywood, that every scene

1090
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 1: of Vosh would be filmed in Los Angeles, even interiors,

1091
01:00:55,960 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 1: because I felt we had to have to act really

1092
01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 1: reflect with in the books where and where in the

1093
01:01:02,880 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 1: books Los Angeles as a character. We had to do

1094
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:08,080
Speaker 1: that on the TV show. So so my partner, my

1095
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 1: producing partner, readily agreed. He was very familiar with the books.

1096
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:14,680
Speaker 1: He came He actually sought me out. I didn't seek

1097
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:17,560
Speaker 1: him out. He readily agreed, and then he had to

1098
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:18,880
Speaker 1: live with that, and he had to sell that to

1099
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: Amazon because that did add a big expense to it.

1100
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:25,680
Speaker 1: But Amazon um agreed to it and also saw the

1101
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:28,360
Speaker 1: light that that if you're going to try to adapt

1102
01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:30,920
Speaker 1: these books, then adapt the books. Don't go to Canada

1103
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:34,520
Speaker 1: to do that. And so it worked out well. And

1104
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:39,000
Speaker 1: I think that in the show, the the city is

1105
01:01:39,040 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 1: a character that there's a tone to the visuals of

1106
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:45,800
Speaker 1: the show, uh that I love and that I think

1107
01:01:45,800 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 1: are accurate to the books. And so it's been a

1108
01:01:49,120 --> 01:01:59,080
Speaker 1: very happy, um, you know agreement. Tell us about the casting,

1109
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 1: the I mean, everything comes down to who's Harry Bosh?

1110
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 1: And you know the I remember, so we have a showrunner.

1111
01:02:09,640 --> 01:02:12,480
Speaker 1: The head creative person on the show is called the showrunner,

1112
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:15,480
Speaker 1: and his name is Eric Overmeyer. And I happen to

1113
01:02:15,560 --> 01:02:18,760
Speaker 1: have previously known him, not that well, but I had

1114
01:02:18,760 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: dinner with him a couple of times because of some

1115
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:26,760
Speaker 1: mutual friends in New York City. And um, he said,

1116
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 1: our biggest Um, there's two things that are our biggest challenges.

1117
01:02:31,280 --> 01:02:35,880
Speaker 1: One finding the right Harry Bosh and two your books

1118
01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:38,920
Speaker 1: are very interior. You're you're writing inside Harry Bosch's head,

1119
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:41,360
Speaker 1: and we can't do that in the script. And so

1120
01:02:41,560 --> 01:02:43,880
Speaker 1: not only do we have to find a way of

1121
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:47,360
Speaker 1: of of showing his feelings of how what he says,

1122
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:49,800
Speaker 1: what he does, and so forth, but we also have

1123
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:53,280
Speaker 1: to break the storytelling out to other characters. Um. In

1124
01:02:53,360 --> 01:02:56,360
Speaker 1: the Bosh books, you're usually only with Bosh in every scene,

1125
01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 1: and you can't do that in a TV show. But anyway,

1126
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:01,320
Speaker 1: going back to the casting, that was that was obviously

1127
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 1: a key thing, and Amazon had a schedule for when

1128
01:03:04,120 --> 01:03:07,240
Speaker 1: we would shoot the pilot, and we basically had about

1129
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:11,200
Speaker 1: seven weeks to find our Harry Bosh and I went

1130
01:03:11,200 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 1: into the first meeting, and we had really good casting agents.

1131
01:03:17,080 --> 01:03:21,400
Speaker 1: They were at that time casting Madman UM. They were,

1132
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: you know, they had cast that show and we're continuing

1133
01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 1: to cast it UM year after years. So they were

1134
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:31,320
Speaker 1: very good UM casting people. And they had a list

1135
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 1: of like four pages of names of different actors and

1136
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: so forth in UM. You know, I'm Mr. Bookwriter. I

1137
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:42,160
Speaker 1: don't really know a lot about Hollywood, but I had

1138
01:03:42,200 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 1: seen Titus Welver playing as a guest star on a

1139
01:03:46,200 --> 01:03:50,040
Speaker 1: TV show just recently, just recent to this meeting, where

1140
01:03:50,080 --> 01:03:53,240
Speaker 1: he played a ex soldier with PTSD, and he was

1141
01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 1: clearly able to convey that this guy had inner demons.

1142
01:03:58,360 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 1: And that's what I wanted, um in Bosh, That's what

1143
01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 1: Eric Overmeyer wanted, That's what Henrik Baston, our producing partner wanted,

1144
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:09,240
Speaker 1: and so I. But his name wasn't on these four pages,

1145
01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:12,400
Speaker 1: and so I was very kind of intimidated to even

1146
01:04:12,400 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: bring him up because I'm the I'm the guy in

1147
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: the room hasn't had no experience really with TA Television

1148
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,880
Speaker 1: that much. So anyway, I brought him up and they

1149
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:24,120
Speaker 1: said we'd love him and he'd be great for the part,

1150
01:04:24,200 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 1: except he's making a movie in Hong Kong and during

1151
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:30,280
Speaker 1: our six seven weeks where we can casts, he's not

1152
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:33,120
Speaker 1: going to be in l A. So that kind of

