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18Q Robert E. Vardeman (a.k.a. Karl Lassiter) |
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Bob’s 18Q |
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The Eighteen Questions |
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18Q |
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Robert E. Vardeman has over 200 books to his credit. In addition to writing as Robert E. Vardeman, he also has westerns as Karl Lasiter, Action/Adventure as Nick Carter, and Fantasy books as Daniel Moran and F.J. Hale, |
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1. Did you choose the writing profession or did it choose you? I had never wanted to be a writer. From the time Sputnik went up, I had wanted to be a nuclear physicist. Through school this worked fine (see #2) until I had been accepted at UC Berkeley to work on my PhD in ceramic engineering. A few months between quitting my job at Sandia and going out to Berkeley ensued. During this time I visited a friend (Geo. Proctor) who worked as a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. He had sold a few short stories and a novel. Geo talked me into collaborating on a short story, it sold, I went home and began working on a fantasy novel. It sold. As did the next sf book and...I never went to Berkeley.
2. What is your background? (education, work, etc.) I hold a BS degree in physics and an MS in materials engineering from the University of New Mexico. I worked in the Solid State Physics Department at Sandia National Laboratories specializing in materials characterization and X-ray crystallography.
3. When did you ‘know’ you were a writer? The first time I saw a book on the stands with my name on the cover, I knew there was nothing else to do in life but repeat that thrill.
4. How would you describe your style of writing? I prefer action/adventure plot driven stories to character driven ones.
5. What is your writing process? I vary what I do all the time. If I had the ability to set my schedule, I would start work around one or two in the afternoon and work till one or two in the morning. I’m a night person and getting up early leaves me tired all day long. Unfortunately, I have to get up to see my son off to school and they insist on starting high school at 8:30. I force myself to sit down and get to work as soon as I can after he is off to school. It usually takes an hour to go through e-mail and other business things. For whatever reason, before I start actually writing, a few games of computer solitaire seem to wipe out extraneous thoughts and let the ideas come bubbling up. I try to write about a thousand words before taking a break, then get back to work for another 1k segment and eventually try to write at least 5000 words a day. Other times I aim for a completed chapter or up to a certain point in my synopsis.
6. What was your path to publication? I started writing in the mid-60s for amateur sf publications (fanzines--sort of a precursor to today’s on-line blogs). My first professional publication was in a Spanish magazine (Nueva Dimension) reprinting a short article I did describing the US Post Office and their science fictional ways of dealing with mail. The first story I did with Geo Proctor never saw print nor did my first fantasy novel sale. I worked for a book packager, Book Creations, on a spy series while doing my own stories. Sandcats of Rhyl was my first sf novel published under my name.
7. What is your favorite self-marketing idea? I enjoy going to conventions and writers’ conferences and meeting people. It might not sell as many copies as ads in magazines and trade journals, but it is more fun and I can actually find what others like to read, what they don’t, and get more feedback to hone ideas and methods on future work. In second place would be book signings, although these are always a gamble. Stores tend not to advertise or sometimes even order the books intended for autographing. There is also the table separating me from those who want their books signed, which distances many people (more often than not, a store manager says someone who stood around watching but was too shy to get the book signed. will buy an autographed copy later. While it is a sale, it provides no feedback on that reader’s tastes.
8. What are the biggest surprises you’ve encountered as a writer? I am always amazed when people ask, “Where do you get your ideas?” Ideas are everywhere and I am always knee deep in them. Writing them into a story that sings, dances, laughs and cries is the hard part. Writing is a job like any other, but so far I have been quite pleased at how I still/always enjoy it. One of my early misconceptions about writing was that I could write a few books, have a small but steady royalty stream off them, then write at a slower pace. Most books last only 17 on the stands and publishers think of them as yard goods, to be replaced as quickly as possible with the next title.
9. How do you inspire yourself? What are your sources of creativity? The excitement of writing has never abated. If it’s not there on a project, then I’m doing the wrong project. As to sources of creativity, I read widely in science and the astounding array of discoveries *has* to spur ideas. And, like most writers, when I read fiction, I find myself rewriting or even thinking, “That’s not right--it should be...” and this launches new stories that are all mine.
10. What is your proudest writer moment? I always get a charge out of seeing my books on sale. Each new book is yet another link in a long chain of pride in my output.
