Our guest today has done what perhaps some of you may be many of you have dreamed of doing which is right book not just any book mind you

our guest today has written a crime book a true crime book I don't know how you found time to do it he's a lawyer in North Carolina

they can use a North Carolina I know he's a lawyer lawyers aren't really known for having lots and lots of spare time

so how did he pick the right crime to write about it's not his first book but the one I want to ask him about how did he pick this crime

and if you are familiar with the crime which I was somewhat familiar with it but you might not be you're going to need to read book or otherwise familiarize yourself with facts

some of the cases emanating out of this crime have been to trial others have not but it is rare when you have a combination of lawyers and dentists

and otherwise problem with families involved in a true murder for hire so with that let's bring in a counselor Stephen Epstein lawyer and true crime novelist thank you counselor for joining us how are you

good thanks so much for having me you are welcome when we get the hard question out of the way first how in the world do you have time to write novels

I mean you still have a little practice right I do how do you have time to do that if you love what you do you make the time that's him

well man that's true with me and golf I do make time to play golf but I can do that in about four hours my guess how long does it take you to write to write a book

everyone is different it's a piece of the say with a least a couple of thousand hours to write this one

well so I've written three so four you have written the genre that I want to write but I didn't do that I wrote what I think are called self help books

how to ask questions how to make decisions it is a grueling process so again you be stunned at the number of lawyers who talk about writing books

do you start with an outline how do you start writing a book well I first have to have the idea what am I going to write about

and so that's that's where it all begins and decide that the idea is book worthy that people are going to be interested in reading about it

and that it's going to feel more than 30 or 40 pages so got to get that idea and then decide what does it look like how does it flow

I do not outline a lot of writers outline I am what's more more a pancer right by the seat of my pants

and when I form what I think is chapter one I start writing chapter one and then I just keep going until I think I'm at the end

and hopefully there's something good in between the pages

I don't want to see one more process question just because I find it fascinating you're a litigator

yes I don't know whether I mean the judges ever say okay you got 30 minutes to give your opening statement or your judges kind of let you take the amount of time you need to take opening and closing

I practice today mostly in family court so almost all of the times I'm in court is before family court judges and in rolling worth Carolina we have extremely crowded dockets

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