I find myself in this bizarre position in which everything I write and talk about is pretty much about this issue, the environment. It feels a little too comfortable, because at the end of the day I can rationalize that I'm doing my share. I don't know if I actually am, I don't know if I should be more of an activist than I am. But at the end of the day, everybody needs to do those things that they're most likely to continue doing, and that aren't going to burn them out.

Jeff VanderMeer

Categorized in : Writing Bizarre Environment

Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.

Jeff VanderMeer

ruins answers long

Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.

Jeff VanderMeer

self desire brain

The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?

Jeff VanderMeer

maps way firsts

Dreams, though, are just one kind of inspiration - no more or less special than something in a newspaper article or from the world around you sparking inspiration.

Jeff VanderMeer

inspiration special dream

When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality.

Jeff VanderMeer

events taken reality

But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?

Jeff VanderMeer

invisible what-if purpose

Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you. You can create little islands of time away from your novel that will help preserve your balance. Exhaustion will affect both your writing’s quality and your productivity.

Jeff VanderMeer

balance islands writing

When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.

Jeff VanderMeer

smartphones dumb thinking

Literary influences are harder for me to point to, because mostly it's a mulch of all of my past reading.

Jeff VanderMeer

influence reading past

So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.

Jeff VanderMeer

magazines opinion philosophy

Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.

Jeff VanderMeer

goal mind fiction

A lot of the creature comforts and the things we take for granted, are not sustainable, especially at current population levels. And so, it's not just simply a matter of changing over to solar. It's a matter of changing our philosophies. Of learning to live, more or less, mid- or post-apocalyptic, whatever apocalyptic means.

Jeff VanderMeer

comfort philosophy mean

There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.

Jeff VanderMeer

ipods type band

The music I listen to while writing is really scene-specific. It's just a great motivator, a way to put myself in the mood.

Jeff VanderMeer

mood writing way

Trust your imagination. Don't be afraid to fail. Write. Revise. Revise. Revise.

Jeff VanderMeer

failing imagination writing

We should feel an urgency about our environment and what's been done to it by human action and inaction. I wouldn't say there's a resurgence - I think it's been with us all along, and especially since the 1960s and 1970s, but it is true that there's almost a subsection of the bookstore devoted to it now. Personally, I've been addressing these issues in my long and short fiction since the late 1980s - basically since the beginning of my career.

Jeff VanderMeer

done long thinking

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.

Jeff VanderMeer

editors trying character

What occurs after revelation and paralysis?

Jeff VanderMeer

paralysis revelations

I do believe very much in the idea of unexpected or "convulsive" beauty - beauty in the service of liberty.

Jeff VanderMeer

beauty believe ideas

One of the most important things as a writing instructor is to provide a lot of different entry points to subjects. To not impose your own personal experience as the One True Way.

Jeff VanderMeer

different important writing