The cable makers are the ones who are willing to take risks and do something original and push the envelope some.
One of the things I love, and I’m a voracious reader as well as a writer, is books that surprise me, that are not predictable.
I’ve written some standalone novels, but a book series allows fans in. There’s much more intense involvement.
I’ve said in many interviews that I like my fiction to be unpredictable. I like there to be considerable suspense.
Yes – 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction.
I knew that, when writing a book, you’re not constrained by a budget. You’re not constrained by what you can do, in terms of the special effects technology. You’re not limited to any particular running time.
I have done a lot of work in Hollywood myself. I worked in television for roughly 10 years, from the mid-’80s to mid-’90s. And I was on staff at a couple of shows. I did some feature films, including originals and adaptations.
I had this desire to see the world. I couldn’t see any of it, but I saw it in my imagination, and that’s why I always read books, and I could go to Mars or Middle Earth or the Hyborian age.
I wrote six pilots, none of which ever got picked up. When you stop trying, it then it falls in your lap.
I worked out of Hollywood for 10 years and I had my heart broken half a dozen times, so I know all the things that can go wrong.
Don’t write outlines; I hate outlines.
As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what’s going to happen.
All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful.
A lot of writing takes place in the subconscious, and it’s bound to have an effect.
An awful lot of fantasy, and even some great fantasy, falls into the mistake of assuming that a good man will be a good king, that all that is necessary is to be a decent human being and when you’re king everything will go swimmingly.
Of course it’s not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler and it never has been.
Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories.
I had a couple of friends, but I was mostly the kid with his nose in a book.
I have a huge emotional attachment to characters I’ve created, especially the viewpoint characters.
I watch NFL football on Sundays. I enjoy gaming with friends, meaning role-playing games; I still enjoy going to conventions and traveling.