The Long Now Blog published a fascinating interview with Robin Sloan. Regular readers know, I’m a card-carrying fan of Sloan’s work. I am currently at about 80% of the incredible adventure in Moonbound and I also received the accompanying poster/zine today.

The poster from Robin Sloan’s book Moonbound. A tree with vibrant pink branches grows from a large rock in a desolate desert landscape

In the interview, Sloan discusses plenty of topics in and around the book. How the style of debate of the talking beavers (I know…) is modelled around The Long Now talks, what sort of freedom you get when you can write science fiction that’s over 10.000 years in the future, and a very hopeful quote on his style of note-taking

I have a very diligent and disciplined note-taking practice. I have many other weaknesses as a writer, but I think one of my Olympic-caliber strengths is being disciplined about capturing interesting thoughts and ideas I come across.

Some people I know are big note takers, but they want their notes to fit into this very orderly crystal palace of thought. I don’t know if that is where good stuff comes from. It’s not about building a perfect database of everything linked in the right way. That’s not how thought really works. (emphasis mine)

This last sentence is key to me. New ideas come from connecting two existing thoughts in a surprising new way. That’s how creatives work, from art to copy, from digital to analog. It is important to be a creative generalist, to look further beyond your own line of work and find various interests you can dive into. Like Sloan does, with his zines, mini sites and early experiments with AI.