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Documentary film-makers have been following Chuck Rosesnthal around for the last few months (he explains why below).
They, and his publishers, Hollyridge Press, have graciously allowed us to embed their Youtube videos here to augment this interview.
You wrote 6 novels before your first fantasy/sf book, My Mistress, Humanity. How did they, and your early life, prepare you for writing that book, as well as The Heart of Mars?
Though I published six books before writing My Mistress, Humanity, I'd probably written twelve or more by then. Every book prepares you for the next book, I suppose, except, maybe, for the exhaustion of finishing one; though now I've usually started my next book before I finish the last one. If you write books, you learn not to finish a chapter or section; you walk away with it unfinished or start a new one before walking away so the next day you can just pick up where you left off.
I started Mistress because I'd just read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and I was sitting in a Godzilla movie and thought, "What would you do if you woke up one day and you were a giant monster?" I mean, what is one's rationale for trying to destroy everything? Survival, for starters. In Mistress the female dragon, Humanity, surveys the earth and discovers that there are two things destroying the planet with equal ferocity, science/technology and religion, so she sets out to destroy them. She wants her creator, Fausten, to love her as well.
I wanted to write a trilogy and I'd been fascinated with the planets since I was a kid. I read all the Edgar Rice Burroughs stuff set on Mars and Venus and in the center of the earth, Pelicudar it's called, I think (none of the Tarzan). I follow Mars exploration and I've studied Mars tera-forming. I was always fascinated by Mars and always wanted to write a book set there. I liked the idea of using a literary framework for a sci-fi novel, so, as you might know, I used Frankenstein for part of the Mistress story-line and thought The Heart of Darkness might be cool for Mars, and so The Heart of Mars.
If you know my other work, then you know I'm not a Realist writer, but a Romantic (as are all sci-fi writers); my earlier novels tend toward the magical and fabulist, so the slide to fantasy/sci-fi was natural.
Author Chuck Rosenthal talks about the difficulties in writing his new novel, The Heart of Mars
What was your writing process for The Heart of Mars?
I sit down and I write. I think outlines can work, especially if we're talking about some intricately plotted piece, but for me, I write the first line, then the next line and let it take me where it takes me. By the time I wrote the first line of The Heart of Mars it was already a different book than I conceived it to be. I could have crossed out the first line, but I didn't; in fact I do very little crossing out until the book is done and I've discovered what it is I've tried to do, then I can go back and cut, add, make the book more of what it became. The only reason the first draft is important is because without it you can't rewrite. Go where you go. What you write is not precious. You can throw it out later.
I'm much more interested in language than I am story (as you pointed out in your review), but I'm a natural story-teller, besides, I had Marl(owe), he had to search for Kurtz; how could I go wrong? As I wrote, I didn't know if Marl would find the hijacked fish tanker in the Valles Marinaris or not. It turned out to be a big red herring. I thought that was funny.
Author Chuck Rosenthal talks about those pesky Newtians in his latest novel, The Heart of Mars.
In the excerpt of the interview at Hollyridge's website, you say that you were "stuck on Europa" because it was so interesting (and I agree, by the way!) But there was "nothing on Mars." But you never explain how, as a writer - you got "unstuck"....
I had so much fun on Europa I didn't want to leave, but those Orcas came along and ate too many of my characters. I hadn't really planned on being on Europa at all, then I couldn't get off; it was so rich and wet and full of ghosts; Mars seemed so dry.
Originally I was going to have Marl get killed as soon as he got to Mars and have his grandson, Philip Marlow, take over the story, but I got frustrated with the Raymond Chandler voice, so I stopped. I began Mars while I was working on another book, The Last Book of Everything, so I just went back to that for a year or so until the idea of having European tribes on Mars who told each other classics hit me. That wove into the whole "learning how to write" stuff. I had a good time using European stereotypes instead of racial ones, loved the ironies; primitive Italian horsemen (and women) drinking wine and buffalo blood while reciting Dante (and I got to go back and read all that stuff, The Inferno, The Niebelungenlied, Wagner, Mann, Alice Through the Looking Glass, A Thousand Nights and One Night). So I might have gotten stuck on Europa, but as a writer I never got stuck, I just wrote something else until some new Mars stuff sifted into me.
For any writer, I think, when you ask yourself '"what happens next?" you're screwed. Nothing good can happen when you ask that question. Don't get stuck. Refuse to get stuck. Stop worrying. If you can't go forward, go sideways or backwards (and I don't mean rewrite; never rewrite until you're done or you'll rewrite forever), go to the zoo. Or go somewhere else, write something else. Keep the world you've been working on in your head as you do. Think about it when you walk or drive. Just let that world and its characters live in you and when it's ready it will move forward. Quit worrying about causality. As Bill Gass says, a plot is a place where you're buried.