1153
01:04:33,120 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: went out the window. And then we proceeded down over

1154
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:38,760
Speaker 1: the next days and weeks UH with the list that

1155
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:41,720
Speaker 1: they had, and we kept talking to different people and

1156
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:44,200
Speaker 1: we would um people would come in and try out

1157
01:04:44,240 --> 01:04:48,120
Speaker 1: and so forth, and nobody really connected with the group

1158
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:52,200
Speaker 1: as being Harry Bosh. And then we were actually at

1159
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,040
Speaker 1: the point where we were gonna have to call Amazon

1160
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 1: on him. It was like Thursday or Friday, and we

1161
01:04:57,720 --> 01:05:00,200
Speaker 1: had the we're gonna call Amazon on Monday and say

1162
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:03,000
Speaker 1: we have to push um shooting the pilot because we

1163
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:05,840
Speaker 1: don't want to do it with someone we're not convinced

1164
01:05:05,840 --> 01:05:09,120
Speaker 1: as Harry Bosh. And then that same day we got

1165
01:05:09,160 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 1: word that Titus was flying home for the weekend to

1166
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:16,080
Speaker 1: see his kids, and so we kind of cajoled this

1167
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 1: idea that he would come and see see us for

1168
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:20,240
Speaker 1: like an hour just so we could talk to him,

1169
01:05:20,280 --> 01:05:24,640
Speaker 1: and and instead he worked up this the audition scene

1170
01:05:24,680 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: for Bosch on the plane ride back and came in

1171
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:30,520
Speaker 1: all jet lagged and auditioned and even in his jet

1172
01:05:30,600 --> 01:05:33,880
Speaker 1: lagged capacity, we all knew this. We just had this instinct,

1173
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:37,240
Speaker 1: the instinctual thing that this is the guy, this is

1174
01:05:37,400 --> 01:05:40,400
Speaker 1: this is Harry Bosh. So he basically got the job

1175
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 1: right there. Now, you say the Bosch on TV is

1176
01:05:43,960 --> 01:05:47,000
Speaker 1: different from the Bosch in the book. So are you

1177
01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:50,120
Speaker 1: writing for the character Titus has established? How do you

1178
01:05:50,200 --> 01:05:53,560
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah, you definitely feed off of what you've

1179
01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:56,880
Speaker 1: got so far on the TV show, And um, we

1180
01:05:56,920 --> 01:05:59,160
Speaker 1: are you know, all the writers know Titus very well.

1181
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 1: Titus is a contributor, collaborator, comes to the writing room,

1182
01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:06,840
Speaker 1: talks about things that he'd like to see Bosch do

1183
01:06:07,040 --> 01:06:10,000
Speaker 1: and things like that, and so it's it's all under

1184
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:14,840
Speaker 1: the umbrella of the book for sure. Um, and you know,

1185
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:17,320
Speaker 1: there's other aspects of adapting it. Many of the books

1186
01:06:17,360 --> 01:06:19,960
Speaker 1: we've adapted are from the nineties and we're you know,

1187
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 1: twenty l a. It's it's a different city twenty years later,

1188
01:06:25,280 --> 01:06:28,720
Speaker 1: twenty five years later, So we have to make changes anyway.

1189
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:32,880
Speaker 1: And so you know, Bosch Bosch has become tight as

1190
01:06:32,920 --> 01:06:35,960
Speaker 1: tightest has become Bosh. I mean, I think he has

1191
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:39,880
Speaker 1: a sense of that character as as strong as mine.

1192
01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:42,680
Speaker 1: UM and I think, uh and I trust him with

1193
01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: that character. So when he says I want to do

1194
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:48,280
Speaker 1: this or I want to say that, um, I I

1195
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:50,720
Speaker 1: really listened to him because I think he comes from

1196
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:55,680
Speaker 1: a place of of character knowledge that UM I have

1197
01:06:55,800 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 1: to certainly respect. So you're on amas on and when

1198
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:04,960
Speaker 1: you launch five years ago, uh, amazons that people think

1199
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:07,720
Speaker 1: of streaming is still relatively new when it's on Netflix.

1200
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:10,760
Speaker 1: What is the reception? What is the experience after the

1201
01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 1: series is up on your end? Oh? Yeah, yeah, So

1202
01:07:13,560 --> 01:07:16,640
Speaker 1: we know we have a good show. Um, I'm very

1203
01:07:16,680 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 1: proud of it. It's very reflective of the books, and

1204
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:24,200
Speaker 1: it's very reflective of the accuracy, um of of that job.

1205
01:07:24,280 --> 01:07:27,240
Speaker 1: I mean, we have to um. Actually in the first

1206
01:07:27,280 --> 01:07:32,160
Speaker 1: season we had three active LAPD homicide detectives being our consultants.

1207
01:07:32,160 --> 01:07:35,040
Speaker 1: So so we're very confident in the show. And Amazon

1208
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:37,520
Speaker 1: is kind of like in its nascent stages of coming

1209
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:41,040
Speaker 1: out with UM with streaming product. I think they had

1210
01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:45,120
Speaker 1: one two other shows that were comedies to come out

1211
01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:48,920
Speaker 1: before UM Bosh. So we have the show that we

1212
01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:51,640
Speaker 1: think is good, and it becomes a matter of how

1213
01:07:51,720 --> 01:07:54,120
Speaker 1: do we get how do we draw people to it?

