So, wow.

[truepenny]

There are a lot of y'all reading this blog.

I'm figuring it's time for one of those periodic getting-to-know-you posts. So if you'd like to introduce yourself, or you'd like to ask a question (any question, although I reserve the right not to answer), here's a superlative spot to do it at.

This is not a pressure-y kind of thing. Only an invitation.

And I'll reiterate a couple of things:

1. I almost never add people reciprocally. Because, well, I have 25 people on my reading list right now, and that's almost too many. There are many people whom I like and admire whose blogs I don't read. Apparently, I just need that processing power for something else.

2. I only reply to comments if I actually have something to say. However, I read all comments, and I am always, always grateful for them. (N.b., excluding the occasional and inevitable troll.) I forget to say that a lot, because sometimes I'm kind of a rotten excuse for a human being. But I'm definitely reading and interested.

So here. The lines are open and you're on the air.

Comments

[crookedfeet.livejournal.com]

I live in Arizona where it is too hot too much. I read and occasionally write reviews. I was at your Kaffeklatch at this past worldcon and it was so much fun I thought I'd come over here. I live with a computer engineer,who once built a Volkswagen Beetle out of snow. What is your favorite pasta dish?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I have to pick one? :)

I'm a traditionalist. I vote for lasagna.

[psychonerfbunny.livejournal.com]

Hi
I picked up Melusine and fell in love with the world (and mildmay). i'm an aspiring writer so its just neat to see your daily process (and what i'm in for if i get published!)
so...
do you know the ending of your books when you start, and did people think you were strange that your characters talk to you?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I know the ending, sometimes I don't. It seems to vary wildly from book to book.

Most writers I know use the idea of their characters "talking" to them as a kind of shorthand for a much more complicated interaction between the conscious and the subconscious, and it's only since I was introduced to people who used it in that way that I've started describing it as my characters talking to me. So, um, no. :)

[rogueprairiedog.livejournal.com]

If you could give an aspiring writer only one piece of advice, what would it be?

(A friend of mine asks, "Will you marry me?")

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

(Already happily married, so not in the market. *g*)

The only truly valuable piece of writing advice I have, as in, the only one that is really, honestly, no way around it, my-hand-to-god true, is that if you want to write, you have to write.

Everything else is negotiable.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Holding that first copy of Mélusine as a Real Book. (Even the bound galley wasn't quite as weird.) Because there was this whole Marxist alienation thing, where it was this object, this brand new book that had arrived in the mail, that had my words in it!

It's still very weird if I let myself think about it for too long.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

Hey, I wanted to say that last weekend I wanted to die (sick, distracted, I felt like I was made out of poison) but I read The Virtu instead and it really made me feel better! So, hey!

[heresluck]

Hey, do I know you?

*g*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Wait, wait, it'll come to me in a minute . . .

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

psychonerfbunny actually stole my question. Though I've got a somewhat related one.

Do you feel that you create your stories from scratch or that you find them in pieces and put them together? In other words, judging from your posts, your characters talk to you (which, incidentally, is very nice to know; gives me a vague sense of hope for what remains of my sanity); do you just let them go their own way, or do you try to hold them to a pre-existing plotline?

As far as introductions go, I'm a first-year PhD student in English at Oxford. I ran across Mélusine completely by accident when I was looking for a copy of Jean d'Arras' Roman de Mélusine on Amazon, and literally had to lock it in another room so I wouldn't get in trouble for reading it at work. ;) Watching -- however indirectly -- your writing process is absolutely fascinating, especially since both Mélusine and The Virtu are such brilliant novels and I'm very much looking forward to The Mirador. I actually also read your PhD thesis when you posted it online since Webster's Duchess of Malfi is one of my favourite plays of all time.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I love The White Devil with an unholy passion, and I am STILL sad that I could not cram Webster into my dissertation.

To answer your question, insofar as I can, the amount of plot I know ahead of time seems to vary radically from book to book. And it rarely helps as much as one might be inclined to think. I knew the ending of The Mirador before I started writing it, but no other book of mine (thus far--knock on wood) has had so many false starts and wrong turns. I'm mostly of the make-it-up-as-you-go-along school, although I've found that with practice I can see farther ahead, so that in Summerdown there are things I'm writing towards--one of which is a set-piece that's been in my head almost as long as Felix has. And I prefer to have goals--landmarks--to aim for, because otherwise I waffle and digress and world-build lavishly and there's never any story.

