In Part 1 of our interview, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi discussed the background to his stunning debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL and his concerns for a future where fossil fuels have run dry.

In this second instalment, Paolo talks about the practicalities of writing, why he became an author and what the future may hold in terms of his own work.

Perhaps unusually, you share your workspace with another writer – how do you use each other as sounding boards and for help with all the issues that crop up during the writing of a novel?

I think we alternately inspire each other, and get on each other’s nerves, but one of the benefits of having another writer around is that when you get stymied, you can go out for a walk together, and talk over the book, and sometimes that process of talking out loud gets you through the confusion.  I was just recently down in Mexico with another group of writers on a sort of writer’s retreat, and it was quite inspiring. Just being surrounded by a bunch of other people who are cranking out their books and who aggressively focused on building something out of nothing is hugely inspiring. Over two weeks I wrote an astounding number of words, and part of it at least had to do with being around so many other people who were working on books, and for whom there was no question that they were going to make up a story, and that their stories would be read, and that they weren’t crazy to be doing it.  It’s hard for me to have faith in my stories as I work on them. Hard to believe they should be written. Hard to believe that they’re worthwhile. Hard to believe that they aren’t stupid.  Being surrounded by other writers ameliorates that, for me, at least.

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Paolo Bacigalupi is an author that needs no introduction: his debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL won a host of awards, including a Hugo and a Nebula. His second book – a young adult novel called SHIP BREAKER – will be published in paperback in July by Orbit’s sister imprint, Atom.

Paolo kindly took some time out from his busy schedule to answer a few questions about his writing.

In this first part, Paolo discusses the inspiration behind THE WINDUP GIRL and the concern he feels about a possible future where fossil fuels have run out.

What was the original inspiration for THE WINDUP GIRL? What was the spark that made you think I have to tell this story?

Honestly, it wasn’t just one thing. I originally wrote a short story that was set in Bangkok but it was so hairy and convoluted that it didn’t work.  A friend of mine commented that if felt so packed with ideas that is was a bit of a dwarf star, and she suggested that I was actually working on a novel. At the time, I was horrified, because I’d had four novels rejected previously, and was pretty determined to only write short stories, ever after.  So I took the most interesting aspect of the world and wrote a different story (one that really was a short story) called “The Calorie Man.” That story utilized some of the ideas about peak oil and agribusiness and GMOs that I was interested in, and that was that. Later, I was looking to write another story, and I’d always found the character of Tan Hock Seng interesting from that original short story, and so I went and wrote  a piece of his back story, and that became “Yellow Card Man.” (more…)