Tevun-Krus #114 - Hollow Earth (A Different Earth, Part 2)

Author Spotlight: @theidiotmachine

Quick! What's the first sci-fi thing that pops into your head!?

Space toast. No, wait. Can I take that back? Dang. OK.

Original trilogy, prequel trilogy, or sequel trilogy?

We're obviously talking about Dune books here, so. OG Dune is the book for me. Everything else was too grimdark or uncomfortably smutty. Dune itself broke my mind and put it back together again slightly differently. I'm really excited about the movie.

So, how has Tevun-Krus changed your life today?

While I was cleaning, I was plotting my next story! Strangely, because of the time loop that we employ on the mothership, I haven't written it yet, but you've already read it. Confused? Don't worry about it. However, it does make deciding who does the washing up really complicated, especially when half your crewmates on the rota haven't even been born yet. 

With your lifeline to your spacecraft broken, you hypothetically drift away into the depths of space. What's your last message to Earth?

Have I left the fridge open?

Do you remember the first author to really grab you as a reader? Are they still someone you read?

There were a few. I'm choosing Alan Dean Foster. As a kid I owned 'Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker', the original novelisation of Star Wars. It was ghost written by Foster, although Lucas had his name on it. I read it over and over and over again. These days I am less enthusiastic about that franchise, but I totally appreciate how it hooked me in and made me run around shouting pew pew pew!

Explain your writing process for your fellow mothertroopers. Do you find real life adds "flavours" to your writing, or is it all imaginary?

For TK, I plan it in my head before I put it down. Sometimes I pants it a bit, but, generally, it's all laid out (often when I should be doing other things). Real life: I research endlessly, especially for my fantasy stuff. I like reading about the history of science, in particular, because I think you can learn so much about how to apply it to the future.

We all have advice for our fellow writers. But what's your advice to novice sci-fi writers on what not to do?

I'm glad you asked: I'm writing a whole book about it! It's called An Idiot's Guide to Line Editing. It's all about that phase of editing when you polish each individual sentence, generally the last edit phase. I've been researching and publishing it as I go. There's lots of stuff there that might be useful, but the chapter that I think I am most proud of is about adverbs. When you start you use a lot of 'em. Then you'll read some terrible piece that tells you not to use them at all, that adverbs are evil, and you'll freak out. My advice is to stop and understand them, and then think about how they can work for you, and where they are not your friend. Plus I wrote some sweet Stephen King fanfic for you to enjoy. Go read it!

What's a story of yours every mothertrooper should read? Give us an exciting excerpt!

So I have this novel. I was shopping it around for trad publishing, but honestly I don't think I'm going to get a nibble. So I'm going to publish on Amazon. Here's how it starts.

Much to Bilen's annoyance, the first thing that Alejandro Molina did in the New World was to piss.

'The Father Patriarch blesses the new land with water, I bless it with me!' he shouted to the sailors.

When the rowing boat's bow crunched onto the beach, he threw off his sword and pistols, and leapt into the shallow water, splashing through the surf. As soon as he was more or less on dry land, he hollered triumphantly. 'It's time! I can hold the spirit in me no longer!'