Drumbeats (Expanded Edition) by Kevin J. Anderson & Neil Peart

Author:Kevin J. Anderson & Neil Peart [Anderson, Kevin J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 2010-07-20T23:00:00+00:00

AFTERWORD

Neil Peart

In the late ’80s, a novel called Resurrection Inc. arrived in my mailbox, accompanied by a letter from the author, Kevin J. Anderson. He wrote that the book had been partly inspired by an album called Grace Under Pressure, which my Rush bandmates and I had released in 1984.

It took me a year or so to get around to reading Resurrection Inc., but when I did, I was powerfully impressed, and wrote back to Kevin to tell him so. Any inspiration from Rush’s work seemed indirect, at best, but nonetheless, Kevin and I had much in common, not least a shared love since childhood for science fiction and fantasy stories.

We began to write to each other occasionally, and during Rush’s Roll the Bones tour in 1991, on a day off between concerts in California, I rode my bicycle from Sacramento to Kevin’s home in Dublin, California. That was the beginning of a good friendship, many stimulating conversations (mostly by letter and e-mail, as we lived far apart), and regular packages in the mail, as we shared our latest work with each other—the ultimate stimulating conversation. In subsequent years I would send Kevin a few books of my own, numerous CDs and DVDs from my work with Rush, and there seemed to be a fat volume from Kevin arriving about every other month.

Back in 1991, though, Kevin was still working full-time as a technical writer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He spent every spare minute working on his fiction, and though he would famously collect over 750 rejection letters, there was no doubt in Kevin’s mind about his destiny. Even as a child, Kevin didn’t “want to be” a writer when he grew up; he was going to be a writer.

And so he was. To date, Kevin has published over 80 novels, story collections, graphic novels, and comic books, and he still spends every minute being a writer. Kevin doesn’t write to live, he lives to write.

He has even found ways to weave his recreation, relaxation, and desire for adventure and physical challenge into the writing process, carrying a microcassette recorder on long hikes throughout the West, including the ascent of each of Colorado’s 46 “fourteeners,” (peaks over 14,000 feet).

In a recent exchange of e-mails, Kevin and I were discussing writing styles and habits, and he offered this revealing passage:

A long time ago, my friend and collaborator Doug Beason made a joking comment when I suggested that I needed a break, a sabbatical. He said, “Kevin, if you ever stop writing, your head would explode!”

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