A: Arthur C. Clarke (sf) and Lawrence Block (mystery). Neither of them have ever disappointed me.

Q: What person has had the biggest effect on your life as a writer, and why?

A: My high school English teacher. She appreciated what I was trying to do, and encouraged it.

Q: What type of books do you write? Is there a reason you write science fiction and mysteries rather than romance?

A: I write science fiction and mysteries, because that is mostly what I read. And I read mostly in these two categories because I am fascinated by science and I enjoy mysteries (in life as in my reading) and science fiction is no more than scientific mysteries.

Q: Do you ever use real people as the inspiration for characters in your books? If so, why do you choose those particular people?

A: I ALWAYS use real people, either consciously or subconsciously. Real people are all we know; the knowledge of real people is all we possess. We use something from this person, something else from that person, and something else from a third person to build a character. Whether we do this consciously or not varies from writer to writer and character to character.

Q: How much of your own life and experiences do you put into your books?

A: Certainly my own ideology and views make it into my novels. As for experiences, sure. That's part of the reason we make the decisions we do in our lives - to have material for our books. Part of the reason I decided to volunteer for military service during the Vietnam era was to have material for novels.

Q: Have you made any big mistakes in your writing career? What were they, and do you think they did you lasting harm?

A: Yes, I have. I quit writing for a number of years while building a career in another field. To really make it as a writer of novels of any category, you must turn out a novel a year - or at least one every two years. This keeps your name before the readers. If you don't do that, you risk a stalled career, which is what happened to me. I will never make a living as a novelist.

Q: Do you ever suffer from writer's block? Have you found any effective ways for dealing with it?

A: I know I will take a lot of flack for saying this, but I don't believe in writer's block. It is simple laziness.

Q: What's your current writing project? How did you come up with the idea?

A: In my current writing project, I am adapting for the big screen a novel of mine that was originally published as a paperback in 1985. Last summer an independent Los Angeles producer/director optioned the book, and we are working together to develop the screenplay.