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truepennyQ: What is your opinion on perspective? Some authors swear that a whole story should be seen through the same character's eyes. Some stories are told from the perspective of different characters in separate chapters. Some writers feel no qualms to write omnisciently about the inner thoughts of multiple characters within the same scene. How do you go about it and why?
Well, obviously I am not a member of the single point-of-view only camp. On the other hand, one of the quickest ways to make me put down a book is to have too many viewpoint characters. That's a personal quirk: I find that I can invest in up to three viewpoint characters--if I enjoy (note that "enjoy" is not quite the same as "like" or "sympathize with") all three of them--but more than that just irritates me. (Also, the more viewpoints you add, the more likely it is that one or more of them will annoy at least some of your readers.) That isn't a value judgment about the technique; it's a confession that for me personally it does not work.
In my own case, the two narrators were a necessary part of the structure and story of Mélusine and The Virtu, but it was a real gamble to add a third narrator for The Mirador and again for Corambis. (Originally, my plan had been to have two narrators in each book, but Bear convinced me that I had to give Felix PoV in The Mirador.) It paid off, but it was definitely risky.
Omniscient is a whole different ballgame. Please note that I distinguish between omniscient and "head-hopping." I understand that there are readers who like head-hopping, but for me, it's as jarring as missing the last step on the stairs in the dark. I also think it's lazy writing, whereas omniscient is seriously hard work.
*ahem* Opinionated Mole is opinionated.
Q: Did you always know Strych and Malkar were the same entity? If not, when during your revisions did you find out, and did it change anything about the story arc for you?
A: No, I figured it out sometime during The Virtu, when I had to have a way to make all those disparate plot threads come back together--and a way to make Malkar as much a nightmare to Mildmay as he was to Felix. But since the fate of Brinvillier Strych had been a complete mystery all along, there wasn't much tweaking to do.
Q: You mentioned the English civil war as one of your "sources" for the Caloxan insurgency. Did you also nod to some of the Jacobite occurrences?
A: Oh definitely. Gerrard is clearly Bonnie Prince Charlie, only with a sense of responsibility and a spine. (But equally disastrous leadership.)
Q: An indulgent question: Is the resemblance between Hutch and Hotch's names coincidental? Since I know you watch Criminal Minds, I assumed Hutch would be a pseudo-Hotch, but with the rambling at Felix, he doesn't strike me as terribly Hotch-like.
A: O.O
Yes, purely coincidental, I assure you. Hutch is not even remotely like Hotch, nor should you imagine him being played by Thomas Gibson.
I was very pleased to light upon a surname for him that would allow a nickname, as it demonstrates the way Hutch straddles the line between the virtuers and the students.
Q: I usually lose track of time in books at some point and the DoL turned out to be no exception. Could you please give us an approximate timeline of the time that passed from Melusine until Corambis?
and
Q: I've lost track of dates. How old are Felix and Mildmay in Corambis?
A: Um. Five years, I think? The action of the first two books takes about two years, there's a two year hiatus, and then let's call it a year for the last two books. Felix is 25 at the beginning of Mélusine and I think he's coming up on his 31nd birthday sometime shortly after the end of Corambis, which means Mildmay is 25 or so. (Since neither of them knows their real birthday--although I do*--the ages given in their narrations are always approximations and guesses.)
---
*Bonus answer: Felix and Mildmay's birthdays:
Felix was born December 29: 29 Petrop 2253/28 Frimaire 19.5.6. Mildmay was born October 9: 9 Eré 2259/7 Vendémiaire 19.6.5. And Mélusine begins on the 9th of February, which is a Monday: Lundy, 9 Bous 2279/Dixième, 10 Pluviôse 20.2.4.
(No, I have no idea where all those 9s came from. To the best of my recollection, they have no deeper meaning.)
Q: If I remember correctly (and I may not), Mildmay kills for the first time when he's 14, Gideon is tithed to the bastion when he's 14, and Kay joins the war effort when he's 14. I think significant life-changey things happen to Mehitabel and Felix when they're 14, too, but I can't completely recall and don't have my books with me. Suffice to say, is there any particular singular significance to the age of fourteen, or was it just a random thing, in giving these characters dark pasts?
A: Um. You're absolutely right--Felix was sold to Malkar when he was fourteen, and I think Mehitabel was fourteen when she ran away from home--but that isn't anything I did on purpose. Or anything I even noticed. (If I'd noticed, I would have made somebody's horrible climacteric happen when they were fifteen or thirteen, precisely in order to avoid this excessive piece of patterning.)
