Sarah Zettel Quotes
Sarah Zettel Quotes
- 1
Actually, after while, finding the ideas is the easy part. Sorting them through and turning them into stories, now, that's the hard work.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 2
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
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As far as the writing goes, I started telling stories as soon as I could talk, and started writing them down as soon as I could string words together.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 4
Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it's beginning to stretch its range as well.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 5
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 6
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 7
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 8
I did not feel I could create a more beautiful or interesting Mars than Kim Stanley Robinson or Greg Bear had, so I turned my attention elsewhere.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 9
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 10
I feel SF is going through an experimental phase right now.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 11
I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 12
I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 13
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 14
I myself was born in Sacramento, California in 1966.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 15
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.
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- 16
I think the diversity of authors and readers is expanding, which is wonderful, because it means the type of story being told is also expanding.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 17
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 18
My father was a major SF fan in the '40s and '50s, so the house was full of SF books. That's where I got my start and I never looked back.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 19
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 20
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.
Sarah-ZettelSarah Zettel
- 21
Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing.
Sarah-Zettel/">Sarah Zettel
- 22
Oh, and for capturing the wonder and magic of fairy tales and turning that into fresh and modern stories, there is no one around to the Neil Gaiman.
Sarah-Zettel/">Sarah Zettel
- 23
Once, I got an idea for a short story during a Halloween concert while watching someone play the bones during the performance of Dance Macabre.
Sarah-Zettel/">Sarah Zettel
- 24
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.
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- 25
So, The Quiet Invasion is about the attempt to coexist peacefully with people who have radically different ideas and backgrounds than your own.
Sarah-Zettel/">Sarah Zettel
- 26
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.
Sarah-Zettel/">Sarah Zettel
- 27
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.
Sarah-Zettel/">Sarah Zettel