1214
01:07:54,280 --> 01:07:58,920
Speaker 1: And so you know, Amazon did a lot, you know,

1215
01:07:59,440 --> 01:08:02,240
Speaker 1: billboard all over to place all kinds of social media

1216
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:06,880
Speaker 1: times Square. Um, it seemed like it was everywhere, and

1217
01:08:06,880 --> 01:08:09,600
Speaker 1: I think that got us off to a good start. Um.

1218
01:08:09,760 --> 01:08:12,200
Speaker 1: You know, I have obviously have my social media, and

1219
01:08:12,200 --> 01:08:16,599
Speaker 1: I think the core audience was was the the readers

1220
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:20,599
Speaker 1: of the books, but television demands a much bigger audience

1221
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:23,599
Speaker 1: than that, so we had to expand it well beyond

1222
01:08:24,280 --> 01:08:27,920
Speaker 1: the book readers who who loved the series. Well from

1223
01:08:27,920 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 1: my viewpoint, just as ah and I was not a

1224
01:08:31,000 --> 01:08:34,920
Speaker 1: Bosh reader at the time. Um, I didn't get into

1225
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 1: it until season three. At what point did you feel

1226
01:08:38,479 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 1: the show was really picking up with the public. I

1227
01:08:42,200 --> 01:08:47,120
Speaker 1: think around then. I mean I think definitely the first season. Um,

1228
01:08:47,240 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 1: we were getting to know everybody on the show. I

1229
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:53,080
Speaker 1: mean we basically have um, you know, the cast is

1230
01:08:53,160 --> 01:08:56,519
Speaker 1: the cast, but our crew we've probably because we suit

1231
01:08:56,560 --> 01:08:58,400
Speaker 1: in l A and everyone wants to work on l

1232
01:08:58,400 --> 01:09:02,400
Speaker 1: A show, so they want to travel. We've had probably

1233
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:05,880
Speaker 1: like nine return rate of our crew and so all

1234
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:09,960
Speaker 1: that kind of comes together in making a show. It's

1235
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:14,120
Speaker 1: all very important, and um, you know, it's a learning experience.

1236
01:09:14,120 --> 01:09:15,840
Speaker 1: You get better the more you do something. And I

1237
01:09:15,880 --> 01:09:19,400
Speaker 1: think we refine. We made some changes in the writing room,

1238
01:09:19,439 --> 01:09:22,760
Speaker 1: We made some changes in um, the look of the

1239
01:09:22,800 --> 01:09:25,559
Speaker 1: show and so forth, the cameras and so forth. And

1240
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:29,439
Speaker 1: I think, um, we really came into our own, um

1241
01:09:29,520 --> 01:09:34,320
Speaker 1: late in the second season into three. And uh, you know,

1242
01:09:34,479 --> 01:09:36,920
Speaker 1: it's not that we made any bad seasons or anything,

1243
01:09:36,920 --> 01:09:38,439
Speaker 1: but I just think we got better. I think it's

1244
01:09:38,439 --> 01:09:41,479
Speaker 1: a rare show that season. The season it gets better.

1245
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:44,719
Speaker 1: I completely agree, and I certainly tell people that. Speaking

1246
01:09:44,760 --> 01:09:48,720
Speaker 1: of which, uh, supposedly next year's your last season? What's

1247
01:09:48,800 --> 01:09:54,479
Speaker 1: up with that? Um? Exosedly? Yeah, I think everything it changes,

1248
01:09:54,520 --> 01:09:58,320
Speaker 1: you know, because of the virus. I think, um, the

1249
01:09:59,600 --> 01:10:06,240
Speaker 1: every every, every provider of content, cable network, streaming is

1250
01:10:06,240 --> 01:10:11,240
Speaker 1: gonna face content issues because of the shutdown, um of

1251
01:10:11,360 --> 01:10:14,040
Speaker 1: everything in life and but but in in in the

1252
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:17,960
Speaker 1: entertainment industry as well. So I'll never say never. Maybe

1253
01:10:17,960 --> 01:10:20,479
Speaker 1: it will be our last, maybe not, but as of now,

1254
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:24,000
Speaker 1: it's scheduled to be our last, And um, you know,

1255
01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:26,680
Speaker 1: I'm not on the level of making those decisions. Or

1256
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:29,240
Speaker 1: why they make those decisions. I mean, I think Bosch

1257
01:10:29,360 --> 01:10:32,160
Speaker 1: is going to live on their platform for for many

1258
01:10:32,400 --> 01:10:35,639
Speaker 1: years to come, maybe decades to come, and I think

1259
01:10:35,640 --> 01:10:39,800
Speaker 1: at some point they they make decisions based on you know,

1260
01:10:39,920 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: this show costs this x amount of money a year

1261
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:46,639
Speaker 1: to make, and we already have that audience in our

1262
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:50,280
Speaker 1: back pocket, so why don't we try to connect them

1263
01:10:50,320 --> 01:10:53,000
Speaker 1: to something new and different? You know, I think those

1264
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:55,479
Speaker 1: are kind of the creative situations that go into it.

