I studied physics at Princeton when I was a college student, and my initial intention was to major in it but to also be a writer. What I discovered, because it was a very high-powered physics program with its own fusion reactor, was that to keep up with my fellow students in that program I would need to dedicate myself to math and physics all the time and let writing go. And I couldn't let writing go, so I let physics go and became a science fan and a storyteller.
I'd wanted to be a writer since I was knee-high. Once I knew that books were written by people and didn't just happen, it was obviously that I would write them, too.
You don't control whether your movies get made. You can't. All you can control is whether your draft is great. So, you write your great draft, as best as you can, and then move on to the next thing.
The science fiction I write comes from a pretty deep pool of literature, not just from the reflection of other science fiction films, and I think that gives me somewhat deeper roots.
For a successful writer, the secret is to have many irons in the fire. Write the next thing.