11. What’s the best advice you were given about writing? Heinlein’s five rules of writing sums it all perfectly. 1. Write (talking about it isn’t going to get anything written) 2. Finish what you write (letting it languish after that dynamite first page isn’t good) 3. Don’t rewrite (this doesn’t mean don’t rewrite for clarity, to polish, because an editor wants something changed so it’s salable--it means don’t endlessly redo the same story. It will never be perfect. Get over it. Make it as good as you can at that moment and don’t meddle with what’s already written.) 4. Send it out (it’ll never sell if you don’t screw up the courage to send it to someone who can buy it.) 5. Keep it on the market (not everything will sell the first time. Or the second. Or the... Don’t assume a reject from one editor equals rejects from all editors. Keep sending it out, always starting at the best paying market and working down until you’ve exhausted all the markets. Then go back and see if any of the places you’ve already sent it have a new editor and try it again.) There should be a 6th rule. When you send out a story, go to work on the next one immediately. Sitting and waiting at the mailbox for either acceptance or rejection is a sorry way to go through life. There are always more, newer, better stories to write. Get onto them. Immediately.
12. What is your most embarrassing writer moment? I was at a book signing that was, to put it charitably, not well attended. I was sitting and staring out into space. When I shifted in my chair a woman who had been looking at books in a nearby display jumped a foot. She thought I was a mannikin in front of the display of my books. And no, she didn’t buy one of mine, either.
13. What business challenges have you faced as a writer? Cash flow is a perennial problem. Sometimes the dump truck unloads a lot of money, but that truck won’t be necessarily back for a long, long time. The money has to be slavishly apportioned rather than all spent before the next pay day, which is always at some indeterminate date in the future. It might be tomorrow or it might be a year away. A corollary to this is a more psychological challenge. People do best with positive reinforcement, and money is certainly that. But the pay always comes many months after from signing the contract and completing the ms. There is no easy way of believing the money is the reward if it comes a year after the contract is signed and six months after The End is typed on the ms.
14. What is your writer life philosophy? Writing is like walking a tight rope. It doesn’t pay to look down or start worrying about how the balancing is actually done. Just do it and keep going forward.
15. When you’re not writing what do you do for fun? I used to grow bonsai trees but found that I could make a rock garden die. After that, I began geocaching and have continued for many years (if you don’t know what geocaching is, check out www.geocaching.com for more info). It is a wonderful blend of high tech with treasure hunting and simply getting away from the keyboard (but still living out a fantasy--most items in a geocache are, charitably, junk. But there is always the thrill of finding the cache, reading others’ comments and maybe, just maybe, finding something so outrageously wonderful that it will become a prized possession.)
16. Who do you like to read? Finding a writer whose work I don’t mentally rewrite as I’m reading is a real treat. Older writers like Thorne Smith always appeal. I have yet to figure out what Angela Carter wrote about, but reading her prose was like running my fingers over silk and velvet. A true stylistic genius. For pleasure, mysteries give the best bang for my buck. Donald Westlake (especially the books he has written as “Richard Stark”) are great. Lawrence Block always pleases. In sf, the Heinlein juveniles are reread every few years. Of “newer” writers, Kevin Anderson always delivers an entertaining book. For my western work, I read a great deal of nonfiction, historical books. Leon Metz has done some impressive work on gunfighters. On the fantasy front, I am probably about the only one in the world who didn’t care much for the Lord of the Rings books. Fritz Leiber was the master of sword & sorcery stories. Most current fantasy seems padded and overwritten to me--Leiber could describe a complex situation perfectly with only a few deft sentences.
17. What’s your advice for new writers? Stupid persistence will serve you better than a single flash of genius. Write. Keep writing. Don’t stop writing. Make the next story better, then write yet another using what you’ve learned on the prior work. Persevere.
18. What are you currently working on? I just finished another series western for Berkley. I have several other projects in the works. A collaboration (the first in about ten years) with a friend on a mystery is beginning to take shape, and we’ll get down to serious work on it in another few months, his schedule determining when. A book on writing is slowly taking form. Organizing it has been a real challenge. I just sent out a proposal for a fantasy to my agent and a completed sf novel is making the rounds. And the reading and research for a “Karl Lassiter” western proposal following the Chinese laying railroad track from San Antonio to El Paso is finished. It’ll be time to begin writing soon. I have been doing quite a few short stories (Karl Lassiter just sold his first, “After Black Jack Dropped” to the Lost Trails anthology) and a hard-boiled detective story, “Digitally Yours,” won honorable mention (and a few dollars) in a contest. However much fun short stories are, though, they don’t pay the rent. Ideas for a new sf novel are bubbling about and...and...and... |
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