One of the things that causes me anxiety about finishing Summerdown and thus finishing this quartet of books is that I'm going to have to start ALL OVER AGAIN with building a narrative arc.

[cyperus-papyrus.livejournal.com]

Howdy. I've commented on a couple of your posts, though I have to admit that mostly I lurk. So I'll just say I enjoy reading your blog. :)

[bon-accord.livejournal.com]

Question time? Great!

Who are the protagonists in Summerdown?

What are your views on people writing and disseminating fanfic based on your books?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

[spoiler] and [spoiler] with [spoiler] to carry the heavy stuff.

About fanfiction: I'm a realist. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop people writing it. But I don't want to know about it, for a whole host of reasons ranging from the legal to the personal.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

Introduction bit: I found you through reading someone else's friendslist, and only /then/ picked up your books (to my great enjoyment). Ah, the internet, strangest of marketing tools. I myself am about to be a graduate student, in either Religion or History depending on who gives me the better offer, and will work on diplomacy and religion in the medieval eastern Mediterranean regardless. Also sometimes I write early modern fantasy. I'm working up to the whole 'get in line to be rejected by magazines' bit. Short stories r hard, etc.

Question bit: Did you ever think of being a "serious" -- i.e. professional -- academic? How did that desire -- if it existed at all! -- interact with your writing?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ai-yi-yi.

The very short answer is, yes, I did.

The longer answer goes something like this: I was very good at school. I mean, terrifyingly good. So the natural progression from high school to B.A. to M.A. to Ph.D. bopped along like there was never any other way it could be. Published an article, etc. etc. However, comma, about the time I passed prelims (otherwise known as comps or quals depending on the jargon of one's program), I came to a staggeringly unpleasant realization, namely that I did not enjoy teaching, and more or less as a corollary, I wasn't very good at it.

Now, I don't think I was a bad teacher. But I have friends who are gifted, passionate, brilliant teachers, friends who care about their teaching deeply, and I just wasn't like them. It wasn't what I wanted to do.

And about that same time, I'd gotten an agent, started going to cons, started trying to sell short stories.

So I re-evaluated my life (I'm pained to admit that, yes, I was 25, right on schedule for the trendy "quarter-life crisis"), decided to finish the Ph.D.--because I was already so damn close and because I am nothing if not obstinate like a pig--and stopped teaching. Evaluation of my subsequent mood and demeanor suggested that this was in fact the right thing to do.

I ended up teaching again for a semester in the fall of 2005 (the department had an emergency), and while that was a much more positive experience in general (grad students, especially TAs? are in a craptastic position as far as trying to set boundaries goes), it didn't change my mind.

I was writing fiction the whole time (mostly working on Mélusine and The Virtu, as it happens), and the fact that the academic writing didn't kill the fiction writing (as the academic reading did kill the fiction (and nonfiction) reading for quite some time) stands as proof that the writing was the real thing.

J'ai presente . . . moi.

[pyrrhical.livejournal.com]

Introduction? I suppose I can do that, rather than continue lurking creepily. ^.~

But what to say? はじめまして、　リズ　です。　どうぞ　よろしく　おねがいします。

But in all seriousness, my name is Liz, and I'm a Freshman in college at Drake University (in podunk Des Moines, IA ^.~), originally from Minnesota. I'm studying to become a high school English/Journalism teacher, with a second major in English. I've been a fan of Ellen Kushner for . . . a ridiculous amount of time, and finally got around to reading The Privilege of the Sword over Winter Break this year. When I was done, I found myself famished for good fantasy, and looked up what Amazon recommended for having liked that particular novel, and came across Melusine. Which I absorbed in about four hours, unable to put it down. I then spent two weeks trying to find a copy of The Virtu that didn't involve online ordering, and wound up re-reading the online chapters nearly five times betwixt. I absorbed that in somewhat less time, as I found it the day before classes resumed, but I did manage to partake over a period less than a week long. I must say -- they were amazing. One of the best new reads I've come across, they've probably motivated me to read every other novel you offer us, your fanbase. ^.~ Good job, there.

