I obviously prefer writing novels but I take my journalism very seriously, and I enjoy doing it between novels. It gives me an opportunity to move in the outside world.
Part of my job at 'The Economist' was writing about HIV, and that included the grim task of reporting on the state of the global epidemic.
I had the traditional print view of TV journalists: Those are pretty people who get paid a lot of money and don't do any work. It turned out I was wrong.
I am in the bad news business. Seldom do I get to report on puppies, rainbows, or the sounds of children giggling. Well, never.
As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.
He appeared every night, like myself, at about nine o'clock, in the office of Mr. Tyler, to learn the news brought in the night Associated Press report. He knew me from the Bull Run campaign as a correspondent of the press.
I have very strong Canadian connections. My daughter was born there a year and half ago. But because of the nature of my job, I need to be in countries where I can get the stories that I am looking at.
As an online journalist, newswire journalist, newspaper writer, I wrote every day. My whole thing was, 'I have to write and report and write every day.' That was my thing.
If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year.
