2001 By Scott Nicholson, The Writer Who Had No Future:

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2001 By Scott Nicholson, The Writer Who Had No Future:

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http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/ghostwr9.htm

Ghostwriter

The Writer Who Had No Future: An Interview With Kevin J. Anderson
By Scott Nicholson

Kevin J. Anderson has had more than ten million books in print in the last four years. It's difficult
to count how many titles he's produced, because as soon as you've finished adding them up, he
has another book on the shelves and probably on the bestseller lists as well.

He published his first novel, RESURRECTION INC., in 1985, and has gone on to write a host of
original novels both solo and with his frequent collaborator Doug Beason. He's also written Star
Wars books, three X-Files novels, and comic book scripts. With his wife Rebecca Moesta, he's
written fourteen books for the Young Jedi Knights series.

In 1998, he did a 27-city publicity tour in 28 days for the novel AI! PEDRITO!, which he adapted
from an unproduced L. Ron Hubbard script. He capped that tour by setting a Guiness World
Record for the number of books signed in one sitting. He also released LETHAL EXPOSURE,
co-written with Beason.

Anderson recently signed the largest contract in science fiction history to write three prequels
to Frank Herbert's DUNE. Anderson and co-author Brian Herbert are getting a reported $3 million
for the books. His new epic series is THE SAGA OF SEVEN SUNS.

All this from the man who once won a "Writer With No Future" award for producing the most
pounds of rejection slips at a convention. He piled up more than 750 rejections along the way,
but now Anderson can count on plenty of acceptances in the years ahead.




SN: How did you get started in writing?

Anderson: Back when I was five years old, I saw a movie called "War of the Worlds," and it
blew me away. I remember not sleeping at all that night, not because I was so scared, but
because I was so thrilled about how the story was. I thought,"This is the best thing I have ever
seen." Of course, at five years old, I hadn't seen a whole lot.

I decided I wanted to do science fiction. I was only five years old, so I couldn't write it. I drew
pictures and told the stories to go with them. When I was about ten years old, I saved up enough
money from babysitting and mowing lawns and stuff so that I could buy a bicycle like every other
boy. Instead, I spent the money on a typewriter because I wanted to be a writer.





SN: You are renowned for your persistence. What kept you going when things looked dark?

Anderson: What looked dark was that people didn't see that I was going to be around anyway. I
never had any question. I just wondered how long it would take the other editors and writers to see.
I've had a lot of rejection slips, but I don't look at them as failures, I look at them as steps along the
way to learning what I was doing. I'm a lot better writer now than I was when I was getting rejected.

It's not entirely because I'm successful and famous that I don't get rejected as much anymore.
It's because I'm a better writer. You learn your trade as you go through. You're not wasting your time.





SN: What are the challenges and rewards of working with media titles or someone else's property?

Anderson: Working with the media tie-ins, there's a whole bunch of rewards. They sell a lot better
than a lot of my original things. We get a very broad readership. We get lots of families' and younger
readers' responses that say, "I never liked to read until I read these books," and they realize that
picking up a book and sitting down can actually be a fun afternoon or a cool way to entertain yourself.
We've got letters from kids who learned to read from our books. To me, that's a great reward.

The challenge is, because Star Wars and X-Files are so popular, it's much more work to get all the
details right than to just make up your own world. You have to go back to somebody else's sources
and somebody has to approve them. There's kind of an extra committee involved. I do both, I write
my own stuff and I handle media fiction, and I also collaborate.





SN: How do you handle collaboration?

Anderson: When I pick a collaborator, I try to get somebody whose skills complement my own,
who does things that I don't do well, or brings expertise that adds to the book. The book that I write
with a collaborator is different than anything I would write on my own.





SN: What motivates you to keep going on so many projects?

Anderson: I love writing. I love telling stories. Doug Beason, one of my collaborators, once said
if I ever stopped writing, my head would explode. I really enjoy it. It's not like I have to drag myself
to the desk every morning and force myself to put in a few hours. If it's hard work and you don't
want to do it, then by all means, this is not the profession for you, because there's a lot of time
involved. I'm very successful now, but it took me almost fifteen years to get to the point where I
was considered successful. Fifteen years, that's almost as much time as brain surgeons put in. It's
not something that you step into lightly. You have to decide it's what you want to do. It's going be a
lot of work for a long time




...
When a brand knew urinal puck showed up in the bathroom of my studio, I knew what I had to do.
-AToE
D Pope
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Re: 2001 By Scott Nicholson, The Writer Who Had No Future:

Post by D Pope »

SN: What are the challenges and rewards of working with media titles or someone else's property?

Anderson: Working with the media tie-ins, there's a whole bunch of rewards. They sell a lot better than a lot of my original things.
When a brand knew urinal puck showed up in the bathroom of my studio, I knew what I had to do.
-AToE
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Sev
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Re: 2001 By Scott Nicholson, The Writer Who Had No Future:

Post by Sev »

Spanky wrote: It's not entirely because I'm successful and famous...
Gosh darn it all, why are we wasting our time and energy ripping on Keith all the time, jealousy run rampant of his success and good fortune. The guy is ABSOLUTELY FUCKING FAMOUS :angry-screaming: :angry-screaming:

I suggest it's time we all grew up a little...
"It was early 1974 before I made any attempt to read Dune. After forty pages I gave up. I couldn't get into the book. It seemed convoluted, opaque and full of strange language." - Brian "Bobo" Herbert
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Freakzilla
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Re: 2001 By Scott Nicholson, The Writer Who Had No Future:

Post by Freakzilla »

Sev wrote:I suggest it's time we all grew up a little...
You must be crazy.
They were destroyed because they lied pretentiously. Have no fear that my wrath
will fall upon you because of your innocent mistakes.

~Leto II, God Emperor
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SandChigger
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Re: 2001 By Scott Nicholson, The Writer Who Had No Future:

Post by SandChigger »

Me, grow up? :shock:

NEVER!!! :angry-screaming:
"Chancho...sometimes when you are a man...you wear stretchy pants...in your room...alone."

"Politics is never simple, like the sand chigger of Arrakis, one is rarely truly free of its bite."

Arrakeen is an unawakened ghola.
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