1265
01:10:56,080 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 1: I do know that we that these discussions were happening

1266
01:10:59,040 --> 01:11:01,639
Speaker 1: all the time that we were making the sixth season,

1267
01:11:02,520 --> 01:11:06,840
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, to Amazon's credit, the creative people

1268
01:11:06,880 --> 01:11:09,160
Speaker 1: at the top of that, you know, we sat down

1269
01:11:09,200 --> 01:11:11,160
Speaker 1: with them and they said, you know, we want to

1270
01:11:11,720 --> 01:11:14,400
Speaker 1: we want you to write to an ending next year

1271
01:11:14,920 --> 01:11:18,280
Speaker 1: so that we have a show that has that is complete,

1272
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:20,160
Speaker 1: you know that it starts from the beginning and has

1273
01:11:20,200 --> 01:11:22,519
Speaker 1: an ending, and that we want you to know the

1274
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:25,640
Speaker 1: whole season you'll be writing towards an ending. And that

1275
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:28,400
Speaker 1: was from a creative standpoint, that was really good to have.

1276
01:11:29,120 --> 01:11:31,439
Speaker 1: And we're doing that now. You know, the sixth season

1277
01:11:31,479 --> 01:11:35,679
Speaker 1: just came out, but we're well into writing the seventh season.

1278
01:11:35,760 --> 01:11:39,559
Speaker 1: And writing two towards an ending. The one thing that's

1279
01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:41,439
Speaker 1: kind of odd is that the books are not ending.

1280
01:11:41,479 --> 01:11:43,800
Speaker 1: I'm still writing about Harry Bosh. I'm writing a book

1281
01:11:43,880 --> 01:11:46,679
Speaker 1: right now that he's in and so forth. So whereas

1282
01:11:46,720 --> 01:11:49,759
Speaker 1: I have not written a book on on the book track,

1283
01:11:49,880 --> 01:11:52,000
Speaker 1: I have not written to an ending. We're gonna be

1284
01:11:52,040 --> 01:11:55,599
Speaker 1: doing that with the TV show. And to what degree

1285
01:11:55,680 --> 01:11:59,719
Speaker 1: has the TV show impacted the sales of your books? Um,

1286
01:11:59,760 --> 01:12:03,120
Speaker 1: it's it's anecdotal. I know it's impacted it. Um you know,

1287
01:12:03,160 --> 01:12:05,479
Speaker 1: I know, you know, Amazon is the biggest seller of

1288
01:12:05,560 --> 01:12:08,920
Speaker 1: books in the world, so or you know, one screen

1289
01:12:08,960 --> 01:12:12,280
Speaker 1: away you can go from uh watching the bos show

1290
01:12:12,320 --> 01:12:15,400
Speaker 1: to reading the Bosh books, and so I know it's

1291
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:17,920
Speaker 1: had an impact, but it's not something I can measure.

1292
01:12:18,160 --> 01:12:21,680
Speaker 1: I know, you know, I sold more books than but

1293
01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:25,240
Speaker 1: my profile has always been growing since each book has

1294
01:12:25,280 --> 01:12:27,720
Speaker 1: sold more than the one before, And that's what's going

1295
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:32,040
Speaker 1: on now. And I have to attribute a big chunk

1296
01:12:32,080 --> 01:12:35,200
Speaker 1: of that to the show, But you know I can't.

1297
01:12:35,479 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 1: There's no science about it that says exactly what the

1298
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:42,400
Speaker 1: impact has been. Let's just say hypothetically, you know, shooting

1299
01:12:42,439 --> 01:12:47,320
Speaker 1: begins soon. You're right, to an ending, there's no obvious renewal. Uh.

1300
01:12:47,360 --> 01:12:52,120
Speaker 1: To what degree are you going to be depressed? I

1301
01:12:52,120 --> 01:12:55,799
Speaker 1: don't think I'll be depressed at all, because, um, I've

1302
01:12:55,840 --> 01:12:59,880
Speaker 1: always been a bookwriter first, UM, and and being in

1303
01:13:00,080 --> 01:13:02,720
Speaker 1: that room by myself and writing and pleasing myself for

1304
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:06,439
Speaker 1: feeling satisfaction of something I've done has never been something

1305
01:13:06,479 --> 01:13:09,120
Speaker 1: that's gone away. This the TV show has been great.

1306
01:13:09,240 --> 01:13:11,800
Speaker 1: I've I've kind of gone from being the introvert of

1307
01:13:11,840 --> 01:13:15,040
Speaker 1: being in the uh, part of a crew of like

1308
01:13:15,080 --> 01:13:19,080
Speaker 1: two people. Um, and that's been a really fun part

1309
01:13:19,120 --> 01:13:21,479
Speaker 1: of my life for the last seven years. And so

1310
01:13:21,640 --> 01:13:23,559
Speaker 1: I'll definitely miss that. I don't know if I'll go

1311
01:13:23,600 --> 01:13:28,360
Speaker 1: into depression. Um. And then you know, you know, you

1312
01:13:28,360 --> 01:13:31,040
Speaker 1: can always live for the day that Amazon says, well,

1313
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:33,240
Speaker 1: let's do a movie, let's chick in on Harry Bosh.

