An Interview With Neal Asher

Neal Asher is a successful science fiction writer. He has published many novels; most about a fictional universe known as “Polity.” Neal Asher's novels cover a wide variety of subject matter, from androids to time-travel, and often incorporate social dilemmas.

How did you get into writing? At what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?

When I was at school, and for some years after, I had many interests. I enjoyed art, chemistry, physics, biology and English, and pursued these subjects on my own time. I used a chemistry set (probably banned by the HSE now), a microscope, made sculptures, painted and drew. I took apart old electronics and built my own devices, though I never achieved the laser I wanted, and I studied pond and stream life and, because it was my mother’s subject in teacher training, studied fungi. I also tried to write stories because, after an overdose of E. C. Tubb books, I wrote a story the English teacher complimented – definite driving factor.

However, maybe in my late teens or early twenties I understood enough about how things worked to know that if I wanted to succeed at something, I needed to focus. I chose writing because it could also incorporate my other interests. Really, knowing a lot about stuff is useful to a writer.

What was your first book or story that you completed? Did you ever get it published?

Like many wannabe writers I tried writing what I was reading at the time, in my case that being doorstep fantasy trilogies. I started longhand and worked my way through all the intervening technologies to the pc I use now (another story). I wrote a fantasy trilogy The (Road to the) Yellow Tower, including the books The Staff of Sorrows, The Assassin out of Twilight & The Yellow Tower. I also wrote the first book of another trilogy called Infinite Willows, the first book called Creatures of the Staff. Despite my actually acquiring an agent for a short period these were never published. They sit waiting in my computer even now – I must do something with them some day.

How did you finally get published? When were you able to write on a full-time basis? Please explain your success story?

Even after my failure with the above books, I still wanted to write. Checking writing magazines I discovered the small presses and started writing short stories for them. After a number of false starts (magazines accepting stuff then folding before it was published etc) I finally got a short SF story into a magazine called Back Brain Recluse in 1989. Thereafter it was a steady slow climb. I got more short stories published, a serialized novella, further novellas and a short story collection – but all by small press publishers. I wrote a couple of SF novels and a contemporary one, had some close brushes with various publishers, but no publication. However, I was getting some good reviews for my small stuff, even in magazines like SFX.

Then, in 1999 I sent a synopsis and sample chapters to Macmillan, along with some of those reviews. To my surprise I was called in for a meeting – a long wine-soaked lunch with the editorial director and his reader. Later I was offered a contract, but I needed to expand the books I had written (Gridlinked & The Skinner) from their, respectively, 70 & 80,000 word length. I did this for Gridlinked in a month, taking it up to 135,000 words. The publisher expected the expansion to be crap padding but was pleasantly surprised. It was accepted.

How do you stay motivated to finish a novel? How do you stay focused?

Pig-headed stubbornness is one answer, but also a realistic view of what I do. Prior to 1999 I was self-employed for 15 years, which basically means that if you stop for a cup of coffee you’re not getting paid. I think it’s an advantage to have actually worked for a living for some time before becoming a published writer, that way you inculcate into yourself a work ethic. Too often I’ve seen writers succeed early in their lives, when they’ve only known school or university, and thereafter struggle to produce. Such people haven’t so much lost sight of the alternative to writing for a living, but haven’t really known what the alternative is.

But let’s not put aside one plain fact: I love doing it and I want to remain successful so I can carry on doing it.

What is your writing schedule like? Do you write in the mornings, evenings, and for how long?

I write every weekday. When I’m producing a new book I aim to write 2,000 words a day, 10,000 a week. Very often I don’t hit that target, but I still write enough to turn out one book a year very often well ahead of my contract schedule. This, you would think, should result in getting on for half a million words a year, but that’s not so. There are synopses and blurbs to write, and after a new book goes off to my editor it comes back with much more for me to do. It also comes back from the copy editor, twice. By the time it is ready for publication I am utterly fed up with it.

How do you get your ideas?

Like the body the brain benefits from exercise. We all know that. But I would go further: certain elements of the brain also benefit, therefore, if you exercise your imagination it gets stronger. I get my ideas from everywhere and from everything. You have to look at the world like a writer and think ‘what if, what next, how?’ Ask yourself the questions and try to provide the answers.

How do you get over writer's block?

You write. In the past my answer would have been ‘stream-of-consciousness writing’. Just sit down and write, anything, pour ideas and words onto you paper (screen) and don’t try to apply logic to them, don’t try for ‘story’. Eventually, your mind quite naturally starts trying to apply some logic. Now, however, I don’t get writer’s block. To use another analogy: you don’t ask a marathon runner how he runs – he’s trained himself to run and just does it. One further piece of advice: if you’re writing a story stop when you reach a targeted word count, not at the end of a chapter or section. In fact stop when you know what you’re going to write next, then it will be a lot easier to start next time.

What piece of advice would you give to someone thinking of becoming a writer? What is a good starting point for them?

I got an email recently from someone who ‘wants to be a writer’ and wondered if I had any advice, which is where he was going wrong straight away. If you want to be a writer then you should already be writing. Writers write, it’s quite simple. If you want to be a successful writer then, unfortunately, the answer is exactly the same. There are no special handshakes you need to learn – there is no inside track to success other than being good at writing. Too many wannabe writers are attracted to ‘being a writer’ rather than actually writing. It’s like saying I wannabe a film star, yeah, well get to work now – stop wanting and start doing.

Beside the above, here’s some practical advice: buy books about writing and read them, buy books about English and read them too, never stop learning about the process and never think you’ve nothing more to learn. Read fiction – never stop reading it. Keep a journal with one page for every day, and fill that page in. Start a blog, write on message boards. Discipline yourself – keep clicking on that word count.

I recently read something another writer said about those who want to be writers. He tells them ‘don’t do it’ in the sure knowledge that those who succeed would ignore that advice. Just do it.

To learn more about Neal Asher and his numerous published novels, visit his website. Or check out Neal Asher's blog. Or to read more interviews, go to the main writer interviews page.