The Hugo winner and multiple New York Times bestselling science fiction author, John Scalzi, took a break from his whirlwind new book tour to chat with me about The Collapsing Empire, the timely importance of great storytelling, and what makes a writer truly great.
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Start getting more from your site today!His wildly popular debut novel, Old Man’s War, began as a serialized blog before attracting attention from an agent. Its 2006 publication earned him a Hugo nomination and multiple awards.
Since then he’s written dozens of novels including New York Times bestsellers The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, Redshirts (2013’s Hugo winner for Best Novel), and Lock In. His work has been translated into over 20 languages and multiple projects have been optioned for film and TV.
It’s no surprise that the prolific author has been a professional writer since the early ’90s. In addition to his award-winning blog, “Whatever,” John has written: freelance journalism, novellas, short stories, a wide-range of non-fiction, video games, been a Creative Consultant for a hit TV series, and remains a Critic at Large for the LA Times.
In 2015 the author signed a multi-million dollar deal with Tor Books for 13 titles over 10 years, and the first of those is The Collapsing Empire, a bestselling interstellar space opera that’s been described as “Game of Thrones meets Dune.”
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In Part One of this file John Scalzi and I discuss:
How publishing is like giving birth
The secret behind most overnight successes
How a prolific sci-fi writer researches ideas
On beating laziness, and the author’s daily ritual
The writer’s greatest challenge
The Show Notes:
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How Hugo Award Winning Sci-Fi Author John Scalzi Writes: Part Two
Whatever – John Scalzi’s Hugo Award winning blog
Announcing The Expanding Tour 2017! 24 Cities! Five Weeks!
The Collapsing Empire – John Scalzi
John Scalzi’s author page on Amazon
John Scalzi, Science Fiction Writer, Signs $3.4 Million Deal for 13 Books – New York Times
John Scalzi on Twitter
Kelton Reid on Twitter
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How Hugo Award Winning Sci-Fi Author John Scalzi Writes: Part One | The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
