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.
— Michael Connelly
You know that song, 'New York, New York?' If I can make it here, I'll make it anywhere? That's kind of like L.A.
The fulfillment I get from a good day of writing is addictive and will always bring me back the next day.
I could not have been happier with 'The Lincoln Lawyer.' They got the essence, and the casting, starting with McConaughey, was just perfect.
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.
I've always thought of L.A. as the modern version of 'The Garden of Earthly Delights.'
I'm just going to write the best books I can.
I can't say I'm an expert on public transport.
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.
People like the Bosch books because they like Harry Bosch, not because the plots are fantastic.
My literary heroes all wrote about L.A.: Joseph Wambaugh, Ross Macdonald, and Raymond Chandler were the three writers that made me want to be a writer.
I write at a pace that suits me, and sometimes it's two books a year, but most often it's one.
I get up to write while it's still dark, 5 or 5:30. I start by editing and rewriting everything I did the day before, and that gives some momentum for the day.
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.
In the real world, some defense lawyers never have an innocent client in their whole career.
My experience as a newspaper reporter was invaluable in terms of getting me to the kind of writing I do now. It gave me a work ethic of writing every day and pushing through difficult creative times. I mean, there's no writer's block allowed in a newsroom.
Many writers learned their craft and work ethic at a newspaper. I benefited from that.
As soon as I got to L.A., there was this big crime where these guys tunnelled underneath a bank on a three-day weekend and went right up to the vault and emptied everything out.
The criminal defense attorney is misunderstood if not despised by most of society. It doesn't matter if we believe in our adversarial system and the ideal that everyone charged with a crime is entitled to a vigorous defense. Ideals give away to reality - defense lawyers working loopholes and angles to get their clients off.
A good day to me is writing from 6 A.M. 'til noon with a break to take my daughter to school. After lunch, if I still feel the momentum, I'll hit it again.
In 'Blood Work,' they made choices I wouldn't have made, but I'm not a filmmaker. I took the money, and they told the story.
As a writer, you look for inspiration wherever you can get it.
With age comes a greater understanding and a greater worldview.
I have high hopes for Renee Ballard's literary life, and it can't start out better than the top of 'USA TODAY''s best-seller list.
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.
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.
I hate people thinking their city is unique, but there is a certain aura about Los Angeles; it's not necessarily a beautiful thing, but it's part of Harry Bosch.
I think the best way to sell a made-up character is to plant his feet into the real earth.
I never write thinking, 'What would a woman do?' any more than I think, 'What would a man do?' It comes down to what would a solid detective do in these circumstances.
My favorite is 'The Last Coyote.' I'm not saying that's the best book I've written; I hope I haven't written my best book yet, but that one was the first book I wrote as a full-time author, with my full-time focus. I have a nostalgic feeling about it.
In the TV world, we are seeing a lot more power going to the writer. I sense it is a writer's medium.
You have to write about what scares you.
The books I've written the fastest were the best reviewed and sold the best.
One of the great things about fiction is you can use an issue and describe it in human terms.
Every time I visit Brisbane, I think, 'This is my childhood.'
I'd be lying if I said the success means nothing to me. It does. I enjoy it and live a pretty great life.
Ross McDonald had a greater influence on me than any other writer. His style of writing, the repeated theme of the past coming out to grab somebody, that's very attractive to me as a reader and, now, as a writer.
I was fired as an actor on 'Bosch.'
It wasn't a decision to become a writer. I wanted to become a writer of crime fiction. I was very specific.
I chose deliberately for Harry Bosch to age chronologically with the books.
I've crossed the Mexican border and gone to Tijuana a few times over the years, but I've never felt comfortable there.
I'm not Mr. Hollywood. I'm a book writer.
When I am so intensely involved with writing my books, I don't like to reread them. I feel like that story is done.
I want to tell stories that reflect how people are feeling.
All my writing is fun, and that makes it hard to slow down or walk away.
The LAPD, like most police departments, is a male-dominated bureaucracy. A woman faces a lot of pushback.
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.
To get a connection to your characters, you have to put them in a situation that you can feel yourself.
That's what I like most about writing fiction over journalism: the easy metaphors!
As a former reporter, I wrote 'The Scarecrow' quickly - I didn't have to think about what the character would do the way I do with Harry Bosch.