Other than that, I'm an amateur author, an anime and manga fanatic, and one of those people who does little other than soak up new reading material in her study-free moments. (Other) Favorite authors include, but are not limited to: Lynn Flewelling, Tamora Pierce, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Storm Constantine, Mary Renault, Ayn Rand, Eoin Colfer, Ellen Kushner, Elizabeth Haydon, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, J.K.Rowling (I submit!), and Kim Harrison. Mood music? Bond, Apocalyptica, Saliva, Breaking Benjamin, and Nightwish. ^.~

That was certainly long-winded. Pardon for taking up so much of your time. Introduction accomplished, though, I believe. ^_^ Random concluding tidbit: The Mirador comes out the day before my birthday. My hetero lifemate has already been informed that if I don't receive it, her dog is out of my will. ^.~ Merry end of February. And if I may, one question: what was that one book that, as a child, you simply read over and over? Or, if not a single book, an author or series. Mine was either Harry Potter or Tamora Pierce's "Lioness Quartet."

Re: J'ai presente . . . moi.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Okay, honest answer: Asterix and Tin-tin (I had Asterix dreams the other night, come to think of it). If we count early teens as part of childhood, I read IT five times in a row.

I read most books I liked more than once (I read fast), so it's a little difficult for me to distinguish. I don't know how many times I've read The Hobbit or Watership Down.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Hi!

I'm one of those stereotypical bipolypagankinkygamergeeks, female, 37, former SCAdian, sometime goth, you know the type, I'm sure. I live in the cornfields of IL with 2 kids, my hubby and too many pets, and SF/F and LJ are how I stay sane.

Some writers talk about their characters as people in their head who just will not shut up. Others say, no, they'd worry about their sanity if they started having running interior dialogues with their characters. Which way is it for you?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Really, a little of both.

My characters don't talk TO me, but if my brain is humming along well, I'll "hear" them. And lines of narration will drop into my head out of the blue. And I do have a reprehensible tendency to amuse myself by imagining what Felix would say in response to things. (Mostly, I don't have to imagine what Mildmay would say, because it's what I'm already saying. Yes, I am frequently that foul-mouthed.)

Creativity is weird, and I think most of it is about the negotiation between consciousness (the part of our self that identifies itself as "I" and then trips over whether it should be talking in the first person or the third) and the rest of the brain.

[strigine.livejournal.com]

Hello! I live in California, and am an aspiring writer who has trouble with AIC, as well as assistant webmaster for a road-race management company. Also an achondroplastic dwarf, for whatever that's worth.

My best friend was pimping me on Melusine and The Virtu just as I had started reading Bear's LJ and seeing this interesting "truepenny" person comment. Took me a while to make the connection.

I loved Melusine, and have The Virtu but haven't read it yet, mostly because I'm nervous about Really Awful Things happening to Mildmay, who I quite like. Yeah, I'm a wuss like that sometimes. I think it's a sign that you did a good job with the characterization, though. ;)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Hi, Sarah. I've commented once or twice, but never really introduced myself. I found my way to your LJ by way of Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign -- after finding out that Miles/Ekaterine mirrored Peter/Harriet, I had to read the originals. After that, I found your lovely discourses on them. I found Melusine in the library after you announced it here: I haven't tracked down The Virtu yet. :-(

I'm a database geek: I grew up in New England, but spent most of the last 8 years outside of Seattle, before moving back to Maine last November for family reasons. I've been fighting with Adult ADD for longer than I care to recognize, but am starting to get it under control with my doctor's help. Hence, I swing back and forth between "Hey, I've been to the top of my field, I can't be that bad" and "Hey, nobody will hire me now, I can't take care of my family, why do they put up with me?" (Top of my field meaning 4-time Microsoft MVP for Visual FoxPro support, and working at Microsoft as a full-time support professional and then as a contractor to the VFP test team. There are definitely smarter and more capable Fox devs out there, but I got pretty far up there...)

I don't have any particular questions to ask at the moment -- I'll just go back to lurking.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Like a lot of the others, I'm a long-time reader, aspiring writer (hey, I have published, but I'm still hoping to do so again), and great fan of you. Also practice yoga and Buddhism, also love the ocean in a very intense way, and also wander. And cats, yes, cat lover--hardly rare around here.