1314
01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:34,680
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't really think it will be

1315
01:13:34,720 --> 01:13:38,479
Speaker 1: the end of Harry Bosh in terms of video. Since

1316
01:13:38,520 --> 01:13:41,360
Speaker 1: you have other characters, written books about other people, are

1317
01:13:41,400 --> 01:13:44,000
Speaker 1: you developing now that you know theoretically there's an end

1318
01:13:44,040 --> 01:13:47,520
Speaker 1: to Bosh? Are you developing shows based on these other characters?

1319
01:13:49,720 --> 01:13:52,559
Speaker 1: And well, yeah, I have a whole slew of characters

1320
01:13:52,600 --> 01:13:56,360
Speaker 1: out there, and I hope to UM, you know, take

1321
01:13:56,400 --> 01:13:59,559
Speaker 1: another shot at UM Hollywood in that way. So yeah,

1322
01:13:59,640 --> 01:14:02,960
Speaker 1: they're in different various stages of development. I almost had

1323
01:14:03,000 --> 01:14:07,080
Speaker 1: a Lincoln Lawyer show on CBS, but the virus kind

1324
01:14:07,080 --> 01:14:10,120
Speaker 1: of killed that, UM and so we'll start over on

1325
01:14:10,200 --> 01:14:13,320
Speaker 1: that and see what happens. Okay, So what do you

1326
01:14:13,360 --> 01:14:18,680
Speaker 1: do with your money? What I do with my money? UM,

1327
01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:20,880
Speaker 1: I give a lot of it away. My wife and

1328
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:24,120
Speaker 1: I have a foundation that we UM support a lot

1329
01:14:24,160 --> 01:14:27,920
Speaker 1: of causes. I'm really UM. One of my main focuses

1330
01:14:29,040 --> 01:14:36,880
Speaker 1: is journalism and UM supporting journalism schools, supporting investigative news

1331
01:14:36,920 --> 01:14:41,960
Speaker 1: sites on the Internet. I think because of the downsizing

1332
01:14:42,040 --> 01:14:44,720
Speaker 1: of the newspaper business, a lot of good stuff is

1333
01:14:44,720 --> 01:14:47,720
Speaker 1: going out into the Internet and it's hard to be

1334
01:14:47,800 --> 01:14:51,120
Speaker 1: profitable or or to even pay the bills, and so

1335
01:14:51,200 --> 01:14:55,680
Speaker 1: there's a lot of nonprofit UM news sites with with

1336
01:14:55,760 --> 01:14:59,599
Speaker 1: particular focuses. My next book is actually called fair Warning,

1337
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:03,280
Speaker 1: and it's and it has Jack McAvoy, the reporter from

1338
01:15:03,280 --> 01:15:07,200
Speaker 1: The Poet, working for a new site called fair Warning,

1339
01:15:07,200 --> 01:15:14,240
Speaker 1: which is consumer oriented investigative reporting. UM. And I mean

1340
01:15:14,400 --> 01:15:16,920
Speaker 1: I've been involved in supporting that I'm on the board

1341
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:19,519
Speaker 1: and so forth, and so that it filtered into my

1342
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:22,599
Speaker 1: creative process, where you know, I've written about this reporter

1343
01:15:22,720 --> 01:15:25,679
Speaker 1: on and off for I don't know, twenty five years,

1344
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 1: and so it was kind of obvious to me that

1345
01:15:30,479 --> 01:15:35,040
Speaker 1: while I check in on Jack McAvoy now and have

1346
01:15:35,160 --> 01:15:37,160
Speaker 1: them working at one of these news sites, and so

1347
01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:42,080
Speaker 1: it's a kind of a blending of of of reality,

1348
01:15:42,920 --> 01:15:46,720
Speaker 1: um with fiction. And what about your personal viewpoint on

1349
01:15:46,760 --> 01:15:51,880
Speaker 1: the future of journalism, Well, I'm concerned about it, and

1350
01:15:51,920 --> 01:15:55,559
Speaker 1: I've voiced that concern I think through Jack, especially in

1351
01:15:55,600 --> 01:15:57,479
Speaker 1: this book. But but you know, the last book I

1352
01:15:57,479 --> 01:15:59,920
Speaker 1: wrote about him, The Scarecrow, was right in the middle

1353
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:05,799
Speaker 1: the newspaper crunch, and um, I reflected on that. Um,

1354
01:16:05,840 --> 01:16:07,840
Speaker 1: you know, in my day, and I'm not one of

1355
01:16:07,840 --> 01:16:09,920
Speaker 1: these guys that goes it was always better when nic

1356
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:12,680
Speaker 1: really you know, the old days, in my days, But

1357
01:16:12,800 --> 01:16:16,400
Speaker 1: I am from a time in journalism where the newspaper

1358
01:16:16,560 --> 01:16:24,800
Speaker 1: was a tent pole in a community for discussions about everything, culture, politics, crime, everything,

1359
01:16:25,080 --> 01:16:30,160
Speaker 1: and and that central point of debate and discussion is

1360
01:16:30,200 --> 01:16:33,320
Speaker 1: pretty much gone in almost every city except for a few.

