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L. Ron Hubbard in the Navy in 1944. “Security” regulations prohibited his writing, he said. |
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Q: What is your favorite work of fiction by any writer? What is your favorite work of your own?
A: I would hate to choose a favorite work of fiction of anyone — including myself.
You didn't ask about non-fiction so I'll offer that I've always enjoyed Bolitho's “Twelve Against The Gods.” His introduction is especially good.
Q: What are you working on now? What will your next book be?
A: My next book is actually a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor or satire. I leave it to the reader to describe it.
With it will be more music. I like the combination.
I've also been working on a screenplay but it is a bit premature to discuss that one right now.
I've also been doing some photography with some new equipment I got for Christmas.
Q: Old Doc Methusela is a perfect setup for a sequel. Is this a possibility?
A: I really hadn't thought of it before and don't know what the Doc would say to being dusted off. I know his four-armed sidekick Hippocrates wouldn't mind if the Doc didn't mind.
So thanks for the suggestion.
I'll make a cuff-note of it.
Q: You have been described as a hack writer or a pulp writer. Please comment.
A: I've actually never been so described. In fact, I can't remember anybody using the words. I was called an “adventure writer” or a “detective writer” or “you-name-it,” depending on which editor was featuring my cover story that week. It was not until just before the war that I was also being called a “science fiction” writer.
Q: Prolific writers like yourself and Isaac Asimov are sometimes criticized for being “too prolific.” Please comment.
A: This is true for many writers. They can simply produce more than the market can bear.
That was one of the advantages of having pen names. I had so many pen names I forgot them. They were used to get around editors who wanted “new names.” So you would make up a new name and send him your story and he would buy it — quite often not even knowing it was one of his own boys.
I remember once how an editor met me in his office and waved a manuscript in my face exclaiming how he had found a “new name” and how this “new name” was better than me.
That's right. It was one of my manuscripts sent in under a pen name.
I didn't have the heart to tell him.
The problem still faces the successful writer. And many writers still solve it in the same way.
Q: What do you think about writers who take years to write a single book?
A: I really don't think many do. They might research something for years, but I can't figure out how somebody could keep a plot in his head that long.
Some people try to equate quality with slowness. If an athlete did that he would lose every game.
Q: What advice do you have for budding writers?
A: Write and write and write and write. And then when you finish, write some more.
It may not be original advice, but it is still quite true. You learn to write by writing.
Don't try to learn
how to write in order to write. I've seen a lot of great writers killed off when they decided they wanted to learn how to write.
Just take an idea and go with it. You may find a story that pulls you along. The story takes off on its own. It sounds silly but it happens. You have this character walking down the street and you are all ready for him to get into a taxi but he walks right on and turns into a movie theatre. Whoa! What is this? Well, follow him and see what happens.
The main thing is to write and learn the business of writing — that tough market you have to live with.
Q: What were your impressions of Hollywood as a screenwriter? How did that phase of your career come about? Are there plans to make a movie of “Battlefield Earth”?
A: Any writer loves glamour-town. I used to sit in my penthouse on Sunset Boulevard and write stories for New York and then go to my office in the studio and have my secretary tell everybody I was in conference while I caught up on my sleep because they couldn't believe anybody could write 136 scenes a day and the Screen Writers Guild would have killed me. Their quota was eight. I commuted between New York and Hollywood with large amounts of time off for the wide open spaces. But I loved Hollywood — still do. Who doesn't?
I've recently written three screenplays and some interest has also been expressed in “Battlefield Earth” so I suppose I'll be right back in Hollywood one of these days and probably on location in the Denver area for “Battlefield Earth” when they film it.
Q: How long did it take to write “Battlefield Earth”? Where did you come up with the basic plot?
A: It was one of those plots that I had kept around for awhile and had never bothered to put down on paper. So I decided to use it for my Golden Anniversary novel.
It took me a few months to write it.
Q: What is the message you hoped to convey in “Battlefield Earth”?
A: That man can survive. That is the story.
You see, we have prepared for war with virtually everyone on this planet; but we've never prepared for war with aliens.
So I took this idea and wrote a story of mankind regaining its pride and its integrity after a thousand years of alien domination.
