Some specific influences on my writing.. 4/5/2016

First, little bit of autobio history.

I originally went to Michigan State University for an Engineering degree and to study fairly commercial genre science fiction. I was big into people like Heinlein, Spider Robinson and Charles Sheffield with a "hard science" focus. Then 911 happened right after graduation and things became more interesting.

Much, much more interesting. To begin with, the amount and quality of hard science fiction has been upped significantly across the board, witness Ramez Naam, Madeline Ashby and Paolo Bacigalupi just to name a few emerging and excellent authors in hard science fiction. Then contrast the old guard authors who have also broken new ground this decade like Lois Bujold, China Mieville and John Scalzi?

Needless to say, anyone who writes fiction had better have read way, way widely and be prepared to deeply know the genre fiction and standouts like Cormac Mccarthy, Haruki Murakami, and David Foster Wallace. It has taken me close to thirteen years just to reach the point where I feel comfortable that I have a decent grasp on what is going on in certain areas of fiction?

It also took me this long to find authors like George Saunders and Haruki Murakami that I could identify with and that spoke to the kinds of fiction I really wanted to write? Suffice to say, just developing some potential commercial projects that might build into publishable, saleable work took me a long time.

And it is still a long haul...

I'll get to other variables effecting my output in a l8ter post.

"Happy Trailz" fellow knowingnesses