The hoary joke in the literary world based on 'Dreams From My Father ' was that if things had worked out differently for Barack Obama he could have made it as a writer.

Screenplays I didn't really care about journalism travel books getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.

I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture movies - what else is there to write about than love and loss?

Dreaming in public is an important part of our job description as science writers but there are bad dreams as well as good dreams. We're dreamers you see but we're also realists of a sort.

I think there's a time as a writer when you want to see the best things in life and you go out wherever you go with your dreams as a writer or a composer.

Writers write. Dreamers talk about it.

Different people have different styles but there is an opportunity as a director to be a writer in every moment with every visual cue and every piece of production design. Everything is a decision and everything can be obsessed over.

I wear a lot of different hats - from writer to producer and artist. We all do 5 or 6 jobs everything from creating our own graphic design to actually recording and the whole bit.

Stargate by far is the top of the pile when it comes to Sci-Fi. The quality is great. They have really good writers production design lighting wardrobe.

Music is where I have the most creative freedom but I love producing. To me that's kind of where all the action is. You get a chance to have your hands in every aspect of a film. From picking a director sometimes picking a writer to the actors the wardrobe set design editing music and marketing.