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All Quotes by author - Sarah Zettel
" Actually, after while, finding the ideas is the easy part. Sorting them through and turning them into stories, now, that's the hard work. "
Hard Work
Easy
Finding
" All of this got me thinking about the history of the westward expansion, and got me to wondering how the exploration of the Solar System would be changed if there were an indigenous presence out there. "
Thinking
History
Got
" Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author's life is reflected in their writing, whether they want it to be or not, and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is. "
Life
Help
Change
" Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it's beginning to stretch its range as well. "
Stretch
Beginning
Fantasy
" First and foremost, The Quiet Invasion is a first contact story. What would we do if we actually found evidence of alien life out there? It's also about politics. "
Alien
Life
Out
" Fortunately, many people also enjoy a stand-alone as a sample of something new, like trying the special at a favourite restaurant one night instead of going for the usual. "
Enjoy
Trying
People
" I describe my plots as follows; A character is walking down the street when all of a sudden a piano falls on them. They spend the rest of the story digging out from under that piano. How they dig, how long and how well, this all depends entirely on the character. "
Rest
Character
Long
" I did not want to write a story about the invasion of Earth, so I had to create a race capable of living nearby, which meant to either on the Moon, on Mars, or on Venus. I picked Venus. "
Living
Moon
Race
" I feel SF is going through an experimental phase right now. "
Right
Going
Now
" If I get blocked, it is generally because I don't know enough about some aspect of the story or the characters. The answer for this is generally more research, or making more background notes, so the place and person can be more fully realized inside my own mind. "
Own
Know
Place
" I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind. "
University
Behind
Education
" I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier. "
Understanding
Way
Technology
" I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research. "
Science
Doing
Good
" I'm mostly a novelist these days, but I have written short stories in Fantasy, Science Fiction and horror. "
Short
Days
Science
" I myself was born in Sacramento, California in 1966. "
California
Sacramento
Myself
" I suppose if I was to have to pick a few, Ursula LeGuin would have to top the list. It was while reading her work that I decided I wanted to be an author. "
Her
List
Pick
" I think people enjoy a series. When you like a story, many readers want more of the same, which is dandy, if the author and the characters have more to say. "
Enjoy
People
You
" My joking answer to this question is that I leave a bowl of milk out on the back porch every night for the Idea Fairy. In the morning, the milk is gone and there's a brand-new shiny idea by the bowl. "
Night
Question
Back
" Now, of course, the great thing about the solar system as a frontier is that there are no Indians, so you can have all the glory of the myth of the American westward expansion without any of the guilt. "
Guilt
You
Glory
" Now, Venus is an extremely hostile environment, and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science fiction author who wants to create life there. However, as I began to research it more thoroughly, I found myself intrigued by the possibilities the world offers. "
World
Science
Myself
" Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing. "
Disturbing
Brilliant
Butler
" So, one of the things I was doing with the aliens in The Quiet Invasion was creating that advanced society which had ideas about morality and proper use of natural resources that were radically different from ours, as the Europeans were from the American Indians. "
Ideas
American
Quiet
" The Lord of the Rings movie set an entirely new standard for fantasy in the movies. "
Lord
Standard
New
" Then, I realized that there is an indigenous presence in the Solar System. It's us. So, then, I got to wondering what would happen if a more technologically advanced society moved next door to us, the way we moved next door to the American Indians. "
Way
American
Door
" When I'm not at the keyboard, I'm generally reading, practicing tai chi or middle eastern dance, or cooking. "
Cooking
Dance
Reading
" When I was in college, I spent a summer working in London. I'd enjoyed tea before that, but then I got actual, really good tea there and never looked back. "
Tea
Back
College
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