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" I don't miss being a reporter as a job, but I do miss the everyday interaction with the front line of law enforcement. I still have a cadre of cops who keep me up to date, but I don't have the access I used to. "

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" The three books I've written in Florida about L.A. are my best takes on the physicality of the city, as far as description goes. "

Michael Connelly

Far

Florida

Three

" As a writer, you look for inspiration wherever you can get it. "

" It's about being fair. It's about Black Lives Matter. Yes, they matter. Everybody counts or nobody counts, and I think if more cops had the philosophy of Harry Bosch, we'd have less of these situations happening. "

" My whole reputation and creative thought as a novelist is really wrapped around Harry Bosch, so he's near and dear. "

Michael Connelly

Creative

Reputation

" We want our government to protect us, to make sure something like 9/11 never happens again. We quickly moved to give law enforcement more power to do this. But that now begs the question, did we move to fast? Did we give too much power away? I don't have the answer. "

" There is a prevailing school of thought that something good must take time, sometimes years to create and hone. I have always felt that the books I have written fastest have been my best - because I caught an unstoppable momentum in the writing. "

" I not only read Raymond Chandler but read all the crime fiction classics. I was hooked. "

" When I went home at 20 to tell my parents, 'I don't want to be an engineer, I want to try and write books,' I was braced for, 'That's not gonna happen.' But I didn't get that response, and maybe it was because of my dad's experience of having an artistic dream and having to put it aside. "

" Writing a screenplay is so spare, it kind of reminded me that I really should celebrate what I can do in a book, which is description: for example, places, people, locations. "

" I'd seen Titus Welliver in a few shows and felt he had some inner demons in his portrayals, as does Harry Bosch. "

Michael Connelly

Few

Inner

" When I was a teenager, I was a voracious reader of crime fiction, but only contemporary books. I was not interested in reading 'The Glass Key' or 'The Maltese Falcon' - stuff that was 40 or 50 years old. "

" When I write about Mickey Haller as the Lincoln lawyer, I totally see Matthew McConaughey because he took that character when that character was still fairly new to me - only two or three years old - when I knew McConaughey was going to play him. He's also the same age, the right age, in comparison to the book. "

Michael Connelly

Book

Character

" I don't think anyone will believe me, but I've never been pressured by a publisher to churn out a book. "

" What brought me to the table was Raymond Chandler and, to a lesser degree, Ross Macdonald and Dashiell Hammett. I was basically inspired to want to write like the classic private-eye writers. "

" I think it's pretty apparent who my favorites are because I keep coming back to them. At the top of that list would be Harry Bosch, who's now going on 20 years of literary life. I still like him the best because there's still a lot to say about him. "

" I have a large collection of biographies about jazz musicians. "

" I used to tape over the top corner of my computer screen so I couldn't see what time it was. I like the idea that I'm just with the words and not knowing what's going on with the world, when it's lunch or dinner. "

" I'm always looking at ways of shaking up the writing experience because I think it helps. "

Michael Connelly

Writing

Think

" Now I'm writing about contemporary Los Angeles from memory. My process was to hang out, observe, research what I was writing about, and almost immediately go back to my office and write those sections. So it was a very close transfer between observation and writing. "

" I learned to write crime novels by reading people I hoped to emulate: people like James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, Joseph Wambaugh, and Sue Grafton. "

Michael Connelly

People

Write

" I feel I'm functioning at some level as a journalist because even though I write fiction, I'm trying to get the world accurate. "

" When I am so intensely involved with writing my books, I don't like to reread them. I feel like that story is done. "

Michael Connelly

I Am

Story

" I write my books never thinking of an actor. "

" I admit my reading time is limited because I can write in the situations and places where people usually read. But reading is the fuel - it's inspiring - so I try to keep the tank full. What happens most of the time is I binge read. I will put aside a day or two to do nothing but read. "

" I think there has to be an empathic strike between the reader and the protagonist. There has to be something said or known that connects the reader to this person you're going to ride through the story with. "

" I first discovered Tampa in my 20s when I met my wife, who was living there, and I instantly fell in love with the city. It's somewhere between a big city and small town, so you get the feeling of both. "

" What is overriding that and most important is that readers generally are interested in a good character. They might be more comfortable with Harry because they think they know him, but they always seem willing to give somebody new a chance. "

" The characters I write about are very internal. "

" I think the best way to sell a made-up character is to plant his feet into the real earth. "

" I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system. "