Jeff VanderMeer
Every day, I get up, and I fill the bird feeders and put out fruit and other food for both the birds and any passing mammals. Is that pointless long-term? I have no idea. All I know is that on this day, in this moment, it makes a difference.Collection: Food
My mom was a biological illustrator for a time before computers replaced that job.Collection: Computers
My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs - because, full disclosure, I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, 'Don't write that,' or, 'Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats.'Collection: Pet
Vladimir Nabokov liked to examine cruelty and the human condition. That didn't mean he was cruel; there's no evidence he kicked puppies just for the fun of it. Similarly, 'Black Mirror' likes to examine possible dystopias, but that doesn't mean the show is cynical enough to endorse them.
I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary.
There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.
'Borne,' in a weird way, even though it's a totally different universe, picks up where the 'Southern Reach Trilogy' leaves off, because it's post-apocalyptic.
I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.
I do believe very much in the idea of unexpected or 'convulsive' beauty - beauty in the service of liberty.
Film fixes a precise visual image in the viewer's head. In fiction, you just hope you're precise enough to convey the intended effect.
So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.
History has shown us all too often the consequences of dreaming poorly or not at all.
I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.
The music I listen to while writing is really scene-specific. It's just a great motivator, a way to put myself in the mood.
My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.
My parents were in the Peace Corps.
My dad is an entomologist and research chemist. That's why he was in Fiji, studying the rhinoceros beetle invasive species.
My stepmom is one of the leading researchers on lupus in the world.
When you describe a character's dream, it has to be sharper than reality in some way and more meaningful. It has to somehow speak to plot, character, and all the rest.
Cross-pollination and 'contamination' is really important to the health of fiction, and sometimes it's a literal conversation, too, in that writers who might never otherwise meet and talk do so because of our anthologies.
When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.
Trump lays bare a lot of things already wrong with our society. But he also accelerates the process of it becoming worse, when it could be getting better.
In a sense, fictional dystopias have been a way of distracting us from the truth of our condition by placing it 'over there.'
I'm not a fan of fiction that's totally hopeless.
An important reason that we're in the trouble we are in with climate change is that we don't have a handle on our environment. We form public policy based on information that is wrong.
There simply aren't enough constitutional safeguards in place to protect against a rogue president.
I used to work for a succession of software editing companies that would have contracts with state and federal agencies. And I would be the documenter of meetings, sometimes doing limited business analysis. I began to become quite cynical about how the world works. It works on ineptitude and inefficiency and a kind of passiveness.
There are a lot of human-created systems that we like to tout as being logical that are actually riddled with illogic. And then, on the other hand, we have all these natural systems that are not conscious, but they are logical, and they work really well.
I'm a huge fan of science fiction, horror, and fantasy films.
I like North Florida because it's much wilder than the rest of the state.
South Florida, Central Florida, and North Florida could never be mistaken for each other. Each has its quirks and attractions.
I'm an agnostic trending toward atheist and resist, in particular, Christian interpretations and imagery.
There are some beautiful creatures in the ocean that seem very alien at the same time.
Heroes aren't always people who save others in the normal sense. Sometimes they're people who keep trying even when things seem impossible.
I'm fairly skeptical of movements, organizations, and institutions in general.
Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.Collection: Long
Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.Collection: Self
The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?Collection: Way
When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality.Collection: Taken
It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?Collection: Literature
Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.Collection: Goal
Silence creates it's own violence.Collection: Silence
That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.Collection: Life
Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you. You can create little islands of time away from your novel that will help preserve your balance. Exhaustion will affect both your writing’s quality and your productivity.Collection: Writing
But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?Collection: What If
My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs because, full disclosure: I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, "Don't write that," or "Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats."Collection: Giving Up
You can be deeply non-serious and still focused, disciplined, and on task.Collection: Tasks
All musical talent is absent in me, to the point of being unable to play board games that require you to hum a tune while others guess what it is, since all my humming sounds the same. Musical instruments have always seemed like alien artifacts to me, even as I really admire anyone who can play one.Collection: Games
I've always wrestled with the difference between plot and structure, and after re-reading a lot of writing books I realized I wasn't alone.Collection: Book
If I wasn't a writer, I don't know what I'd be. Probably a marine biologist or something.Collection: Marine