Recorded in early 2001, shortly after completion of generator [volume one] 'floating-point'

Page 1 of 4

Q: "How long did it take you to write 'generator'?

Z: "The project's development has been a long process that has evolved through several different formats... The initial concept emerged from an idea I had for an animated film that I wanted to make in 1987. The short film was called 'The Window'. It would have been constructed from a collage of photographic black and white images ripped out of 1950's magazines. This concept was preserved in my first novel in the sections entitled 'Invisible Waves' ~ which were attributed to a fictional author named Kropton Ernst."

"The next stage of it's transformation occurred in 1992 when I wrote a story based on the ideas created for the animated film, during the '3 Day Novel Writing Contest' (an event that is held annually in Vancouver). Over the weekend I wrote a 60 page 'novel', entitled 'The Disposable Mind'."

"Both the animated film idea and the short story sat in a cardboard box while I worked on children's CD-ROM projects to support myself for the next few years. Then, sometime around 1996 - 97 I had the idea of creating a CD-ROM based on this theme and started to spend time researching the topics that had been formulating. As the research led me deeper and deeper into the murky world of artificial life, computer viruses, and genetic engineering, the story really began to take shape. I soon realized that it was a much bigger project than I could do justice to as a digital 'graphic novel' - which was how I envisioned the CD-ROM being developed."

"By 1998 I had sufficient credits accumulated from my work to take a year off from commercial projects and essentially write full-time. It was a small amount of money - but I didn't need much to survive since I essentially stayed home and wrote for 12 or 14 hours every single day. Early into the new year of 1999 I had completed the first draft of the novel entitled; 'generator' - over 800 pages!!!"

"Of course I was broke by then, but fortunately another project came along and I spent the next eight months directing animation on a set of children's CD-ROMs for one of the largest US educational media companies (which - one year later - does not exist anymore). I was kind of edgy the whole time knowing that I had written a really cool story and wondering how in the world I could get it published. So once again, when the project was completed, I used the money I had saved to buy myself a little more time."