The hardest thing writers have to do is figure out for themselves who they are. What should they be writing about? What stories should they be telling? What does writing mean to them? I didn’t know the answers to those questions for a long, long time.
Then I discovered Michael Crichton. I’d seen most of the movie adaptations like
Jurassic Park and
Sphere, but when I started reading his books and learning about his process, something clicked. I realized that he wasn’t just coming up with cool plots. He was writing books that allowed him to explore topics that interested him. Writing a thriller as self-education. I thought,
Wait, you can just write about stuff that stokes your own curiosity?...