And can't remember if I've introduced myself before, but that's not my question--my question would be why you blog?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

There are a whole host of reasons (PR, keeping up with friends, personal soapbox, etc. etc.), but really, the reason I blog is that if I post something incredibly geeky, as I am wont to do, somebody will always reply going, Whoa, COOL!

Which is exactly the response I wanted as a child, when what I got from my peer group was, Loser.

I love having a community that's as geeky as I am.

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Hi. My name's Jess Nevins, and I'm a reference librarian, an encyclopedist, and an aspiring novelist.

I, uh, don't have a question, sorry. Just wanted to say that I enjoy your LJ.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Questions not required!

[joey112.livejournal.com]

Will just say hi. I was one of the people in your Worldcon signing line. You know the line that was not where you expected it to be.

I am so waiting for your next book I feel like setting up bleachers so I can call encouragement. And hire cheerleaders.

A question a question, ah, do we get to keep Gideon? I know that's unfair but damn I've really gotten to like him. *g*

cheers

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

[spoiler].

But you knew that already.

[abidemi.livejournal.com]

I'm an MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University and SF writer, and dearly trying to avoid the stereotypes that come attached to both. Not sure if I'm having much luck so far.

I'm here because I enjoy reading writers talking about writing.

[mithriltabby]

I forget if I’ve introduced myself already; I’m a software engineer in Sunnyvale, California who runs role-playing games as a hobby. You might find my escaped gaming memes interesting. I discovered you by reading matociquala’s journal and saw her talking about your work, tried Mélusine and liked it.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And you're the person with the beautiful Maine Coons. Yes.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Melusine was one of the only notable novels I read last year, and I think you've done something new with it and deftly at that. Someone mentioned you have a Livejournal, so I am reading.

Biographically, I suppose I am an agented writer and an artist and an occasional poet, a sometime-fencer and card-reader.

But I should like to ask: if you could have a pair of wings, would you, and what would they look like?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally want to have bat wings, if I can do it without sacrificing my arms.

[phyloxena.livejournal.com]

I found your blog via somebody's else -- there was a link to the essay about responding to comments and leading the readers in the dungeon. Or so I remember. I looked around and found the essay about Tolkien's devastating effect on fantasy, and aded your journal to my reading list. Still enjoy it when understand what it's all about. I never write anything remotely interesting, and most of my blog is in Russian anyway.

[cschells.livejournal.com]

Hi! I've commented a few times, but mostly just enjoy reading. I'm finishing (relatively speaking) a PhD in medieval French lit (with a strong crossover to architectural history). I got bored with the academia thing after the masters, though, so we've had a couple of kids in the meantime... I wanted to thank you for having your dissertation up, since I think I got a couple of leads on criticism on horror from it. Loved Melusine and The Virtu--are you going to put chapters up of the next one before it comes out? I really enjoyed reading what you put up of The Virtu, although it killed my productivity for a few days...

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. Some fraction of the beginning of the book will go up on my website at some point in the undetermined future. (I don't know when, or how much, and my chaptering got really erratic, so I'm not even sure about that.) But, yes.

[tasyfa.livejournal.com]

I only added you to my reading list yesterday, after following a link that nephele posted to your interview at Writer's Box. Your "biography" in your profile is hilarious, by the way. *grins* As for me, I'm an unpublished writer and I enjoy reading about writing and the fantasy genre, particularly when it's done with a healthy dose of humour. I don't have any questions for you, though; I haven't read your LJ long enough to form any! :)

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

I'm an F/SF illustrator - I do all kinds of work, from tiny game pieces to CCG cards to book covers. I'm an occasional history buff, ex-fencer, and generally your average geek girl.

I love writer blogs, since you lot tend to be an eloquent, interesting bunch, and I'm reading you specifically because I enjoyed Melusine. I adore writers who are interested in worldbuilding, and that's very clearly one of your strengths. (I'm waiting to get The Virtu until we move to Phoenix next month, though, since the last thing I need is one more book to pack up.)

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Hi. ::waves:: I like your books. I live in Northern California and work in the software industry. novel_in_90 is kicking my middle-aged ass.