My dad said 'The thing that I was told that was really helpful was that I mustn't be afraid of the things I was afraid of when I was five years old'. The shock of his childhood had put him in this defensive crouch against the world and he needed to know that he had a nice wife and kids and it wasn't the same any more.
The movies that made me want to make movies were action movies and thrillers and Kurosawa films you know where you have an opportunity every day to shoot it in an unusual way. I was looking for something like that.
I love horror I love scary movies I love thrillers. If things creep you out and spook you? I love it.
Truly I never thought of myself as writing legal thrillers and I still don't think I do. I write stories about women.
Now I'm a failed political consultant. But sometimes fiction has a way of capturing people's imagination in a way that non-fiction doesn't. Conservatives typically haven't written much fiction - specifically political thrillers - over the years to educate inspire and mobilize people on issues of great import but we ought to.