Ask the Author: Carl Zimmer
Answered Questions (14)
Carl Zimmer
I don't really look for inspiration per se. Writing is my default setting! But it does take a while sometimes to find a topic that I can foresee making for a great story.
Carl Zimmer
These days, attacks on science take certain forms, focused on certain things: climate change, evolution, and vaccines seem to top the list. These attacks are in a number of cases well-funded campaigns, and some politicians are backing some of them for their own political ends. Each particular case is concerning. Spreading misinformation about vaccines to worried parents leads to children getting sick in needless outbreaks, and even puts them at risk of death.
But there's another threat, a broader one, from these particular attacks: they can erode people's understanding of how science works in general. If people come to see science as just someone else's opinion, rather than a powerful way of knowing based on evidence, then all sorts of trouble may arise.
But there's another threat, a broader one, from these particular attacks: they can erode people's understanding of how science works in general. If people come to see science as just someone else's opinion, rather than a powerful way of knowing based on evidence, then all sorts of trouble may arise.
Carl Zimmer
The Looming Tower, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Fire Next Time.
Carl Zimmer
I'm writing a book about heredity--about the history of the concept, along with its future as we decipher it and try to control it.
Carl Zimmer
Thanks for asking. There are many viruses that benefit us--or could benefit us if we figured out how to use them the right way. I'm fascinated by how some viruses seem to be able to regulate our inner ecosystem of bacteria, for example, and how they can keep infections in check. Viruses are showing promise as vehicles for delivering genes to cells for gene therapy for hemophilia and other congenital disorders. There are even viruses that have been engineered to build nano materials! --Carl
Carl Zimmer
That's a great question. Microbiologists first defined species like E. coli long before they could look at the DNA of bacteria. So they just observed traits in bacteria, in the same way ornithologists would look at the color of bird feathers. Now scientists are realizing that strains that "look" like E. coli can be extremely different, genetically speaking. They descend from a common ancestor, but they've picked up lots of genes since then.
Carl Zimmer
Each genre works best for certain topics. I'm not going to write about the birth of neuroscience in the 1600s in a blog post, for example. Instead, I wrote a book about it (Sole Made Flesh). There are stories that have an intermediate heft, which make for good magazine features. My New York Times columns are about 800 to 1000 words, so I have to pick a well-focused story that can fit in those confines, but also have a relevance to New York Times readers. I use my blog The Loom as more of a playground, to write about things that I find intriguing just on their own terms.
Carl Zimmer
I get inspiration by finding good stories. A good story might reveal something surprising about how life works, or might involve a strange chain of events that I could never have made up myself. The excitement I feel thinking about such a story propels me through the writing, because I want to share it. If I don't feel that excitement about something, that's a good clue I shouldn't write about it, because I'll come to despise the process.
Carl Zimmer
Thanks! I don't know how other writers feel about sequels, but they make me uneasy. I like to jump to a different subject with each book, although there may be links from one book to another. For "Parasite Rex," for example, I decided to studiously avoid viruses and bacteria, because people are so familiar with them (as opposed to, say, a parasitic worm that turns ants into zombies). But lots of parasites are bacterial or viral. Later, I wrote a book about bacteria ("Microcosm"), and there I spent some time talking about the strategies that parasitic bacteria use to exploit us. And later still, I wrote a book called "Planet of Viruses," where I revisited some of the main themes of "Parasite Rex". So while I don't write sequels, my books do echo each other.
Carl Zimmer
I think different writers will answer that differently, depending on the genre and subject matter they focus on. For me, one of the best things is just finding out how things work. I feel incredibly lucky that I can spend time with people exploring all sorts of aspects of our world, from genes to oceans to galaxies, and find out some of the things they're learning.
Carl Zimmer
My most recent trade book was "A Planet of Viruses." That started out as a series of essays I wrote for an educational project. But eventually I had accumulated enough essays that one of my colleagues said, "I think you've written a book." When we approached the University of Chicago Press on the question, they agreed. Obviously, I had to do some fine-tuning to the essays to make them hold together as a book, but the whole experience still felt strange and funny. Sometimes you don't get an idea for a book. Sometimes the idea gets you.
Carl Zimmer
At the moment, I'm working on the second edition of my textbook, Evolution: Making Sense of Life. It's pretty exciting to bring it up to date with some of the new research in the past couple years. I'm also mulling ideas for my next trade book. Having written about topics ranging from viruses to brains, parasites, and whales, I'm hoping to find some new untrodden pastures. (Suggestions welcome!)
Carl Zimmer
Don't think of yourself as aspiring. If you're writing, you're a writer. But be a writer every day. That will require taking a bite out of the time you spend doing other things, like sleeping. But if you feel passionately enough about writing, it will be worth it.
I've written more advice here: http://carlzimmer.com/writers.html and here: https://medium.com/@bobbie/carl-zimme...
I've written more advice here: http://carlzimmer.com/writers.html and here: https://medium.com/@bobbie/carl-zimme...
Carl Zimmer
I find that deadlines and contracts are very potent cures for writer's block. So I usually don't struggle with it much when I'm working on articles. (They give me anxiety instead, which is a different risk of writing.) Writer's block is a problem, however, when I'm working on a book, especially on the beginning. How on Earth will I pick the perfect words, sentences, images to start the story? Sometimes I find that just writing something--anything-down, will do the trick. I will literally be telling myself, "This is horrible. No one would want to read this," and yet I'll keep writing. Eventually, I realize why I hate it, and what it should be, and then I start working on the beginning that really will work. And sometimes that horrible beginning turns out to have been what I should have started with after all, and I keep it.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more