Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
My first story was a novel by Ben Bova called "Mars". It had been left behind by one of my step mothers but was useless to my father because he was illiterate. English was not my first language and I didn't learn to speak it correctly until I was about eleven but I've been able to read English for as long as I can remember. I was probably about six or seven when I read "Mars" and it made me fall in love with the red planet and science and the Hopi people of North America. Even now when I don't currently have a copy of the book in my home, I have a big map of Mars on my wall and I know where Jamie Fox Waterman landed. If a film or a book has Mars in it, I've seen it or read it.
One thing about the book that always stuck with me was the kinky sex subplot but later scifi like "Rendezvous with Rama" showed me that this was not completely isolated to "Mars". I also read how other writers would go through long tortured loops to avoid spelling out a sex scene but I didn't see the big deal if it was actually part of the plot. Where trashy romance novels are basically just porn, "Mars" offered a more sophisticated take that was about more than just describing body parts and sexual positions. Romance novels are bit like the old comic books from the silver age, where a hero was basically a power drawn in human form but without an independent character. Change the name, change the backstory and nothing really changed at all with the comic because it was never about the character, just what they could do. Compare that to comics from the 180's and you see that they can make a comic work even with a character with no powers because it was about the character, their hopes and dreams, what they thought, how they felt, and where they drew the line.
I will always be thankful for that little book from the science fiction book club that got me into reading. It helped me answer a question about scurvy when I was in second grade. It helped me know that space is really big. It helped me know that the weird red star that keeps moving around in the sky is an actual place that maybe we'll go visit one day.
What is your writing process?
The first step is to not write a thing. I actively avoid the keyboard while the story is trying to draft itself in my head. Random thoughts that are unrelated get linked together while I'm driving or riding the train. A wisp of a premise emerges and then of course characters are born. Sometime my plot requires that the characters do or say certain things but as the story develops in my head my characters do not always comply with what I want as if they had a mind of their own. Once I have a strong idea of who the characters are, they start to talk to each other in my brain while I'm doing other things. There are also the odd occasions when I make sure no one is around and I go full rakugo mode and start to act out the various characters and their interactions. I often do that in the shower actually.
Once the story is something that I want to tell, THEN I sit down at the keyboard and just let it flow out of me. I've been a touch type since I was in middle school and my job requires that I do a lot of writing so I can easily punch out about 10,000 words a day. Most of my stories I finish in one sitting.
I usually don't do much editing once the story is written but sometimes I cut things out or add a line I think I need here or there. The major thing that happens after I write the story is I have to proofread. I'm still not the best at that as I've memorized the story so well, my brain fills in what should be there and ignores what my eyes actually see. To compensate for that, I use Text To Speech and have the computer or my phone read the story to me. Even then, I don't catch everything but I'm working on it.
A lot of people write to me asking why I haven't made a part two or a part three of a series. Sequels are both an easy thing and a hard thing to do. I often feel that the premise of the story is finished. Sure, I might have created some characters that people like and want to see more of but in my head they lose their energy until I find a new premise that they would want to explore. A lot of my characters are very stubborn. I have often written more to a story and found that while the series is very nice in itself, nothing afterwards matches the initial premise in tone or quality and if I do anything, I really want to create nice stories that people really want to read.
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