For some insights into the creative process and the author's most difficult job -- avoiding clichés -- here are some of my recently published (and net accessible) articles, interviews, and essays discussing the art of fiction.

MUST BE SOMETHING IN THE WATER: UCSD Alumni Science Fiction Authors (88 min. | #6557) (7/9/2002) discuss why UCSD has cultivated more science fiction writers than any other university of our time, including such luminaries as panel participants David Brin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Vernor Vinge and Gregory Benford.

SOME ADVICE FOR NEW WRITERS: I believe a person is behooved to help pass success on to those who follow. So, after writing the same answers, over and over, to many letters I received from would-be writers, I decided to put it all together here. Call it a small trove of advice. Mine it for whatever wisdom you may find.

"Art may be essential and deeply human, but it ain't rare. What's rare is honesty. A willingness to look past all the fancy things we want to believe, peering instead at what may actually be true."

For another professional's perspective, see Jeff Carver's Advice to Aspiring Writers page.

FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: See an interview I gave the brash and pretty new online speculative fiction magazine IDEOMANCER.

"Progress gives...and it takes away. A more open and educated and richer society can allow ever-larger fractions of the popularity to have hobbies in the arts. Hobbies that enrich lives. But the best hobbyists want more. To move into professional status. As I did in 1980 with my first novel."

FOR AUDIO LOVERS: Those of you with a good internet link and RealAudio can pull in three fun interviews that originally ran on National Public Radio and are now archived for ready access from the NPR site. One is about 'Video Surveillance' -- deriving from The Transparent Society. The other two are about science fiction -- a discussion of "The Science in Science Fiction" with William Gibson and one about "Science Fiction Writing."

EXAMINING THE MATRIX: This article about The Matrix films appeared in Exploring The Matrix: Visions of a Cyber Present, a book of essays about the popular film series, edited by Karen Haber, and published in 2003 by iBooks.

Yes, Matrix is filled with "up yours" messages against some brutish authority. You cannot bond with a modern audience without those. Tolkien and Lucas do it with straw man baddies with red glowing eyes. That doesn't make 'em enlightenment tales. Demigods rankle me, naturally. Chosen ones. It can be done in a way that is pro-people. But rarely.

"Science fiction, in effect, has become a central battlefield in one of the most important disputes roiling in the human mind -- the decision whether to continue our obsession with hierarchies, demigods and the past... or to turn with confidence and wary optimism toward the future."

WRITING AS ART: An interview about the art of writing recently appeared in Science Fiction Weekly.

"Late at night, I can pound the keys in a frenzy as vehement and emotional as Shelley, screaming at heaven during a lightning storm. By day, the rational me then sighs, rolls up his sleeves and edits all that stuff. Skill and inspiration can work together."

ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL: In December 2002, Salon Magazine ran another of my articles about popular culture. This one focuses on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, and how that famous trilogy has played an important role in the long struggle of romanticism against the modern world. The version on Salon was abridged. The full-length article can be viewed here.

"Millions of people who live in a time of genuine miracles -- in which the great-grandchildren of illiterate peasants may routinely fly through the sky, roam the Internet, view far-off worlds and elect their own leaders -- slip into delighted wonder at the notion of a wizard hitchhiking a ride from an eagle. Many even find themselves yearning for a society of towering lords and loyal, kowtowing vassals! Wouldn't life seem richer, finer if we still had kings? If the guardians of wisdom kept their wonders locked up in high wizard towers, instead of rushing onto PBS the way our unseemly 'scientists' do today? Weren't miracles more exciting when they were doled out by a precious few, instead of commercializing every discovery, bottling and marketing each new marvel to the masses for a dollar ninety-five?"

WRITING AND THE ENVIRONMENT: An interview concerning science fiction and the environment appeared in a recent issue of the Australian magazine Living Planet and is reprinted here.

"I don't care for demigods or charismatics. As humans, we are at our best when we take a lot of individual passion and brilliance, and mix it in with lots of debate, science, accountability, more argument, and heaps of honest professional skill. This more mature process sounds less romantic than the Homeric image, but it gets more done. There are plenty of environmental 'heroes' out there. They are most effective in the context of a community... a worldwide community of rising consensus that a living world is much better than a dead one."

WRITING AND THE FUTURE: A new Q & A session covering thoughts on literature and the future has appeared at the Artist Interviews site.

"I'm known as an optimist because I think people are getting better, smarter, wiser. But I don't consider that hugely 'optimistic.' Not if the rate at which it's happening is way too slow. To get better, but not fast enough, that's a unique style of tragedy that Aristotle never imagined. Yet it's one that modern science fiction is wonderfully well-equipped to handle."

BECOMING A FUTURIST: An interview that appeared in the April-June 2002 issue of Scifi-stories.com asks questions like "How did you make the leap from scientist to science fiction writer to futurist?" and "Do you have advice for future authors?"

"Most stories portray more years simply being tacked onto the end, in a serial fashion. But that makes no sense since it packs the future with conservative old fogies, getting in the way of your grandkids! No, what we really want is more life in parallel... letting each of us do more with the span we already have."

FICTION AND SYMBOLISM: An older interview I did for Innervision about symbols in fiction has new meaning in light of recent (9/11) events.

"Love of civilization is the rebel view nowadays: not idiotic or jingoistic patriotism, but appreciation for being part of something."

CAN YOU SPEAK LOJBAN?: "Toujours Voir" -- a specialty micro-story exactly 250 words long -- has been translated into the logical artificial language "lojban." It's an experiment in how complex an idea can be conveyed in the smallest number of words.

i lu ze'e viska li'u
fi'e la deivd brin
 
i lu ju'i prenu la zeloskis bazi vi zvati i ki'anaidai li'u se cusku le marbi

MY CONVERSATION WITH GERMANY: Here's an interview I did for LiteraturSchock. (It's worth a peek just to see the German covers for several of my novels.) It also contains some commentary about how we did not really need to damage the Western Alliance in order to go after Saddam Hussein.

"I have no objections to correcting the terribly cynical mistake that George Bush Sr. made in 1991, leaving a mass-murderer in charge of Iraq. I just wish these people would admit that they foolishly created the problem in the first place."

CLONE ATTACKS!: The appearance of Attack of the Clones has renewed interest in my original Salon article and followup essay about Phantom Menace, George Lucas and The Star Wars Universe, so I've added a new essay, exclusive to this site, in which I critique Attack of the Clones.

"I knew my piece in Salon -- about the many storytelling sins of George Lucas -- would raise a lot of heat out there. In the first day alone, I received over 900 emails... and this doesn't count the tsunami of commentary taking place at Slashdot and other discussion groups. Seems I struck a nerve."

CAN WE GO TO MARS?: The Planetary Society posted an interview I gave them concerning fiction, my motivations as a writer... and how we might get to Mars.

"Every civilization had professionals dedicated to dreams and wonder... but only one ever had an entire class of skilled workers dedicated to finding out what was real, and what was not. Scientists."

AN UPLIFTING INTERVIEW: Read my interview in Science Fiction Weekly, where I discuss writing, the Uplift universe, and other topics.

"The delicious aspect of epic drama is the suspension and tension you find in some tales as ancient as the Odyssey. Tension that builds gradually as layer after layer is unpeeled."

FEMINIZING THE FUTURE: Read my interview for The Linköping Science Fiction & Fantasy Archive.

"I believe female attributes ought to play much bigger roles in our future, although HOW this shall be done is a crucial question. It is vital to note that not all matriarchal societies need be conservative/pastoralist, as I depict in Glory Season."