[Stepping out from the shadow of Psycho , and such other iconic works as Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction , has been difficult for Ellis.] I had spent 10 years working on an outline about a writer very much like myself, ... He was a fictional writer who had written fictional books, one about a serial killer. He'd had hard times, drug and alcohol problems, and had fathered an 11-year-old boy. Something was stopping me from writing the book. Then I thought, this guy has similarities to you, why don't you make him you? Bret Ellis