Ask the Author: Vardan Partamyan
Answered Questions (13)
Vardan Partamyan
Hi Gunter, thanks for picking up The After/Life and I hope you enjoy your time in Armenia! Yes, ten years later and still there is not a widely known Armenian science fiction writer. It's just yours truly and not widely known at that either )) unfortunately, can't share much about the region but it does seem like the literary agencies are more interested in more grounded fiction from our region, which is a pity really
Vardan Partamyan
James Bolivar DeGriz and Angelika... just such a nice chemistry...
Vardan Partamyan
That is also an interesting idea... as I am building up G.O.D. as a novel bridging organization, which is also prominent in the novel The Circle Of..., I think there is a good potential in the I, the Provocateur timeline to have a sweet space opera... what do you think?
Vardan Partamyan
Hi Chris, thanks for the question... my next novel will be dealing with another debonnaire anti-hero Charon (yes, that Charon) but I am planning to returning to the sunny, volcano erupting, corrupt and oh-so-like our own Earth planet Remania. What would you like to see happen in the sequel?
Vardan Partamyan
Thanks for the question, William! Armenia, my home country, is a small, landlocked country on the outskirts of Europe. It has a population of less than three million people and four neighboring countries. Two of these countries have, for the last quarter of a century, maintained a land blockade and one of them - Azerbaijan is threatening to wipe us from the face of Earth. My country has no natural resources to speak of and the scars of natural disaster, war and the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union are still very visible. Sounds grim, eh? Well, it is to a point. That point is the realization that Armenia is one of the oldest countries in human civilization, its culture the contemporary of ancient Egypt, Greece, Assyria and Rome. Our language also dates back thousand years and is a separate, unique branch of Indo-European tongues. Our religion is Christianity and Armenia is the first country to adopt Christianity as state religion in 301. It is also the country that was able to preserve its identity in spite of being overrun by overwhelming foes throughout its history that reads as a sweeping human drama where, at several points, the very existence of Armenia was under question. And yet, all these thousands of years, wars, disasters and the 1915 Ottoman Turkey conducted Genocide of Armenians later, here we are. Still here. Still moving forward. Still being able to laugh and joke and love and live and die as a free and proud people. The country is small and landlocked but it is also beautiful in a rugged way and holds thousands of years of memories and artifacts you can not find anywhere else...
Vardan Partamyan
Hey James, thank you very much for your question...naturally the where and when of writing are very important. I cannot write when I am at work and similarly I cannot write when I am home. There are a number of locations around town where I feel the right vibe to sit down and plunge into the abyss of imagination. These places could be cafes or small coffee shops - not too overrun with clientele but still not completely deserted. If I were to single out one ritual that precedes every writing session is reading the entire material I have written so far. That makes for an increasingly longer writing session but also that way you are able to keep the flow and the rhythm and the mood of the story intact. The mood is especially important as the tonal jumps are possible based on your current condition, which must not affect your writing material. While the writing itself is done in the places I described above, the overall creative process is incessant. You get an idea, you get a piece of the dialogue, you get a situation and a conflict and a twist that you really feel would go well with the story. That is when I take my phone and write the gist of the idea as a note to self. These notes are disjointed and look a lot like random hallucinations but they help me remember, reconstruct and develop the idea I had.
Vardan Partamyan
It just hit me in the middle of the night...just like that I was up and grinning like a lunatic, my sleepy body moving towards my ancient laptop. I turned it on, started the word processing program, typed The Circle Of... and went back to bed... let the journey begin!
Vardan Partamyan
I think the biggest inspiration for me is life itself - that insane mandatory rollercoaster ride that incorporates all that is fantastic and dull, bizarre and routine, joyful and tragic, beautiful and ugly for a never ending and never repeating fireworks that are sadly over too soon.
Vardan Partamyan
I am currently working on a novella titled The Circle Of... it is the single strangest thing I have ever written and I am enjoying it immensely. I hope that the readers will share my enthusiasm and join me on a black humor soaked interstellar trip through space and memories...
Vardan Partamyan
Nine things - read, read, read, read, write with no fear of criticism and ridicule, do not conform, find you story, find your voice, have fun.
Vardan Partamyan
I think that the best thing about being a writer is sharing the often bizarre product of your imagination with the world - telling a story, sharing a world and a view that others may connect to, engage in and, most importantly, enjoy. It is also the process of creation itself - on the par with painting and moviemaking and other forms of art, you are creating something new (unless you are plagiarising), something that has not been seen and done before - characters and conflicts and dialogues and the little details that simply were not there until you put them there.
Vardan Partamyan
I haven't encountered that particular block so far... but when I do I think I will look for an inspiritation and a change of creative direction, which will hopefully help me overcome that writers' curse.
Vardan Partamyan
Hi Andrew!
Thanks for your question! For me, the process of writing a book can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, you get the idea that starts to grow and develop and gnaw its way out. When this gnawing reaches a critical stage, I start writing. It takes me around two weeks to write a short story and it took me around two months each to write my two novels. Currently, I am working on an odd little novella that is titled The Circle Of... - it has been about three weeks since I started and I am about half-way there.
Thanks for your question! For me, the process of writing a book can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, you get the idea that starts to grow and develop and gnaw its way out. When this gnawing reaches a critical stage, I start writing. It takes me around two weeks to write a short story and it took me around two months each to write my two novels. Currently, I am working on an odd little novella that is titled The Circle Of... - it has been about three weeks since I started and I am about half-way there.
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