Q: Does Kay's name come from any place in particular? I remember thinking 'Oh! King Arthur name!' when I first heard about him, but considering how common the name 'Kay' is outside of the myth, I'm not entirely sure that's accurate.
A: Bizarrely, I cannot remember how I came up with Kay's name. The character was originally named Francis Posthumus Ingraham and nicknamed Kit. Then for a while his name was Julian. I think it may briefly have been something else. (I have a weird relationship with names. If the name isn't right, I cannot write the character.) I know that when I came up with Kay, it was immediately and obviously the right name, but I don't know why I came up with Kay in the first place.
I certainly got the name from the Arthurian legends, though.
Q: Now that there aren't any more trolls in the Iskerye, what will the wolfcarls and the trellwolves do? (You don't have to answer if this is spoilerly for the sequel.)
A: You are correct. This is spoilery for the sequel.
Q: I'm interested in your evolution as a writer, and how a four-book series like Doctrine of Labyrinths messes with that. (How it helps is obvious, in a lot of ways.) For example, you mentioned how your approach to villains has evolved as your artistry has; did the subject of Malkar's rubies slowly turn into a "crap, now I have to go back and deal with that too" sort of thing? Was the binding-by-forms a similar sort of exercise?
(I realize, given the chance to Do It All Again, you'd make different choices. I'm more curious on when those past choices come back to haunt current ones, in ways you'd rather be free of, and how you've reacted to that.)
A: The short answer is OH HELL YES. There are a lot of things I saddled myself with in Mélusine that, by the time I came to write Corambis, I would have given anything to be free of. Malkar is one of those things. The rubies, though--although they were an agony and a burden, I ended up quite liking the way that they were just as tiring and horrible for Felix as they were for me, and also the way that they ended up being a kind of metaphor for radioactive waste. The binding-by-forms also fell into the why-did-I-do-this-to-myself camp, as did Mildmay's lame leg. And the calendrical system. Competing calenders is a TERRIBLE idea for a multi-book series. TER-RI-BLE.
A lot of how I reacted was by subverting my own tropes. So three books about one city, and in the fourth we go somewhere completely new! The binding-by-forms is irrevocable, until it turns out that we've just been looking at it with the wrong metaphor. Malkar is a melodrama villain--well, you would be too if you'd been a blood-wizard for upwards of two hundred years. Etc. Basically, there's always a way to make a flat, stereotyped convention more interesting; the trick is in doing that midstream.
Q: When does Felix's relationship with Iosephinus Pompey begin? I assume that when he first came to the Mirador with Malkar, Malkar wouldn't have been too keen on letting Felix have another wizard as a mentor, but when we meet Felix it seems as though Iosephinus has been dead for quite some time.
A: Felix became Iosephinus's protege after he got out from under Malkar (we will now pause while everyone gets their mind out of the gutter), which was when he was 19. Iosephinus died when Felix was 22.
Q: Do you have books you would call "guilty pleasure" reads? Thanks.
A: Not so much anymore, between my ridiculously high standards for prose and the problems I'm having reading fiction at all, but for a long time Weis & Hickman were a guilty pleasure. There were a couple Patricia Matthews bodice-rippers that I found as a teenager which definitely counted. A great deal of the fanfiction I've read also falls into that category. Basically, if I'm reading something in order to wallow in the angst or sex (bonus points for both), it feels like a guilty pleasure.
... which I suppose means that one reason I don't need as much guilty pleasure reading as I used to is that I'm writing it. I'm not sure whether to be delighted or appalled.
Q: After reading Corambis I wanted to ask if you had read Georgette Heyer, as that is the only place I ( as a person not well read in eme) had come across language use similiar to Kay's. So I was very excited to know that your Heyer covers are wearing off! Would you cite her novels as an active influence?
A: Yes. Particularly Venetia, which is my favorite of her books, but which also showed me what geekery could look like in a pre-modern setting. Felix has a lot of Damerel and Aubrey in him.
Q: How exactly does the ritual of pentinence look like? what are the differences between the Caloxian and Corambian ritual, if there are any?
A: What I know about it is what's in the book.
Q: From the very beginning we know that Kay perceives his homosexuality as a sin/weakness/character flaw. What does he think about the fact that Felix is openly and unapologeticly gay? (we see him kind of reacting at the end, but it is Felix POV and i would like to know what Kays thoughts are)
and
Q: Kay views his feelings for Gerrard as sinful but Murtagh is comfortable with his bi-sexuality, apart from, understandably, not wanting his wife to know, and the Oliver/Ambrose relationship is completely open. Is this a reflection of the difference between Corambis and Caloxa or is it just Kay?
