Homeric style and technique: Kevin Anderson:

I wonder how Anderson and Herbert's writing methods—which appear to involve dictating their story onto tapes for later transcription—affect the pacing and delivery of their narrative. Perhaps this return to a kind of Homeric oral storytelling is perfectly suited for the creation of future myths!

- Paul di Fillipo.

From Anderson himself:

Questioner: You are renowned for your persistence. What kept you going when things looked dark?

Anderson: What looked dark was that people didn't see that I was going to be around anyway. I never had any question. I just wondered how long it would take the other editors and writers to see. I've had a lot of rejection slips, but I don't look at them as failures, I look at them as steps along the way to learning what I was doing. I'm a lot better writer now than I was when I was getting rejected.

It's not entirely because I'm successful and famous that I don't get rejected as much anymore. It's because I'm a better writer. You learn your trade as you go through. You're not wasting your time.

AND another quote:

I have written many of my STAR WARS adventures while hiking in Death Valley (where part of the original movie was filmed). I have been snowed in up in the mountains and crunched through pristine drifts while I dictated a chapter that was set on a polar ice cap.

Many writers are curious as to how I can do this, but I don’t see any fundamental difference between thinking up a sentence then moving my fingers to type the letters on a keyboard, or just speaking the words out loud. I can now do my writing while out in beautiful Colorado scenery—it’s the best of both worlds.

Of course, some of my books were dictated under circumstances that might seem like adventures themselves: lightning storms or hailstorms in the Rocky Mountains, encounters with bears or rattlesnakes, getting lost in the Death Valley desert. But, since my heroes always make it to the end of the story, I found ways to manage for myself.