The conclusion I came to was that even if I couldn't sell books, I still liked the process of writing.
From Paolo Bacigalupi
I'm less crazy and unhappy when I'm writing.
I have friends who are science journalists, and I'm seeing stories of theirs or talking with them about ideas that they're pitching. Certain kinds of science are around me all the time, like climate change and biology.
I am interested in agricultural corporations and how they function. The idea that they own the genetics of our food supply is a really compelling thing to me.
Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience.
I think the fact that we, as writers, don't engage with resource-level questions is a symptom of our society where we just don't know where our stuff comes from.
As far as 'Windup Girl' becoming a hit - none of us expected that. 'Night Shade' was just hoping not to lose their shirts, and I had grown up hearing from everyone that science fiction didn't sell, so all of our expectations were very low.
Originally, 'The Windup Girl' started as a short story - a very gnarly, complicated short story set in Bangkok that didn't work very well.
I think there are narratives going on all the time that we think of as tangential - up until they turn out to be deciding factors in our lives.
I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works.
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