If I could go back in time and tell my younger self that eventually that I'd become very successful writing Dune books after Frank Herbert's death, I would have laughed myself silly, I think, at how strange that prospect would be.

I sold my very first novel when I was 24 or 25 years old.

No, no, no - you don't argue with concepts. You have to claim Dogma, and therefore leave no room for rational thought.

I did several interesting jobs, working in restaurants, I worked at a lab rat farm, feeding and watering all these rats. Then I got a full-time job as a technical writer for a large scientific research laboratory.

I want to make it so that so many things happen... that you didn't expect would happen in this series, that you realize that you have to read every one of them.

Every spare second I would write, somehow. On my lunch hour, too.

I always had this non-stop drive. I had to keep sending stories out and every once in awhile I'd get something accepted or get the little trickle of positive feedback.