A: Okay, delicate doctrinal point. It isn't homosexuality that Kay thinks is a sin; it's loving another man. Thus, there's no reason for Murtagh to have any qualms about his bisexuality. He loves Isobel. Caloxans are much more uptight and prudish about these things than Corambins in any event. And Kay is having that belief--in the sinfulness of love between two people of the same sex--upended and shaken vigorously over the course of the book. Oliver and Ambrose's relationship (which, please notice, is a scandal) is also a sign that societal opinion is beginning to change.
Q: If that has been asked/answered before I'm very sorry, but here goes: Are Eadian and Caddovian also minorities in Corambis like the Caloxians? Are they just names for the population in different parts (like Alaskians, Texans etc.) If they are minorities taken over by Corambis when did that happen?
Also you allude to the fact that Eadians are better versed in the holy scriptures/Corallines. Why is that?
A: Eadian and Caddovian are the analogues of High Church and Low Church Episcopalians. Most Caloxans are Eadian (High Church), while most Corambins are Caddovian (Low Church). Somewhere back in the religious history of Corambis and Caloxa, there must be prelates named Eades and Caddow (like Archbishop Laud in our world) who headed these rival factions and thus gave their names to them.
Q: What exactly does Challoner say about Caballine wizards?
A: I don't know exactly--which would be why I avoided having any direct quotes from Challoner.
Q: In that hatching-egg calming exercise, what exactly do the three animals represent?
A: Courage, cunning, and ruthlessness.
Q: Felix showed interest in the healing magic of the Corambian society. Would he have an aptitude for it considering he is an noirant magician?
A: You're applying the metaphor of noirant/clairant too literally. Yes, Felix could certainly learn healing magic if he wanted to.
Q: I know you said you don't know the further story of the people at the Mirador after the end of the third book, but do you think Stephen would inquire if Felix ever made it to Esmer?
A: Yes. Stephen is far too conscientious not to. Also, several people near to him would want to know.
Q: After the obligation d'ame has been removed Felix offers Mildmay the opportunity to leave him. Mildmay doesn't even consider leaving. Does it ever occur to him that Felix might want him to leave? That Felix might be better off without him? I've been wondering about this since The Virtu when he used emotional blackmail to get Felix to agree to the obligation d'ame in the first place.
A: It's obvious from both Mildmay and Felix's PoVs that Felix needs Mildmay the way a drowning man needs a rope. Leaving him would be cruel.
Q: In Corambis is Felix less obnoxious after the near-drowning? His behaviour is not consistent with Mildmay's description of how he was behaving so is this a case of "unreliable narrator" or a real change?
A: No, it's a real change. It's not so much the drowning as Mildmay's temper tantrum that shakes him out of his self-absorption enough to realize what a blight and a burden he's been.
Q: Why does Mildmay keep saying the Felix never apologises when he actually seems to do it quite a lot, even to Mildmay?
A: That's a skewed perspective based on the fact that one of the goals of Felix's character arc through the four books is to force him to learn to apologize. So we see every single time he does pony up and say "I'm sorry," but we don't see most of the vastly more numerous occasions on which he doesn't. Also, don't confuse behavior on Felix's part that Mildmay knows to translate as an apology with actually coming out and saying the words.
Q: Dark Sister and House... just sound absolutely riveting. (Though I am STILL reeling from that poor straight boy having to channel an alpha female wolf in heat...who knows what you'll do to this seventh son? : - ) I predict male pattern baldness.) Weretigers - really? And Elf baseball? When might these lovelies be buyable? Or is that a silly question?
A: No, it's not a silly question, but you do have to understand that all of these stories are still vaporware. So I have to write them first, and then sell them (or sell them and then write them, as is also a possibility), and then they have to go through the production process, etc. etc. So, for the stories that are currently utterly unwritten (which would be all of the ones you mention in your question) and assuming, as I have learned to assume, that I need at least 18 months to write a book, and two years would be better, the earliest you could POSSIBLY see one of them in print--and that's if I got struck by inspirational lightning or a contract today--would be 2012. But since both the inspirational lightning and the contract are highly unlikely, I'm afraid my best advice to you is not to wait underwater.
