Ask the Author: Michael Schulkins
Answered Questions (5)
Michael Schulkins
Thanks for asking, Goodreads. I'm launching an exciting new series very soon! It's called Mark Twain on the Moon, and is just what the title promises. Here is the promotional blurb for book one: "In an alternate 19th century, young Samuel Clemens sets out for the mining camps of America’s wildest frontier: the Moon. Travel with Sam and his partner Calvin as they venture into the desolate, deadly wastes of the Mare Imbrium and the Montes Caucasus, in search of wonders, adventure, and a fortune in precious water ice. This is Prospectors!, the opening salvo in the epic saga of Mark Twain on the Moon, as told by the alternate Mark Twain himself."
If Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Robert Heinlein collaborated on a book, it might turn out something like Mark Twain on the Moon. Watch for the first book Prospectors! coming soon.
If Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Robert Heinlein collaborated on a book, it might turn out something like Mark Twain on the Moon. Watch for the first book Prospectors! coming soon.
Michael Schulkins
Write, write, write, and then write some more! You won't know what kind of a write you are, and whether you even want to write at all until you've written 50 to 100 thousand words. And here's some more explicit advice: Until you get as good as Patrick O'Brian, everything you write should be set in a recognizable place (a scene), have the consistent viewpoint of a single character, and show people doing things and talking together. Sounds obvious, but many beginning writers fail to do this.
Michael Schulkins
For me, writing is an adventure, an excursion into unknown lands where anything can happen, and usually does. I may start out with some idea about where I am going, but the trip is always full of surprises. And of course, the most exciting part is meeting and getting to know the strange and wonderful characters I encounter, which is why dialog is my favorite part of writing. My characters say the darnedest things.
Michael Schulkins
I have loved reading for pretty much as long as I can remember, especially fiction, so at some point I decided I had to try my hand at writing it. When I did, I found that I really enjoyed both the process of writing, and the results. I hope you do too. As for inspiration, I am often inspired by the work of other writers, from Mark Twain to Neal Stephenson. And when I write satire, as in Up A Tree: A jobs and Plunkitt Galactic Adventure, I'm inspired by the craziness of the world around me.
Michael Schulkins
I’ve been a science fiction fan all my life, but until Up a Tree: A Jobs and Plunkitt Galactic Adventure came along, I had never written any. And I still may not have, because instead of inspiring that classic sense of wonder at the mysteries of the universe, Up A Tree shamelessly hijacks the tropes of science fiction and turns them into a vehicle for humor and satire. There isn’t a lot of humorous or satirical science fiction abroad in the galaxy these days, presumably because science fiction usually takes place in the future, and you can’t make fun of things that haven’t happened yet. But I wanted to make fun of the here and now by abusing the there and then of science fiction. The big question was whom I should put in the vehicle. Inspiration came when I thought to combine two disparate influences: P G Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories and Keith Laumer’s Retief stories. Everyone knows Jeeves (or at least they should), Retief maybe not so much. Retief is sort of an intergalactic James Bond who travels to interesting and amusing alien planets, saving the inhabitants from the predations of politicians and other fools. So, through the magic of science fiction, Jeeves and Wooster are reborn as the iBot servant Jobs and his master Galactic Senator Braydon Gorebush Plunkitt XII, who travel the galaxy saving the alien races of the United Systems of the Spiral Arm (Armericans) from the predations of politicians, Senator Plunkitt, and other fools. Up a Tree is the first of those galactic adventures.
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