aside the money)?
Iâve only written for comics once: a five-issue mini series for IDW:
The Crow: Death and Rebirth,
which is a sort of reboot of
The Crow
set in Japan (and in Japanese Buddhist hell). It was a good experience in some ways, frustrating inothers, but I got my story told. Itâs out in a graphic novel now.
So I havenât had that much experience with comics. But it wasnât as committee-oriented, in terms of the writing, as television. Youâre always filtered through producers and executives, âsuits,â in TV and movies. Few people get to be
auteurs.
Iâm still waiting for my first really satisfying film or TV writing experience. I had a bit more artistic freedom writing the comic.
Do you have a daily routine as writer? A certain bow tie, an heirloom chair, a time or word-count quota? (People like to know these things.)
So you know about the bow tie and the chair? Well, itâs true: I tie a bow on a chair, and then the chair tells me what to write.
Beyond that, I try not to get up too late in the day, I try not to spend too much time online, and I usually end up writing from about noon till three. I take a break, then write till dinner. If Iâm writing a work-for-hire piece I assign myself a certain number of pages per day. If Iâm writing out of my own wellspring of inspiration, which naturally I prefer, I try to write at least five pages. Sometimes it will be more. Thank God for revision. I often start the writing day by revising what I wrote the previous day to get into the swing of the narrative.
Thatâs fiction. Nonfiction, of course, I write nude, on my roof (in all weathers), wearing a balloon-animal hat.
What are you reading right now for fun?
Are we allowed to read for fun? I usually read biographies or historical fiction, at this time in my life. Now reading
1356
by Bernard Cornwell. Iâm also a big fan of Patrick OâBrian and tend to reread him. I like reading something that edifies me and entertains me at the same time. Guilt free!
Did you learn anything useful from your stint in the Coast Guard?
Sure. I learned that I had a hell of a lot to learn. I learned that I was a clumsy, fairly absurd, loutish young snot. I learned respect for men who risk their lives to rescue people, too. It was all a bit like Kiplingâs
Captains Courageous,
but I didnât pull it off as well as his snotty boy did.
There is a persistent theme in your work: the battle between the young and the old. The good guys being usually the young. Has this changed over the years?
Not entirely. Over the years, Iâve accrued more understanding of elders, and of some traditions. But of course lots of traditions are vile and need to be dumped. Racism is traditional, customary in some placesâa thing being customary doesnât make it good.
You will of course find more older people in my novels now that Iâve grown up. But when reediting earlier books I find I still connect with most of the writing. My
A Song Called Youth
(I think of it as one novel, and it isâin the Prime Books omnibus) was titled that because I knew, even back then, that youth has its own point of view. And itâs all relative.
A reader described
Everything Is Broken,
your anti-libertarian thriller, as
Atlas Shrugged
turned on its head (a contortionist metaphor worthy of Cirque du Soleil!). What inspired that work?
Ugh, I hate to be compared to Ayn Rand at all. If itâs on its head, itâs because my thinking is the opposite of Ayn Randâs. What inspired the book was a reaction against Randian thinking, against Libertarianism, against the Tea Party.
Everything Is Broken
is a crime novel/disaster novel fusion that, underlyingly, is also an allegory about the value of community and the need to fight back against the Ayn Rands out there.
How would you describe your politics?
While I can see some virtue in some selfishness, and I believe in independent thinking and
Iâve only written for comics once: a five-issue mini series for IDW:
The Crow: Death and Rebirth,
which is a sort of reboot of
The Crow
set in Japan (and in Japanese Buddhist hell). It was a good experience in some ways, frustrating inothers, but I got my story told. Itâs out in a graphic novel now.
So I havenât had that much experience with comics. But it wasnât as committee-oriented, in terms of the writing, as television. Youâre always filtered through producers and executives, âsuits,â in TV and movies. Few people get to be
auteurs.
Iâm still waiting for my first really satisfying film or TV writing experience. I had a bit more artistic freedom writing the comic.
Do you have a daily routine as writer? A certain bow tie, an heirloom chair, a time or word-count quota? (People like to know these things.)
So you know about the bow tie and the chair? Well, itâs true: I tie a bow on a chair, and then the chair tells me what to write.
Beyond that, I try not to get up too late in the day, I try not to spend too much time online, and I usually end up writing from about noon till three. I take a break, then write till dinner. If Iâm writing a work-for-hire piece I assign myself a certain number of pages per day. If Iâm writing out of my own wellspring of inspiration, which naturally I prefer, I try to write at least five pages. Sometimes it will be more. Thank God for revision. I often start the writing day by revising what I wrote the previous day to get into the swing of the narrative.
Thatâs fiction. Nonfiction, of course, I write nude, on my roof (in all weathers), wearing a balloon-animal hat.
What are you reading right now for fun?
Are we allowed to read for fun? I usually read biographies or historical fiction, at this time in my life. Now reading
1356
by Bernard Cornwell. Iâm also a big fan of Patrick OâBrian and tend to reread him. I like reading something that edifies me and entertains me at the same time. Guilt free!
Did you learn anything useful from your stint in the Coast Guard?
Sure. I learned that I had a hell of a lot to learn. I learned that I was a clumsy, fairly absurd, loutish young snot. I learned respect for men who risk their lives to rescue people, too. It was all a bit like Kiplingâs
Captains Courageous,
but I didnât pull it off as well as his snotty boy did.
There is a persistent theme in your work: the battle between the young and the old. The good guys being usually the young. Has this changed over the years?
Not entirely. Over the years, Iâve accrued more understanding of elders, and of some traditions. But of course lots of traditions are vile and need to be dumped. Racism is traditional, customary in some placesâa thing being customary doesnât make it good.
You will of course find more older people in my novels now that Iâve grown up. But when reediting earlier books I find I still connect with most of the writing. My
A Song Called Youth
(I think of it as one novel, and it isâin the Prime Books omnibus) was titled that because I knew, even back then, that youth has its own point of view. And itâs all relative.
A reader described
Everything Is Broken,
your anti-libertarian thriller, as
Atlas Shrugged
turned on its head (a contortionist metaphor worthy of Cirque du Soleil!). What inspired that work?
Ugh, I hate to be compared to Ayn Rand at all. If itâs on its head, itâs because my thinking is the opposite of Ayn Randâs. What inspired the book was a reaction against Randian thinking, against Libertarianism, against the Tea Party.
Everything Is Broken
is a crime novel/disaster novel fusion that, underlyingly, is also an allegory about the value of community and the need to fight back against the Ayn Rands out there.
How would you describe your politics?
While I can see some virtue in some selfishness, and I believe in independent thinking and
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