Brian Aldiss Quotes on Writing
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Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.
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One of the objections I have against Campbell's Astounding was that there was too little love in it. It was a very loveless magazine. They never took enough account of the feeling that is always in SF.
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Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name.
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I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.
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That first novel of mine, Non-Stop, is directly attributable to Heinlein. His 'Common Sense' seemed to me such a good story, but bereft of any human feelings. I thought long about that story, and then I thought how wonderful it would be to write about a spaceship in which people have been imprisoned for generations and to put in something of the human feeling. So that novel is directly attributable to Heinlein. I thought, in my youthful arrogance, that I could do it better - I didn't! I thought I could do it differently, and I think I did do it differently. And I suppose that on the whole, I've concentrated on doing things differently ever since.
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I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.
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It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.