And okay. That's all the questions that have come in as of May 12, 1:13 P.M. CDT. You may continue to ask questions; if you do, I'll certainly continue to answer them. Thank you!
[Ask your question(s) here.]
Well, obviously I am not a member of the single point-of-view only camp. On the other hand, one of the quickest ways to make me put down a book is to have too many viewpoint characters. That's a personal quirk: I find that I can invest in up to three viewpoint characters--if I enjoy (note that "enjoy" is not quite the same as "like" or "sympathize with") all three of them--but more than that just irritates me. (Also, the more viewpoints you add, the more likely it is that one or more of them will annoy at least some of your readers.) That isn't a value judgment about the technique; it's a confession that for me personally it does not work.
In my own case, the two narrators were a necessary part of the structure and story of Mélusine and The Virtu, but it was a real gamble to add a third narrator for The Mirador and again for Corambis. (Originally, my plan had been to have two narrators in each book, but Bear convinced me that I had to give Felix PoV in The Mirador.) It paid off, but it was definitely risky.
Omniscient is a whole different ballgame. Please note that I distinguish between omniscient and "head-hopping." I understand that there are readers who like head-hopping, but for me, it's as jarring as missing the last step on the stairs in the dark. I also think it's lazy writing, whereas omniscient is seriously hard work.
*ahem* Opinionated Mole is opinionated.
Q: Did you always know Strych and Malkar were the same entity? If not, when during your revisions did you find out, and did it change anything about the story arc for you?
A: No, I figured it out sometime during The Virtu, when I had to have a way to make all those disparate plot threads come back together--and a way to make Malkar as much a nightmare to Mildmay as he was to Felix. But since the fate of Brinvillier Strych had been a complete mystery all along, there wasn't much tweaking to do.
Q: You mentioned the English civil war as one of your "sources" for the Caloxan insurgency. Did you also nod to some of the Jacobite occurrences?
A: Oh definitely. Gerrard is clearly Bonnie Prince Charlie, only with a sense of responsibility and a spine. (But equally disastrous leadership.)
Q: An indulgent question: Is the resemblance between Hutch and Hotch's names coincidental? Since I know you watch Criminal Minds, I assumed Hutch would be a pseudo-Hotch, but with the rambling at Felix, he doesn't strike me as terribly Hotch-like.
A: O.O
Yes, purely coincidental, I assure you. Hutch is not even remotely like Hotch, nor should you imagine him being played by Thomas Gibson.
I was very pleased to light upon a surname for him that would allow a nickname, as it demonstrates the way Hutch straddles the line between the virtuers and the students.
Q: I usually lose track of time in books at some point and the DoL turned out to be no exception. Could you please give us an approximate timeline of the time that passed from Melusine until Corambis?
and
Q: I've lost track of dates. How old are Felix and Mildmay in Corambis?
A: Um. Five years, I think? The action of the first two books takes about two years, there's a two year hiatus, and then let's call it a year for the last two books. Felix is 25 at the beginning of Mélusine and I think he's coming up on his 31nd birthday sometime shortly after the end of Corambis, which means Mildmay is 25 or so. (Since neither of them knows their real birthday--although I do*--the ages given in their narrations are always approximations and guesses.)
---
*Bonus answer: Felix and Mildmay's birthdays:
Felix was born December 29: 29 Petrop 2253/28 Frimaire 19.5.6. Mildmay was born October 9: 9 Eré 2259/7 Vendémiaire 19.6.5. And Mélusine begins on the 9th of February, which is a Monday: Lundy, 9 Bous 2279/Dixième, 10 Pluviôse 20.2.4.
(No, I have no idea where all those 9s came from. To the best of my recollection, they have no deeper meaning.)
Q: If I remember correctly (and I may not), Mildmay kills for the first time when he's 14, Gideon is tithed to the bastion when he's 14, and Kay joins the war effort when he's 14. I think significant life-changey things happen to Mehitabel and Felix when they're 14, too, but I can't completely recall and don't have my books with me. Suffice to say, is there any particular singular significance to the age of fourteen, or was it just a random thing, in giving these characters dark pasts?
A: Um. You're absolutely right--Felix was sold to Malkar when he was fourteen, and I think Mehitabel was fourteen when she ran away from home--but that isn't anything I did on purpose. Or anything I even noticed. (If I'd noticed, I would have made somebody's horrible climacteric happen when they were fifteen or thirteen, precisely in order to avoid this excessive piece of patterning.)