1361
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:37,080
Speaker 1: And and that to me, you know, so I think

1362
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:40,960
Speaker 1: that society's loss and like I said, alive it has

1363
01:16:41,000 --> 01:16:44,320
Speaker 1: filtered out onto the Internet. But it's almost like, go

1364
01:16:44,439 --> 01:16:47,720
Speaker 1: see your question of how do you find how do

1365
01:16:47,960 --> 01:16:51,120
Speaker 1: people find Bosh in his early years? It's hard to

1366
01:16:51,160 --> 01:16:54,160
Speaker 1: find this stuff, the incredible stuff, the stuff that is

1367
01:16:54,200 --> 01:16:58,320
Speaker 1: not um politically biased and so forth, out on the Internet.

1368
01:16:58,400 --> 01:17:01,559
Speaker 1: And that's where we are right now, having that issue

1369
01:17:01,640 --> 01:17:06,479
Speaker 1: of of trust and media that I think is um,

1370
01:17:06,520 --> 01:17:11,000
Speaker 1: you know, a very uh telling issue. Okay, let's just

1371
01:17:11,000 --> 01:17:14,000
Speaker 1: say hypothetically, I can snap my fingers. You own the

1372
01:17:14,160 --> 01:17:18,040
Speaker 1: l A Times. What would you do differently? Oh man,

1373
01:17:19,800 --> 01:17:23,040
Speaker 1: I think I Well, I mean they still I'll probably

1374
01:17:23,040 --> 01:17:25,960
Speaker 1: get help for this because they've they've out of pride

1375
01:17:25,960 --> 01:17:30,320
Speaker 1: and so forth. They've maintained many of their postings around

1376
01:17:30,320 --> 01:17:33,120
Speaker 1: the world and they've cut them back immensely, but they

1377
01:17:33,160 --> 01:17:36,160
Speaker 1: still maintain them. And I just think the way to

1378
01:17:36,240 --> 01:17:39,840
Speaker 1: survive now as a newspaper, unless you're The New York

1379
01:17:39,840 --> 01:17:44,160
Speaker 1: Times in Washington Post, is to really double down on

1380
01:17:44,880 --> 01:17:50,320
Speaker 1: local reporting and local investigative reporting, and you know, maybe

1381
01:17:50,360 --> 01:17:53,400
Speaker 1: not worried so much about having an office in Beijing,

1382
01:17:53,479 --> 01:17:58,559
Speaker 1: but instead have um a reporter who just watches the

1383
01:17:58,600 --> 01:18:01,400
Speaker 1: money in the county budget, you know, things like that,

1384
01:18:02,000 --> 01:18:05,840
Speaker 1: and I think that would would connect the paper to

1385
01:18:06,040 --> 01:18:11,800
Speaker 1: it's populous better. And it can also, um you know,

1386
01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:15,960
Speaker 1: serve that function that is I think is being lost

1387
01:18:16,880 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 1: in terms of being, um a watchdog. And to be

1388
01:18:20,520 --> 01:18:23,519
Speaker 1: a watchdog, you gotta start with your own community before

1389
01:18:23,520 --> 01:18:26,679
Speaker 1: you start worrying about the world. And I think that's

1390
01:18:26,760 --> 01:18:31,000
Speaker 1: where I think the future of newspapers surviving for the

1391
01:18:31,040 --> 01:18:35,280
Speaker 1: most part is in that local attention to the local scene.

1392
01:18:36,280 --> 01:18:39,680
Speaker 1: And you know what what you said, You write so

1393
01:18:39,760 --> 01:18:41,280
Speaker 1: much about l A and you live about live in

1394
01:18:41,400 --> 01:18:44,760
Speaker 1: l A. What's your viewpoint on Los Angeles. I'm still

1395
01:18:44,840 --> 01:18:47,400
Speaker 1: very enthusiastic about l A, and I think by Harry

1396
01:18:47,400 --> 01:18:51,920
Speaker 1: Bosh would be too. To me. It goes back to

1397
01:18:52,000 --> 01:18:53,840
Speaker 1: back when I told you about when I was a

1398
01:18:53,920 --> 01:18:56,080
Speaker 1: young reporter and I felt like I was a prince

1399
01:18:56,120 --> 01:18:58,040
Speaker 1: of the city because I knew things that were going

1400
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:01,280
Speaker 1: on that people didn't know. Yet I feel that way

1401
01:19:01,280 --> 01:19:03,200
Speaker 1: about l A. I still feel like it's on the

1402
01:19:03,240 --> 01:19:07,839
Speaker 1: front line of change and and trends and culture and

1403
01:19:07,840 --> 01:19:11,599
Speaker 1: and there's there's a pride in that that I take

1404
01:19:11,680 --> 01:19:14,760
Speaker 1: in as as a writer of this place, as a

1405
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:18,599
Speaker 1: resident of this place, as just someone who loves this place.

1406
01:19:18,680 --> 01:19:20,519
Speaker 1: And so I still so I think l A is

1407
01:19:20,520 --> 01:19:23,479
Speaker 1: going to be okay no matter, no matter what happens,

1408
01:19:23,640 --> 01:19:27,479
Speaker 1: you know, post post Corona. Well, I guess, thinking back,

1409
01:19:27,520 --> 01:19:29,639
Speaker 1: the reason I got into Bosh is I knew someone

1410
01:19:29,680 --> 01:19:32,880
Speaker 1: who worked at Amazon and they said to watch Goliath.

