Breaking The Code With Neal Stephenson, Page 4

ATN: So when you're writing, do you have headphones on and the music is really cranked and you're kind of riffing away?

Stephenson: I tend to get very self-conscious when I'm working, and I'm easily distracted. Just the sound of my fingers hitting the keys distracts me. It used to be, when you typed on an electric typewriter, that the machine would hum away, squeaking, thundering, clacking or whacking against the paper, making noise. Now, on a computer, you can hear your fingers clicking the keys, but everything else is quiet. For some reason that's distracting to me. It makes me self-conscious. But if I've got some tunes going so I can't hear it, I seem to be much more productive.

ATN: Is the music also acting as a soundtrack while you're creating scenes and developing story lines?

Stephenson: When I'm trying to get fired up to write a big hairy action-packed segment, I have been known to put on hairy loud action-packed music.

ATN: What was the impact on your life with Snow Crash becoming a successful novel?

Stephenson: It's easier to get through to people on the phone. A lot of people who do stuff that I think is cool in the way of technology seem to have read the book. If I want to swap e-mail with those people or talk to them, I don't have to explain who I am.

ATN: That's not too glamorous.

Stephenson: For me, it's kind of glamorous 'cause I like technology. I like computers. I like science. I just like the ideas that people come up with, the things that people do in their heads. The people that I most enjoy talking to are hackers and scientists and people who tinker with stuff.

William Gibson's Neuromancer was
an influence on Stephenson, though
he also thinks Gibson has been
influenced to some degree by Snow Crash.

ATN: Had you read some of William Gibson's stuff before you wrote Snow Crash?

Stephenson: I read Neuromancer not too long after it came out, and I've read most of his work now, since I read Neuromancer.

ATN: I've wondered if you felt like he was something of an influence or inspiration.

Stephenson: He most definitely was.

ATN: When I read Virtual Light, I thought Gibson had been influenced to some degree by Snow Crash. I saw Y. T. in his female character in Virtual Light.

Stephenson: I'd be more inclined to look for other explanations first. In my view, it's much more common to find independent parallel evolution of ideas than direct influence. There's a lot about messengers that lends itself to making them heroes in books.

ATN: Like what?

Stephenson: They're young, they wear cool clothes, they go fast, they defy death. They're out there on the streets actually doing stuff in a world where a great deal of what's going on is bits moving on wires and not very interesting to watch.

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