Ask the Author: William Crow Johnson
Answered Questions (6)
William Crow Johnson
My current project is far removed from the science fiction trilogy I’ve just completed. It’s a short-story cycle called SEDALIA, INDIANA. It’s more in the literary fiction vein, and serves to characterize various people in a small, Southern Indiana town (no, it’s not about me or people I know), while using the interactions to explore human nature.
William Crow Johnson
Here’s my advice for aspiring writers. Write every day. Share you work with other writers and get feedback. Read aloud to them. Keep your day job. Recognize that you have an affliction (the writing bug) that will not go away. Recognize that hitting the big time is a really long shot.
William Crow Johnson
The best thing about being a writer is the satisfaction of seeing other people be entertained or enlightened by your work, and of knowing that some of it may survive you.
William Crow Johnson
Writer’s block usually happens to me when I’m uncertain what happens next. At that point, I go back to plotting, pose myself several tough questions, and try to answer them in a logical way.
William Crow Johnson
Most writers will tell you that writing is just something they do. You’re kind of born with the desire – indeed, the need – to write. The only question is, what are you going to write about? My recommendation: what you know, what interests you, what you’re obsessed by, what fires your imagination – while remembering, of course, that you’re trying to entertain and engage your reader.
William Crow Johnson
I was engaged by Ray Kurzweil’s idea that we will experience a singularity by 2045, in which AI will become self- aware and sort of take off. Depending on the AI’s motivations – an interesting question in itself: what would an AI want? – the new intelligence could pose questions for itself and begin to learn at an exponentially accelerating rate. We could have the answer to FTL travel, aging, and a host of other challenges in a matter of days, hours, or even minutes. But the question remains, what would AI want? And would it treat us well or badly? So since I already had AI in EARTH 2.0: PRISON PLANET and EARTH 2.1: REGENESIS, it seemed a likely subject to explore in EARTH 2.2: RITE OF PASSAGE.
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