1411
01:19:33,560 --> 01:19:36,720
Speaker 1: And I wrote about Goliah saying how had the l

1412
01:19:36,800 --> 01:19:38,360
Speaker 1: A look? And someone wrote to me said, well, if

1413
01:19:38,400 --> 01:19:41,320
Speaker 1: you're into the l A look, you gotta watch Bosh.

1414
01:19:41,439 --> 01:19:45,240
Speaker 1: Now you really get the richness and the color, the visibility.

1415
01:19:45,240 --> 01:19:47,640
Speaker 1: You know, you do this better than any series. To

1416
01:19:47,720 --> 01:19:50,120
Speaker 1: what degree is that conscious? And to what degree did

1417
01:19:50,160 --> 01:19:52,400
Speaker 1: you try to nail it and get a specific just

1418
01:19:52,479 --> 01:19:56,080
Speaker 1: you know, with the DP, etcetera. Well, it started with

1419
01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:59,759
Speaker 1: the books, and then it was really surrounding the books

1420
01:19:59,760 --> 01:20:03,679
Speaker 1: with people in this industry, the television industry, who wanted

1421
01:20:03,720 --> 01:20:06,760
Speaker 1: to get it right, you know. So you know, I

1422
01:20:06,800 --> 01:20:09,800
Speaker 1: pretty much consciously when I had choices of going to

1423
01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:12,600
Speaker 1: people and eventually it becomes so big that I have

1424
01:20:12,680 --> 01:20:15,840
Speaker 1: no no saying a lot of different things, but I

1425
01:20:15,880 --> 01:20:18,519
Speaker 1: went to people that knew the books and loved the books.

1426
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:23,200
Speaker 1: So our line producer, which is a usually important nuts

1427
01:20:23,200 --> 01:20:26,479
Speaker 1: and bolts producer. Um was a guy who read the

1428
01:20:26,520 --> 01:20:29,160
Speaker 1: books and the guy who produced the movie Heat back

1429
01:20:29,200 --> 01:20:33,200
Speaker 1: in the nineties, which influenced me as a writer. So,

1430
01:20:33,720 --> 01:20:35,640
Speaker 1: you know, you start start with this, you start with

1431
01:20:35,640 --> 01:20:38,519
Speaker 1: people who love l A and they want to make

1432
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:41,000
Speaker 1: something that is realistic, but at the same time it's

1433
01:20:41,080 --> 01:20:43,880
Speaker 1: also kind of a love letter to l A. And

1434
01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:46,439
Speaker 1: then you keep adding to that circle of people of

1435
01:20:46,479 --> 01:20:51,160
Speaker 1: the same kind of sentiment and a view of this place. Um.

1436
01:20:51,800 --> 01:20:54,439
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a rare thing, I think. Um,

1437
01:20:54,479 --> 01:20:56,599
Speaker 1: I don't know if it works every time on every shows.

1438
01:20:56,640 --> 01:20:59,800
Speaker 1: I don't I don't have those experiences to to know.

1439
01:21:00,479 --> 01:21:03,639
Speaker 1: But but we just have a bunch of people who

1440
01:21:03,680 --> 01:21:07,559
Speaker 1: wanted who went to to l A to be a

1441
01:21:07,640 --> 01:21:10,479
Speaker 1: character in this show. You know, you mentioned about the

1442
01:21:10,479 --> 01:21:13,200
Speaker 1: look of the show. You know, our director of photography,

1443
01:21:13,280 --> 01:21:18,160
Speaker 1: Patrick Katie, he works on that so much. You know,

1444
01:21:18,439 --> 01:21:21,519
Speaker 1: he's always out there shooting, trying to get the tone right,

1445
01:21:21,560 --> 01:21:23,519
Speaker 1: trying to get the tone that we're looking for, that

1446
01:21:23,560 --> 01:21:26,160
Speaker 1: he's looking for. And we just have a lot of

1447
01:21:26,200 --> 01:21:30,240
Speaker 1: individuals that give their all to the show and it's

1448
01:21:30,280 --> 01:21:32,960
Speaker 1: it's amazing to be a part of that. What about

1449
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:35,600
Speaker 1: the house facing l A as opposed to the valley.

1450
01:21:36,040 --> 01:21:38,800
Speaker 1: It's funny I mentioned the guy who was the line

1451
01:21:38,800 --> 01:21:42,800
Speaker 1: producer of Heat. That house was in Heat and um

1452
01:21:43,720 --> 01:21:46,479
Speaker 1: and he you know, I don't know if anyone has

1453
01:21:46,560 --> 01:21:49,479
Speaker 1: Roll Indexes anymore, but he's kept every contact he's ever

1454
01:21:49,520 --> 01:21:52,040
Speaker 1: made in Hollywood. And so we end up running that

1455
01:21:52,080 --> 01:21:54,800
Speaker 1: house because we had a connection to that house through

1456
01:21:54,880 --> 01:22:00,519
Speaker 1: this uh producer we have. Um. I think that to

1457
01:22:00,600 --> 01:22:03,040
Speaker 1: get back to your question though, I think that's a

