The Future Lab Podcast
We tell stories that shape the future.
In each episode of The Future Lab, I discuss how we shape the future with the stories we tell today. This week’s conversation is with Matt Gemmell, who writes techo-thrillers. His latest is a trilogy called KESTREL. We discuss how he doesn’t follow a template when writing, but allows intention to guide him.
Matt has also published four nonfiction books, and six collections of short stories about the supernatural. He’ll send you a free short story by email if you sign up for his newsletter.
Matt was once a software engineer doing design and user experience work for companies like Apple, and he approaches writing with an engineer’s mind combined with the improvisational approach of a session musician.
Here’s a quote from Matt from the episode: “There's this sense of being so engrossed and encompassed in the work of an actual book that I only learn the lessons of it and improve after a major piece of work."
I take that to mean that it’s by doing the writing that we improve, certainly, and we learn by a kind of spidey-sense to hone everthing down to what is absolutely needed. Writing along the path of your story becomes like muscle memory.
You get to know your characters so well that you could drop them into any scene, even an outlandish one, and you would know how they would react and what they would say. You cultivate a deep intentionality that shapes your creative spark.
Toward the end of our conversation, we talk about Matt’s writing setup, why he likes mechanical keyboards, and the pleasure he derives from a good e-ink tablet.
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Matt Gemmell.
