Can I remember "I remember lots," I say. How much of what I remem... by Charles Stross

Can I remember "I remember lots," I say. How much of what I remember is true is another matter.

Charles Stross

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Categorized in : Remember Matter

What I'm hoping for is something that goes much, much further than the conservative enablers of dog-eat-dog capitalism putting on a puppet show of cleaning house. But that's probably not going to happen just yet.

puppets dog house

We are, after all, homo economicus. by Charles Stross

We are, after all, homo economicus.

My gut feeling is that SF as we know it today is actually a heavily propagandized field that grew out of a specific set of cultural trends running in the USA and Europe between 1918 and 1950, during the post-imperial modernization period.

usa running europe

When I do get to chow down on a book, I try to read ones that are nothing like what I'm writing. So, as I'm currently working on a space opera (of sorts) I'm mostly indulging in urban fantasy.

space writing book

What I read: while I'm writing, I tend to go off reading fiction for relaxation - especially the challenging stuff. It's too much like the day job.

reading writing jobs

I write almost entlirely on Macs, because: Windows gives me hives... by Charles Stross

I write almost entlirely on Macs, because: Windows gives me hives.

writing giving window

I drink tea pretty much continuously at a rate of around 1 imperial pint/hour, which sort of enforces screen/keyboard breaks.

keyboards drink tea

I began my first novel when I was 15. It went through three drafts, of around 40,000 words each. If I find it, I'll burn it.

novel three firsts

I was heavily into AD&D in my teens (late 1970s-early 1980s) but fell off the RPG habit in the mid-80s and have never gone back to it; my lifestyle today isn't very compatible with having a regular gaming group (too much travel).

rpgs groups gone

There's a long-standing (50 year old) flame war within the field over whether it's "sci-fi" or "SF".SF has traditionally been looked down on by the literary establishment because, to be honest, much early SF was execrably badly written - but these days the significance of the pigeon hole is fading; we have serious mainstream authors writing stuff that is I-can't-believe-it's-not-SF, and SF authors breaking into the mainstream. If you view them as tags that point to shelves in bricks-and-mortar bookshops, how long are these genre categories going to survive in the age of the internet?

writing war believe

Most established novelists are writing books informed by experiences gained in their youth. Middle age is not the best time to be changing smartphones every six months or adopting new technology platforms - because we tend to get slower and less accommodating to change as we age.

technology writing book

I'm not planning a kickstarter game. And I'm not really a game de... by Charles Stross

I'm not planning a kickstarter game. And I'm not really a game designer.

planning designer games

I have a CS degree and a history that includes working as a software developer and being a computer magazine columnist back during the 1990s. I guess I simply paid attention to the social effects of the IT revolution as I lived through it.

magazines degrees attention

An important factor to note is that it's rare for anyone to sell a first novel written before they turned 30-35; long-format fiction tends to require a bunch of experience of human life that takes time to acquire. So your average mid-career novelist is in their forties to fifties!

careers average long

I write exclusively using computers. Pens and typewriters can fsck right off - I wrote my first half million words in my teens on a manual typewriter (had to trade it for a new one due to keys snapping from metal fatigue) so I am not a pen or typewriter fetishist.

typewriters keys writing

I have time to write 1-2 novels per year, and get roughly novel-sized ideas every month. I have to perform triage on my own writing impulses.

writing years ideas

My agent is based in New York. And due to a historic accident, my publishing track is primarily American - I'm sold into the UK almost as a foreign import! So I'm quite out of touch with what's going on in UK publishing.

agents track new-york

I was an early adopter: have been on the internet continuously since late 1989, barring a six-month loss of access in the early 90s.

six-months internet loss

It's usually quite easy to shrug and write something else instead... by Charles Stross

It's usually quite easy to shrug and write something else instead.

easy writing

I tend to think that immortal souls, invisible sky daddies, and Santa Claus all belong in the same basket. The disposition of that basket is left as an exercise for the reader.

exercise sky thinking