And, like Speaker for the Dead before it, Xenocide was the hardest book I'd ever written up to then. You see, the work of a storyteller doesn't get any easier the more experience we get, because once we've learned how to do something, we can't get excited about doing exactly the same thing again--or at least most of us can't. We keep wanting to reach for the story that is too hard for us to tell--and then make ourselves learn how to tell it. If we succeed, then maybe we can write better and better books, or at least more challenging ones, or at the very least we won't bore ourselves.
The danger that keeps me just a little frightened with every book I write, however, is that I'll overreach myself once too often and try to write a story that I'm just plain not talented or skilled enough to write. That's the dilemma every storyteller faces. It is painful to fail. But it is far sadder when a storyteller stops wanting to try.
Now I fear that I've told you more than you ever wanted to know about how Speaker for the Dead came to be. A writer's life is boring indeed. I write stories about people who take risks, who reach out and change the world. But when it comes to my life, it mostly consists of hanging around at home, writing when I have to, playing computer games or watching TV whenever I can get away with it. My real life is being with my wife, with my children; going to church and teaching my Sunday school class; keeping in touch with my family and friends; and, the primary duty of every father, turning off lights throughout the house and muttering about how I'm the only one who seems to care about turning them off because I'm the one who has to change the lousy light bulbs. I doubt that there's much of a story in that.