When I'm writing a novel or doing other serious writing work, I do it on a schedule that dictates writing either 2,000 words a day or writing until noon. After I hit whichever mark comes first, then I can give my attention to everything else I have to do.
What we need to do, as writers, is find out where our market is and adapt to it. I'm not saying that you follow every trend slavishly, but what you see is that, if there is a sea-change in the way that things are being done, then you account for it.
Ultimately, the first, best step in getting your work noticed is to write good work. If people don't engage in your writing, no amount of serialization or free downloads is going to matter. You have to write something worth reading, and often it takes time to get at that level.
There's always been a little bit of tension between the writers of science fiction literature and then science-fiction televised shows or movies, partly because they have a different dynamic.
The way that I write novels in particular is I don't usually outline; I just write. Part of the fun is discovering what's happening in the story as I'm going along.
Personally speaking, when everything is boiled down to the marrow, I think the reason Reddit tolerates the creepy forums has to do with money more than anything else.
It took me eight books to finally be at a point in my career where I could come out with a book and say, 'This is meant to be a funny book,' and we didn't have to make any bones about it.
I'm perfectly fine with the fact that lots of young folks are wanting to watch anime and read manga. I'm perfectly happy that they are doing things online, reading there as opposed to traditional print magazines.
I tell people the first time I decided to write a novel I was in my mid-20s, and it was, 'Well, it's time to see if I can do this.' I basically flipped a coin to see if I was going to write science fiction or if I was going to do a crime novel. The coin toss went to science fiction.
I don't think we're at the point where most people are willing to get rid of body parts and replace them, but then again, people who shoot lasers in their eyes come out with better-than-perfect vision.
Humor is rare in science fiction... there's so little of it that it automatically reminds you of other heroes with that acerbic humor when you find it.
By the time I'm 75 and I have a new hip, and my eyes are laser cleaned of cataracts, I wont think I'm a bionic man. I think that's just how technology works. The posthuman future of humanity will not announce itself; it will just creep up on us.
