I keep waiting for a paradigm shift to happen that will let network and studio execs see that sci-fi is the same as any other genre in terms of how you approach it - logically, character-based, with challenging ideas and forward thinking - but I worry that it might never happen in my lifetime.

The problem with writing a monthly book is that you're going through your work like a man running for a bus, red-faced and out of breath. There isn't time for reflection or critical self-examination.

I've written for every medium except poetry, at which I suck.

On most TV shows, you work on a set and do some location.

The only thing that I discovered very early on is that, even though we might change schools and cities and towns and states, the books in the library were the same. They had the same covers. They had the same characters. I could go and visit those people in the library as if I knew them.

It's really important to me to keep growing as a writer, to look for new challenges and be harshly critical of my own work in order to learn and tell better stories.

I've changed my mind. I've decided that at the end I want to be cremated and my ashes scattered over someone I don't like.