Harlan Coben

And that's kind of part of the key to doing as much as I can.

And is that your view?

Yes.

I mean, the hardest part of writing is writing.

And even though I wrote this book on how to write, outlining is not writing.

Creating characters is not writing.

Coming up with ideas is not writing.

Hanging with your friends at Starbucks is not writing.

Reading is not writing.

Only writing is writing.

Only the moments you actually produce words on a page or a screen actually do I count as writing.

The rest of it, comparatively speaking, is flotsam and jetsam.

Yes, it's part of it.

And I'd love to fill myself up all the time.

You know, when I leave you here, I will walk through Central Park back to my apartment and I will watch the people and I will soak it all in.

And hopefully that will end up somewhere, maybe in a book, something that will happen to me.

But I need to be thinking always with the writer's mind frame, always that sort of thing of what can I use and how can I turn things around to turn it into story.

Well, first of all, I disagree it's 2% because sometimes the problem is you have to make sure you're also working smart.

Like if you have a really bad idea, don't stick with it because people tell you you have to keep working at it.

So work smarter than that.