Q: Does Kay's name come from any place in particular? I remember thinking 'Oh! King Arthur name!' when I first heard about him, but considering how common the name 'Kay' is outside of the myth, I'm not entirely sure that's accurate.
A: Bizarrely, I cannot remember how I came up with Kay's name. The character was originally named Francis Posthumus Ingraham and nicknamed Kit. Then for a while his name was Julian. I think it may briefly have been something else. (I have a weird relationship with names. If the name isn't right, I cannot write the character.) I know that when I came up with Kay, it was immediately and obviously the right name, but I don't know why I came up with Kay in the first place.
I certainly got the name from the Arthurian legends, though.
Q: Now that there aren't any more trolls in the Iskerye, what will the wolfcarls and the trellwolves do? (You don't have to answer if this is spoilerly for the sequel.)
A: You are correct. This is spoilery for the sequel.
Q: I'm interested in your evolution as a writer, and how a four-book series like Doctrine of Labyrinths messes with that. (How it helps is obvious, in a lot of ways.) For example, you mentioned how your approach to villains has evolved as your artistry has; did the subject of Malkar's rubies slowly turn into a "crap, now I have to go back and deal with that too" sort of thing? Was the binding-by-forms a similar sort of exercise?
(I realize, given the chance to Do It All Again, you'd make different choices. I'm more curious on when those past choices come back to haunt current ones, in ways you'd rather be free of, and how you've reacted to that.)
A: The short answer is OH HELL YES. There are a lot of things I saddled myself with in Mélusine that, by the time I came to write Corambis, I would have given anything to be free of. Malkar is one of those things. The rubies, though--although they were an agony and a burden, I ended up quite liking the way that they were just as tiring and horrible for Felix as they were for me, and also the way that they ended up being a kind of metaphor for radioactive waste. The binding-by-forms also fell into the why-did-I-do-this-to-myself camp, as did Mildmay's lame leg. And the calendrical system. Competing calenders is a TERRIBLE idea for a multi-book series. TER-RI-BLE.
A lot of how I reacted was by subverting my own tropes. So three books about one city, and in the fourth we go somewhere completely new! The binding-by-forms is irrevocable, until it turns out that we've just been looking at it with the wrong metaphor. Malkar is a melodrama villain--well, you would be too if you'd been a blood-wizard for upwards of two hundred years. Etc. Basically, there's always a way to make a flat, stereotyped convention more interesting; the trick is in doing that midstream.
Q: When does Felix's relationship with Iosephinus Pompey begin? I assume that when he first came to the Mirador with Malkar, Malkar wouldn't have been too keen on letting Felix have another wizard as a mentor, but when we meet Felix it seems as though Iosephinus has been dead for quite some time.
A: Felix became Iosephinus's protege after he got out from under Malkar (we will now pause while everyone gets their mind out of the gutter), which was when he was 19. Iosephinus died when Felix was 22.
Q: Do you have books you would call "guilty pleasure" reads? Thanks.
A: Not so much anymore, between my ridiculously high standards for prose and the problems I'm having reading fiction at all, but for a long time Weis & Hickman were a guilty pleasure. There were a couple Patricia Matthews bodice-rippers that I found as a teenager which definitely counted. A great deal of the fanfiction I've read also falls into that category. Basically, if I'm reading something in order to wallow in the angst or sex (bonus points for both), it feels like a guilty pleasure.
... which I suppose means that one reason I don't need as much guilty pleasure reading as I used to is that I'm writing it. I'm not sure whether to be delighted or appalled.
Q: After reading Corambis I wanted to ask if you had read Georgette Heyer, as that is the only place I ( as a person not well read in eme) had come across language use similiar to Kay's. So I was very excited to know that your Heyer covers are wearing off! Would you cite her novels as an active influence?
A: Yes. Particularly Venetia, which is my favorite of her books, but which also showed me what geekery could look like in a pre-modern setting. Felix has a lot of Damerel and Aubrey in him.
Q: How exactly does the ritual of pentinence look like? what are the differences between the Caloxian and Corambian ritual, if there are any?
A: What I know about it is what's in the book.
Q: From the very beginning we know that Kay perceives his homosexuality as a sin/weakness/character flaw. What does he think about the fact that Felix is openly and unapologeticly gay? (we see him kind of reacting at the end, but it is Felix POV and i would like to know what Kays thoughts are)
and
Q: Kay views his feelings for Gerrard as sinful but Murtagh is comfortable with his bi-sexuality, apart from, understandably, not wanting his wife to know, and the Oliver/Ambrose relationship is completely open. Is this a reflection of the difference between Corambis and Caloxa or is it just Kay?