1458
01:22:03,120 --> 01:22:06,920
Speaker 1: good way of looking at the difference between writing a

1459
01:22:06,960 --> 01:22:09,960
Speaker 1: book and making a television show. The visual needs of

1460
01:22:10,000 --> 01:22:13,120
Speaker 1: the television show. Harry Bosh and the books has a

1461
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:17,439
Speaker 1: pretty decent view of part of the city and the

1462
01:22:17,479 --> 01:22:20,920
Speaker 1: freeway and things that are you know, part parcel of

1463
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:23,559
Speaker 1: the city. But when it came to the TV show,

1464
01:22:23,600 --> 01:22:26,439
Speaker 1: we wanted the bright lights and and you know, then

1465
01:22:26,600 --> 01:22:28,679
Speaker 1: that sets up a whole question of whether he could

1466
01:22:28,800 --> 01:22:32,320
Speaker 1: even afford a place like that, and you know, which

1467
01:22:32,400 --> 01:22:34,599
Speaker 1: we I think have taken care of a few times

1468
01:22:34,640 --> 01:22:39,400
Speaker 1: in the storytelling. But um, yeah, I think in the

1469
01:22:39,439 --> 01:22:43,120
Speaker 1: TV show we have more of guardian of the city

1470
01:22:43,280 --> 01:22:47,240
Speaker 1: feel to Bosh, and we wanted a place where he

1471
01:22:47,280 --> 01:22:49,879
Speaker 1: would look out on the city that he protects and serves.

1472
01:22:50,320 --> 01:22:52,920
Speaker 1: He's a big jazz fan and he plays Vinyl in

1473
01:22:52,960 --> 01:22:56,120
Speaker 1: the book. He's playing CDs, So hey, are you a

1474
01:22:56,160 --> 01:22:59,200
Speaker 1: big jazz fan? And b was her conscious choice to

1475
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:01,559
Speaker 1: have him play vine, Yeah, that was part of the

1476
01:23:01,640 --> 01:23:04,320
Speaker 1: playing in the Vinyl was, you know, part of the

1477
01:23:04,439 --> 01:23:08,839
Speaker 1: visual setup. Um, I personally have gone to Vinyl myself.

1478
01:23:08,920 --> 01:23:12,479
Speaker 1: I but I'm I'm a newspaper reporter. So I decided

1479
01:23:12,520 --> 01:23:15,280
Speaker 1: way back when I was first writing Bosch, I wanted

1480
01:23:15,360 --> 01:23:17,960
Speaker 1: him to listen to jazz. It was not because of

1481
01:23:18,040 --> 01:23:22,240
Speaker 1: my knowledge or or love of jazz. It was more

1482
01:23:22,320 --> 01:23:26,800
Speaker 1: like a creative decision, a character decision. Jazz fit this

1483
01:23:26,840 --> 01:23:30,439
Speaker 1: guy who was a loner detective. So being a reporter though,

1484
01:23:30,479 --> 01:23:32,360
Speaker 1: I know how to ask questions and I know how

1485
01:23:32,400 --> 01:23:35,759
Speaker 1: to find good stuff, and so the jazza Harry listens

1486
01:23:35,800 --> 01:23:38,240
Speaker 1: to comes out of my reporting a little bit. It

1487
01:23:38,240 --> 01:23:43,679
Speaker 1: comes out of my father's is my father's music. But um,

1488
01:23:43,720 --> 01:23:49,720
Speaker 1: it was mostly me finding people that would support the

1489
01:23:49,800 --> 01:23:51,960
Speaker 1: character of Harry Bosh as a loner out there in

1490
01:23:52,000 --> 01:23:55,679
Speaker 1: the world who has to fight to make his way,

1491
01:23:55,960 --> 01:23:58,880
Speaker 1: just as the musicians that he listens to had to

1492
01:23:58,920 --> 01:24:03,360
Speaker 1: do Um, So there's a correlation there. Some people who

1493
01:24:03,360 --> 01:24:06,799
Speaker 1: read the books get it, some who some don't, but

1494
01:24:06,800 --> 01:24:10,439
Speaker 1: but they get the aspect of what the music means

1495
01:24:10,479 --> 01:24:13,519
Speaker 1: to him. Well, you know, as I say, the show

1496
01:24:13,720 --> 01:24:17,240
Speaker 1: and carry himself certainly in body l A. Especially in

1497
01:24:17,280 --> 01:24:22,759
Speaker 1: an era where everyone's attacking California. It certainly makes Los

1498
01:24:22,800 --> 01:24:26,240
Speaker 1: Angeles look like a unique police and good In any event, Michael,

1499
01:24:26,520 --> 01:24:29,360
Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing this. Hey, thank you for

1500
01:24:29,400 --> 01:24:33,200
Speaker 1: having me. I'm sorry for the technical interruptions, but if

1501
01:24:33,240 --> 01:24:35,439
Speaker 1: we ever do it again, I'll get it right. Okay,

1502
01:24:35,479 --> 01:24:38,760
Speaker 1: that's part of the coronavirus era. Until next time, it's

1503
01:24:38,840 --> 01:25:00,479
Speaker 1: Bob left Sex eight