Alain de Botton

I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.

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Some major writers have a huge impact, like Ayn Rand, who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction, but it really isn't fiction at all.

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A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.

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I'm writing another novel and I know what I'm going to do after, which may be something more like this again, maybe some strange mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

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Philip K. Dick

Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.

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I was writing fiction, but not finishing fiction.

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I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.

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I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

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Science Fiction Woman

She was my science fiction woman,
I was her science fiction man,
Yet our love was no fiction
In our science fiction land.

I wore my science fiction spacesuit,
She wore a spacesuit just like mine,
While we were floating together
In our science fiction minds.

She said her name was Taylor Trippy-
A flower child light years beyond-
She was a science fiction hippy-
A spacey and vivacious blonde.

She told me of our global warming,
Greenhouse gases, acid rain,
She told me everything I know
About the structure of the brain.

So we cruised through constellations
In our science fiction ship,
Transcending time and generations-
Forever free, forever hip.

She came from some unknown planet
In some uncharted galaxy,
And we were both kindred souls
In our cosmic fantasy.

And I don't know how I knew her
Or how we came to meet that night-
She was my science fiction woman,
Who traveled at the speed of light.

At night I look upon the ocean,
The distant stars where she might be-
She was my science fiction woman,
Who set my heart forever free.


June 17,2008

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Questions are fiction, and answers are anything from more fiction to science-fiction.

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Telling Stories

There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesnt mean
Youre not just telling stories
There is fiction in the space between
You and me
There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me
Theres a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
Where I am the scary monster
I eat the city and as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
Theres no one but you standing
Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between
There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing

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And then I met Jerry and he's such a creative fiction writer, and I don't know if there's ever been a team put together the way we are - where one person does the theological way out and suggestions, and the other person goes into the cave and does the fiction writing.

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I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.

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Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

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Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal, or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction, but often it's really just about the money, the perceived prestige.

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Science fiction writers put characters into a world with arbitrary rules and work out what happens.

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My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method.

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Many fiction writers eventually want to feel that their work forms a single, unified entity.

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Hand Of God

Been gone more days this year than I have been home
Trading friends for trips to the coast
This hotel room feels more like a tomb
Been gone more days this year than I have been home
Trading friends for trips to the coast
This hotel room feels more like a tomb
It's not gossip if it's the truth
I'm sick of always writing songs for you to slit your wrists to
So which is it: the boy who writes the songs or the boy who's in them?
Who's the girl? Is this truth or is he writing fiction?
Hand over my heart, gun to my head
I swear to God I'm through with this
I am the worst liar I know
It's not gossip if it's the truth
I'm sick of always writing songs for you to slit your wrists to
So which is it: the boy who writes the songs or the boy who's in them?
Who's the girl? Is this truth or is he writing fiction?
Which is it: the boy who writes the songs or the boy who's in them?
Who's the girl? Is this truth or is he writing fiction?
(So which is it?) So which is it? Which is it? (So which is it?)
(So which is it?) So which is it? Which is it? (So which is it?)
(So which is it?) So which is it? Which is it? (So which is it?)
(So which is it?) So which is it? Which is it?
Who's the girl? Is this truth or is he writing fiction?
Which is it: the boy who writes the songs or the boy who's in them?
Who's the girl? Is this truth or is he writing fiction?
(Been gone more days this year than I have been home)
(Been gone more days this year than I have been home)

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However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.

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Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it's the science of prehistory - palaeontology and archaeology - rather than astronomy or physics.

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