Imagine yourself in the scene. See what there is to be seen. Listen to the sounds. Touch the world. Smell the air. Taste it. Use all of your senses. Then evoke those experiences for the reader. If you give the audience the flavor, they'll flesh out the moment in their own imaginations.

Notice how every science fiction movie or television show starts with a shot of the location where the story is about to occur. Movies that take place in outer space always start with a shot of stars and a starship. Movies that take place on another world always start with a shot of that planet. This is to let you know where you are. Novels and stories start the same way. You have to give the reader a sense of where he is and what's happening as quickly as possible. You don't want to start the story by confusing the reader.

What I wish is that people would look beyond the tribbles and see I've written some other books that I really would like people to notice. There's The Man Who Folded Himself, there's The Martian Child, which is about my son and the adoption. There's The War Against The Chtorr, which is my magnum opus, my great epic story.

Who are we? And to me that's the essential question that's always been in science fiction. A lot of science fiction stories are - at their very best - evocations of that question. When we look up at the night sky and wonder, "Is there anyone else out there?" we're also asking who we are we in relation to them.

The most useless job in the world is that of the critic. That is a prejudiced statement. I admit it. I'm prejudiced. I hate critics. ... And now, as the saying goes (yesterday, I couldn't even spell critik), and now I are one.

To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writer's build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.

Contentment is the continuing act of accepting the process of your own life.