We think nothing of going into an area and taking out minerals at the expense of the plant and animal life. So what would it be like if an advanced race of aliens viewed the entire planet of Earth in the same way?
Now the prospect of something like this actually happening has always been laughed off as “fiction.” But so has everything else SF writers took up — television, the atomic bomb, space travel — you name it.
An analogy might be if someone had tried to warn the American Indians that this white race would come in with sticks that blew fire and that could wipe out the great buffalo herds. The Indians would have laughed at him.
Am I saying an alien invasion is possible?
I am saying that the reader should decide.
I just wrote the story.
Regardless, it is the story of how mankind could survive, and why.
Q: The novel projects the idea of a possible future in which mankind has been virtually destroyed. Were you trying to tell your readers something about the future or were you simply using this as a vehicle for writing an entertaining book?
A: That is for the reader to decide.
The main point is that there is something about the human spirit that, when tapped, is greater than any technology or adversity. It is just more evident on an interstellar scale.
Q: Where did the idea of having a sound track for the book come from? Who is collaborating on this project?
A: I got the idea in order to launch computer music with real artists.
I have lots of friends in the music industry and they thought it would be a great idea, so I wrote the songs and music and they put them on a computer.
You know, of course, that the album “Space Jazz” on the Applause Records label is now in the stores. It features Nicky Hopkins, Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, Gayle Moran and the Golden Era Musicians. They tell me it's getting rave reviews and the first music store reports are that it is selling very well.
Q: Sound tracks of movies seem to become popular because fans associate certain music with the action and actors they saw on the screen. Do you think the concept of having a sound track for a book before a movie is released will be successful?
A: I think you are quite right in why most sound tracks are popular.
Go listen to a musical sound track of a movie you have not seen and see what you think of it. Chances are it won't make any sense at all. The reason is that the music is seldom written to stand on its own. (The musical play is sometimes the opposite — the action is scripted around the music.)
I wanted to create some music that could be enjoyed without having read the book, yet which reflects action or moods or characters in the book.
I believe it will catch on for other books in the future.
Right now there are radio ads for books that sound as if they are ads for a movie — complete with music.
But why should the music be wasted on just an ad?
I think there will come a time when we will have a best-selling theme from a book just as we have them for movies.
It gives a new market for the music industry and for musicians.
Meanwhile, I'll be going ahead with more. The music for the next book is being worked on right now.
Q: Do you think computer music is a general future trend for music?
A: Yes, definitely, but it is mot what many people think of when they think of “computer music.” It is not a series of beeps and hums.
It is going to create new musical scales and sounds while giving us everyday sounds as music. A musician can now do with sound what the photographer has been able to achieve with sight.
It will also create new musicians and new art.
Q: Do you think conventional instruments like the guitar, saxophone and piano will become things of the past? Will they be viewed in the future as the lute and harpsichord are today?
A: It isn't the instrument, it's the artist. Anybody who can play standard instruments can also play computers. The point is not the instrument — it's the artist. Give him new sound, and he can make new vibes.
The computer is less limited than standard instruments and you'll probably see the same guys on the same stages in a few years playing computers.
They picked up electric guitars, didn't they? And now listen to any rock group and you hear all sorts of weird wah-wahs and strange sounds. And if they can make them better with computers, they will.
Q: Do you think books will become a relic of the past? Will writers?
A: Books, too, will change. You will be able to carry your own pocket computer library. Later, the computer will be able to “talk” to you and “read” to you.
Writers will have to keep up with these changes, for there will always be writers as there will always be artists and musicians.
Q: How did your involvement in Scientology and Dianetics and the public controversy over it affect L. Ron Hubbard as a writer?
A: The only thing that ever affected me as a writer was the U.S. Navy when their “security” regulations prohibited writing. I was quiet for about two years before I couldn't take it any more and went and took it out on a typewriter and, wearing a Stetson hat in the middle of a battle theatre, wrote a costume historical novel of 60,000 words which has never seen the light of day. Its title was “Stormalong” and the only thing ever salvaged from it was the character by that name in “Battlefield Earth.”
Was it rejected? No, I sold 93.4% of everything I ever wrote — first draft, first submission, check by return mail and often Western Union messenger.
But what about the novel? Well, if fish can read, they probably have enjoyed it.