Member Spotlight: Michael Rogers

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? The narrator of my latest book, set in 2084, chooses to write his memoir: “For me, writing is still a unique medium: the thought travels straight to word, and then the word returns directly to thought. Even today, no neural link is as precise as the well-chosen word.”

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I change input modes. If I’m writing by hand, I go back and type the last 500 words or so; if I’m working on the computer, I switch to paper and hand write the previous pages.

What is your favorite time to write? Predawn, when no one else in the house is awake.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Isaac Bashevis Singer: “The waste basket is the writer’s best friend.” Tossing a handful of pages is as much part of the process as writing them.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? Self-publishing. While it still feels strange to drop out of the publishing world and review media, there’s a freedom about being able to publish, say, a single short story, or a novella too short for conventional publishing.

Michael Rogers’s Email from the Future: Notes From 2084 is out April 22 with Practical Futurist.