And how does your brain know which idea bucket or a new concept belongs in? Or does a good idea transcend genre?

What a great question.

And I think what it comes down to is whether I'm telling...

Someone's real life story or whether I'm creating a story based on characters that I've created in collaboration or alone.

The most important thing and the thing they have in common is it's about story.

What is driving the character, whether that character is real or fictional? What motivates the character? The nonfiction book I'm most proud of that actually won several awards and was a bestseller, White Robes and Broken Badges, is the story of an ex-army sniper who infiltrates the KKK twice for the FBI at incredible risk to his life.

It's one thing to infiltrate an organization like that once.

Yes, any kind of fear in writing.

Have you ever experienced a situation like that in your writing career?

Yes, great question.

And to be brutally frank, If I had as many fans or who love my books as much as I do, I wouldn't have had so many that underperformed a little bit, you know, that disappointed.

So I think that a book that doesn't perform up to the expectations of you or your publisher is kind of like a fumble or the metaphor getting back on the horse, right? Well, here's the thing writers have to do.

The day they turn in their first book and they're done, they have to start their second.

So by the time there might be a fumble, they're already so far into that second book, they can shrug it off and say, you know what? This one, we've got good reviews, we've made some progress, but the book, okay, it didn't sell well, but I've got another one.

Um, you know, I think in this business, the toughest thing for me, I was, my heyday as a writer, my golden age was right out of the box.

So it's a lot to catch up on.