What, When, Where, Why, How with Aston West

Give a big "howdy" to Aston West... this week's victim guest!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I'd like to be a writer who's paid enough to be able to lounge around the house and do nothing but write all day long. :-)

Unfortunately, until I either win the lottery or somehow find a way to channel JK Rowling (What? She's not dead?), I'm going to be stuck working a day job while trying to crank out more short stories and novels for readers to enjoy. And if the writing gig never pans out, maybe I can be a CEO of a bank or auto company, because doing nothing and getting millions of dollars thrown at them seems to be what they're good at as well...plus, they don't have to make people happy to continue getting all that money (unlike writers...at least until they've written 5 books in the series, at which point they stop caring, and so do their fans). Have you ever seen what these CEOs get paid if shareholders get mad and kick them out??? Insane!

When is the happiest time of the day?

Depends on the day. On Friday, the happiest time of the day is when I get to go home from work, with visions of weekends dancing in my head. On Monday, it's the time just before my alarm goes off (while I'm still asleep). Aside from those two, I'd say the most common "happiest" time of the day would be when I read something from a friend or fan (or both) that makes me smile. Cheesy? Perhaps. Lunch at Arby's comes in a very close second on any day of the week when I get the opportunity.

Where would you keep a pet rhinoceros?

In the basement, to scare the mice away. Our cats have gotten too fat and lazy to be of any use in that department anymore. So, when all else fails, go for the big guns! Granted, I imagine the foundation might not take much of that. Maybe we could breed miniature pet rhinoceri (rhinoceroses?) like they do with horses. Whatever way we go, I'm not going to add cleanup duty to my list of chores, as I'm already forced to take care of the cats. So far, my plans for self-training them to use and flush the toilets have been foiled at every opportunity.

I could imagine a pet rhinoceros could also serve as a fun pet to lounge on the futon with and watch movies together on the basement TV. Sure, a dog would probably be more comfortable, but when was the last time a dog could pop open your beverage of choice with their horn? Dogs would just chomp their teeth into the can and spew it all over the place. Bad doggie!!!

Why do fools fall in love?

Because if it was left up to all the intelligent and logical thinkers alone, our species would come to an end mighty quick. All of those would be calculating how much it cost to marry, have kids, raise them, school them, and marry them off to other fools in love, and say "Forget that. I'm taking the money and heading to Maui!"

That being said, one could also make the argument that it becomes a chicken and egg issue. Do those who fall in love start out as fools? Or does the act of love make a person so foolish that they can't form rational thoughts any longer? Some of the smartest people I know have become complete loons when they fall in love. Not to worry, my wife is asleep in the other room, so I'm completely safe from a major slugging. At least until she wakes up and reads this...thank goodness my pet rhinoceros will come to the rescue!

How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?

At least a half-dozen. One to actually change the bulb, one to point out how they did it wrong, another to point out that the second shouldn't hurt the first one's feelings, yet one more to point out that they changed a light bulb at least twenty years ago and they have much more experience in light-bulb-changing than the others, another to point out how silly all of them are being about such a simple task as changing a light bulb, and one last writer to point out they heard an agent blog about the fact changing a light bulb was not a requirement to get an agent and get published, so why bother?

But then, you'd also have the writer who philosophized about changing the light bulb and wondered if it was symbolic of something bigger in our lives. There's also the one who would want to write a mystery about how the light bulb came to need a change anyway. Not to leave out my friends in science fiction, there would be the writer who wanted to change the light bulb for brand new technology, that then somehow hopped out on the internet and took over the world until the misunderstood genius loner finally convinced the beautiful lab assistant that he could be a fool too and then saved her along with the rest of the world.

Hell, I lost count already...and crap, there went the light bulb.

Born and raised in Kansas, Mr. Hunter always had a fascination with aerospace and travel to other worlds, earning a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas.

He has had several Aston West stories published, with his short story “Little White Truths” (RAY GUN REVIVAL, November 1, 2007) winning a top ten finish in the 2007 Preditors & Editors Readers Poll. HEROES DIE YOUNG is his first novella.

People can find me most of the time at my website: http://AstonWest.comand even more of the time at my Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/astonwest