Relax. Go read something; it will give you ideas. The world doesn't care what you're writing or if you finish it. But keep writing something everyday. The Last Book of Everything, now over 700 pages long, is both an escape text and an Ur text for me in that way; I can always go to it and write and, as well, it's produced several stories and even books inside itself. My new India book began inside it. If none of it sees the light of day, I couldn't care less. That's how I got unstuck on Mars. I refuse writer's block.
Don't worry about making things happen. Let things happen around who you are.
Author Chuck Rosenthal talks about his readers and the freedom
he had to write his newest novel, The Heart of Mars.
I was amused by your names for the Pets, Elmoleonard, Elronhubbard, etc. Any particular reason why you chose those names (apart from obviously your desire to get the el-word out of them!)
Those Pets. Yes, I got the el-word out of them, and of course El herself. I didn't really have a good reason for the El names: Elronhubbard, Elmoleonard, I just tried them and thought they were funny, though by the time I got to the whalemaster Pet, Ermanmelville just sat up and barked. Besides, there's no writing in this solar system anymore, ha! As well, the Pets communicate by smell and I was born without the sense of smell; never smelled a thing in my life. I thought it would be really interesting to see how I'd do that.
Who's Chuck Rosenthal?
Do you attend science fiction/fantasy conventions? If so, any scheduled for the future?
I went to the very first Xena Warrior Princess Convention in Burbank because my brother-in-law gave me tickets. I liked Jocksur, and Callisto was hot. That's it. I've never been invited to any sci-fi/fantasy stuff. If I were, I'd go.
Hollyridge Press trailer for The Heart of Mars
Who are your favorite authors? In literature as well as SF.
In literature I've always liked Jack Kerouac. I'm a Romantic, so Hawthorne, Melville, Sarah Orne Jewett, (I even read all of James Fennimore Cooper!); Garbriel Garcia Marquez, Cortarzar. I've read all of Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, Ray Carver, lots of Conrad, obviously. I love Chuck Kinder. William Gass is my mentor. I like the Italian Fabulists, Italo Calvino and Dino Buzzati; I read and I've read a lot of philosophy and religion. I almost got my Ph.D. in philosophy, but I got it in literature instead; had to read three hundred books for my qualification exams; it was good for me.
In sci-fi I like [Stanislaw] Lem. I get a kick out of Karel Capek. I like the classics, Verne, Wells, Orwell. [William] Gibson has his moments. 2001 is a classic. Ursula LeGuin for her patience.
Do you have a sequel of any kind planned for The Heart of Mars?
Maybe something on a starship. I might have one more sci-fi book in me. The book I just finished is a non-fiction book about my four months in the Himalayas and north India (Looking for God in All the Wrong Places) and my next book is about a horse and a guy from the horse's point of view (Annie and Bird). It might go fantasy, I don't know yet. I'm deep into animal consciousness right now.
You are a Professor of English at Loyola Marymount University. What kinds of courses do you teach. Can you share any anecdotes about your students?
Mostly I teach writing courses, fiction writing workshops, dialogue workshops, though I do teach a sci-fi course and a course on the Beats. The poet Gail Wronsky and I are going to start a three week workshop in the Himalayas teaching Magical Writing, which is kind of what I call what I do, Magical Writing; even my India book is Magical Journalism. Anecdotes? Holy mackerel. Let's just say I like to crack things open and make trouble. I'm a funny guy. Okay, here's one. Gail once overheard two female students outside my door. One says, "Have you ever had him in class?" The other says, "Yeah, he says a bunch of stuff you don't understand and then he laughs like crazy."
Talk about the filmmakers who are following you around
Yes, there's a film about me. Two young, LA documentary film makers who are also fiction writers, Mark D'Anna (who is publishing a book of surreal/real short stories this fall called Big Brown Bag) and a goth sci-fi writer, Mike Kogge, got in touch with me about talking to them for their movie The Death of Writing. I thought that was funny.
Kogge was just finishing a documentary about the recent NASA project to Saturn. Anyway, they were looking for weird, funny writers and going around the country trying to find them. I thought it would be fun. They followed me around my house and we talked on camera about life, writing, anything we wanted. After I got back from India they got back in touch with me and said they'd been to New York and back, talking to and filming writers, and that I was the most interesting guy so would I mind if they just made a film about me.
So they've been following me around, to readings, book signings, me riding my horse, me at my office on the hill above heaven (Yeah, I had an office above a little lookout called Heaven, I couldn't stand it, it was too hard to get above heaven everyday so I built a new office at the bottom of my property), me at the LA Book Festival; we went to St. Louis and filmed for three days with Bill Gass. Hey, what's it like to be a middle-aged unknown writer? Shit, it's great!
It's going to take another year or so to finish the movie. They're thinking film festivals, Sundance if they're lucky.
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