I read a great deal of science fiction with consummate pleasure between, say, the ages of 12 and 16. Then I got away from it. In my mid- to late 20s, I started trying to write it.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the author's journey from enjoying science fiction to attempting to create it.
William Gibson's statement illustrates the transformative power of literature, particularly science fiction, during formative years. It shows how early experiences in reading can shape one's interests and motivations, ultimately leading to a desire to contribute creatively to that genre. This shift from reader to writer highlights the impact of imagination and the desire to express one's own ideas and stories.
In practice
In a classroom setting discussing the influence of literature on creative writing.
She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.
If you've read a lot of vintage science fiction, as I have at one time or another in my life, you can't help but realise how wrong we get it. I have gotten it wrong more times than I've gotten it right. But I knew that when I started; I knew that before I wrote a word of science fiction.
I think I'd probably tell you that it's easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us.
As a writer of fiction who deals with technology, I necessarily deal with the history of technology and the history of technologically induced social change. I roam up and down it in a kind of special way because I roam down it into history, which is invariably itself a speculative affair.
His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.
I don't have to write about the future. For most people, the present is enough like the future to be pretty scary.
Photography is a magic thing. A thing that has mysterious odors, a little strange and frightening, something one quickly grows to love.
The dream is not a map. A poem is not the territory. The dreamer reclines in a barbershop carpeted with Afro turf. In the dark some soul yells. It hurts to walk barefoot on cowrie shells.
The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse β it will not submit to the mold of flattery.
You need music, I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.
Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination?
The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
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