Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.

I'm Rhett Miller.

That's when it got wheels off.

We started up and we ain't going to starve.

I like you.

I could not.

That's where they got wheels off.

Michael Cheyon writes novels.

He does a lot of other stuff as well.

Short stories, television film.

He teaches.

He's a great dad, as far as I can tell.

He's a loving husband.

He's a music nerd. He's a music nerd.

He knows everything about great music and proselytizes without being encouraged to do so.

And he's a blast.

He could be stuck up.

He could be cooler than thou. He could be stuck up. He could be cooler than thou. He's one of freaking Pulitzer and a Hugo and a nebula.

But he's not a stuck up dude. He's down to earth and funny and kind and humble. I sat down with him in his office behind his home in

Berkeley where he spends five hours a night between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. writing almost every night.

His office is a funny little place. Of course, it's lined in books. Our conversation started off on the new television series Picard, on which he's currently working. It's just getting released as this episode drops. But it ranges far and wide. I think that what we talk about won't just be of use to writers.

I think that pretty much anybody will find this interesting.

...