Aaron Rosenberg

This week: Aaron Rosenberg!

This week The Writer's Pane is featuring a very versatile author. Aaron Rosenberg has written fiction, sc-fi, fantasy and even children's and non-fiction. Take a look at what he has to say about the questions below! 

Name: Aaron Rosenberg

Website: www.gryphonrose.com

Social Media: Facebook: facebook.com/gryphonrose
Twitter: @gryphonrose
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy/Mystery/Thriller/Comedy/Action-Adventure/Children’s/Nonfiction

Where do you find inspiration?
Everywhere. Billboards, posters, ads, commercials, songs, stamps, scam emails. But mostly from people. Listen to conversations around you and you’ll hear all kinds of zany things. A lot of those spark thoughts in your head: “Hm, I wonder what he means by that? I wonder who she’s talking to, and why?” Then you start to play that out: “I bet he’s really . . .” And of course when you talk to your friends you start to riff off each other, playing off silly comments and spinning ideas out of thin air. Especially if they’re also writers.

Which character in literature do you associate yourself with the most?
Associate? DuckBob Spinowitz, the main character in my (aptly named) Adventures of DuckBob Spinowitz sci-fi comedy series. In part because, after four novels and three or four short stories, I’ve written him more than any other character. And in part because in a lot of ways we’re very much alike. He isn’t me, exactly, but we have a similar well of pop-culture knowledge and a similar streak of snark, though his is a lot more unfiltered. Actually, completely unfiltered—DuckBob tends to say exactly what he’s thinking, as he thinks it.

Which piece of your writing was the most entertaining/enjoyable to write? Why?
Probably the first DuckBob novel, No Small Bills. It was a complete departure for me. I’d been writing epic fantasy, big sweeping books for Warhammer and World of WarCraft, and a friend challenged me to do something completely different. So I decided to write this wacky little SF comedy I’d had the notion for a few years before. I also tend to plot very heavily, but that time I didn’t. I just say down and started typing. It was very freeing and a lot of fun.

Was the first novel you published the first you ever wrote? What was? 
Ha, no! The first novel I ever wrote was my honors thesis back in school. It was an epic fantasy called A Touch of Heat about a fledgling wizard, written in some ways as a counterpoint to Lawrence Watt-Evans’ With A Single Spell, which I’d enjoyed but felt didn’t live up to the promise inherent in its title. I did submit the book, to Baen, but they rejected it. Which, in retrospect, was almost certainly a good thing.

When I’m not writing I’m usually…
…working—I have a day job, plus I’m the print manager for a small press and the layout artist for an author collective and do occasional freelance design work—or spending time with my family or reading or watching movies or eating. Every once in a great while I sleep, just for the sheer novelty of it.

If you could tell or ask any character in literature or film anything, what would it be? (and where is the character from?)
Actually, I think I’d just want to talk to Silk, the thief-con artist-spy from the Eddings’ Belgariad series. Because he’s just tremendously witty and acerbic and would be a lot of fun.

If you had lived a different life, made different choices, what would you be doing now? 
Teaching college. I have a Master’s in English Lit and was working on my PhD at one point, and teaching English while I did. But academic politics and egos interfered and I got disgusted and quit. If I’d stayed I probably would have been able to get my doctorate eventually, and would have gone on to look for a teaching job somewhere, ideally working my way up to teaching fiction writing. I still might someday. I really enjoyed being in the classroom.

What are five things you couldn’t do without? 
My family. My friends. Books. Good food. Ideas for stories.

What do few people know about you? 
I have flat feet, so although I can walk for long periods without a problem standing still for too long gets difficult. When I’m at conventions I have to alternate between sitting and standing every so often.

Are you working on any current projects?
I just released the fourth and final DuckBob novel, Not for Small Minds. I’m about to start writing the second novel in the Relicant Chronicles, an epic fantasy series I’m doing with Steven Savile that I describe as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Game of Thrones where the only magic left is ancestor worship as ritualized cannibalism.” I’m working on two different humorous novels with two different friends. I’m also designing a roleplaying game for another friend and a card game with yet another. And I’m waiting on licensor approval to finally start writing a novel for a video game property. I like to keep busy.

What work of fiction made you want to be a writer? 
I don't know that I ever made a conscious choice to be a writer. I've always loved to read, though, loved getting lost in a story, and certain books fired my imagination early on - Alexander Key's The Forgotten Door, Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. 

What tools do you use for writing, organization, marketing? 
For writing I stick with Microsoft Word—I know there are fancier options but it gets the job done and I know how to use it, not only for the writing but for formatting my work afterward. For organization, still Word—I’m a big fan of lists, to-do lists and cast lists and more, so I just open a new Word file and write down what I need. For marketing? Photoshop and InDesign, same as for layout and design. My last job was doing book design for a major publisher, so I’m very familiar with InDesign in particular.

Why do you write?
To tell stories. That’s what it’s all about for me. Most of the time, it’s just to entertain, to captivate, to entrance, to pull people into my world.

What are some profound experiences from your life you’ve worked into your fiction?
Ouch. Well, the more I wrote DuckBob the more I fleshed him out, including giving him an entire extended family. Some of those family members are based on some of my own family and friends—including one he has a very troubled relationship with. I hadn’t planned that, it just sort of happened, and it hit me pretty hard when it did.

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Author Bio: Aaron Rosenberg is the author of the best-selling DuckBob SF comedy series, the Dread Remora space-opera series, the Relicant epic fantasy series with Steve Savile, and the O.C.L.T. occult thriller series with David Niall Wilson. Aaron's tie-in work contains novels for Star Trek, Warhammer, World of WarCraft, Stargate: Atlantis, Shadowrun, Eureka, and more. He has written children’s books (including the original series STEM Squad and Pete and Penny's Pizza Puzzles, the award-winning Bandslam: The Junior Novel, and the #1 best-selling 42: The Jackie Robinson Story), educational books on a variety of topics, and over seventy roleplaying games (such as the original games Asylum, Spookshow, and Chosen, work for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Fantasy Flight, Pinnacle, and many others, and both the Origins Award-winning Gamemastering Secrets and the Gold ENnie-winning Lure of the Lich Lord). He is the co-creator of the ReDeus series, and a founding member of Crazy 8 Press. Aaron lives in New York with his family. You can follow him online at gryphonrose.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/gryphonrose, and on Twitter @gryphonrose.