A: Okay, delicate doctrinal point. It isn't homosexuality that Kay thinks is a sin; it's loving another man. Thus, there's no reason for Murtagh to have any qualms about his bisexuality. He loves Isobel. Caloxans are much more uptight and prudish about these things than Corambins in any event. And Kay is having that belief--in the sinfulness of love between two people of the same sex--upended and shaken vigorously over the course of the book. Oliver and Ambrose's relationship (which, please notice, is a scandal) is also a sign that societal opinion is beginning to change.
Q: If that has been asked/answered before I'm very sorry, but here goes: Are Eadian and Caddovian also minorities in Corambis like the Caloxians? Are they just names for the population in different parts (like Alaskians, Texans etc.) If they are minorities taken over by Corambis when did that happen?
Also you allude to the fact that Eadians are better versed in the holy scriptures/Corallines. Why is that?
A: Eadian and Caddovian are the analogues of High Church and Low Church Episcopalians. Most Caloxans are Eadian (High Church), while most Corambins are Caddovian (Low Church). Somewhere back in the religious history of Corambis and Caloxa, there must be prelates named Eades and Caddow (like Archbishop Laud in our world) who headed these rival factions and thus gave their names to them.
Q: What exactly does Challoner say about Caballine wizards?
A: I don't know exactly--which would be why I avoided having any direct quotes from Challoner.
Q: In that hatching-egg calming exercise, what exactly do the three animals represent?
A: Courage, cunning, and ruthlessness.
Q: Felix showed interest in the healing magic of the Corambian society. Would he have an aptitude for it considering he is an noirant magician?
A: You're applying the metaphor of noirant/clairant too literally. Yes, Felix could certainly learn healing magic if he wanted to.
Q: I know you said you don't know the further story of the people at the Mirador after the end of the third book, but do you think Stephen would inquire if Felix ever made it to Esmer?
A: Yes. Stephen is far too conscientious not to. Also, several people near to him would want to know.
Q: After the obligation d'ame has been removed Felix offers Mildmay the opportunity to leave him. Mildmay doesn't even consider leaving. Does it ever occur to him that Felix might want him to leave? That Felix might be better off without him? I've been wondering about this since The Virtu when he used emotional blackmail to get Felix to agree to the obligation d'ame in the first place.
A: It's obvious from both Mildmay and Felix's PoVs that Felix needs Mildmay the way a drowning man needs a rope. Leaving him would be cruel.
Q: In Corambis is Felix less obnoxious after the near-drowning? His behaviour is not consistent with Mildmay's description of how he was behaving so is this a case of "unreliable narrator" or a real change?
A: No, it's a real change. It's not so much the drowning as Mildmay's temper tantrum that shakes him out of his self-absorption enough to realize what a blight and a burden he's been.
Q: Why does Mildmay keep saying the Felix never apologises when he actually seems to do it quite a lot, even to Mildmay?
A: That's a skewed perspective based on the fact that one of the goals of Felix's character arc through the four books is to force him to learn to apologize. So we see every single time he does pony up and say "I'm sorry," but we don't see most of the vastly more numerous occasions on which he doesn't. Also, don't confuse behavior on Felix's part that Mildmay knows to translate as an apology with actually coming out and saying the words.
Q: Dark Sister and House... just sound absolutely riveting. (Though I am STILL reeling from that poor straight boy having to channel an alpha female wolf in heat...who knows what you'll do to this seventh son? : - ) I predict male pattern baldness.) Weretigers - really? And Elf baseball? When might these lovelies be buyable? Or is that a silly question?
A: No, it's not a silly question, but you do have to understand that all of these stories are still vaporware. So I have to write them first, and then sell them (or sell them and then write them, as is also a possibility), and then they have to go through the production process, etc. etc. So, for the stories that are currently utterly unwritten (which would be all of the ones you mention in your question) and assuming, as I have learned to assume, that I need at least 18 months to write a book, and two years would be better, the earliest you could POSSIBLY see one of them in print--and that's if I got struck by inspirational lightning or a contract today--would be 2012. But since both the inspirational lightning and the contract are highly unlikely, I'm afraid my best advice to you is not to wait underwater.
And okay. That's all the questions that have come in as of May 12, 1:13 P.M. CDT. You may continue to ask questions; if you do, I'll certainly continue to answer them. Thank you!
[Ask your question(s) here.]
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 07:22 pm (UTC)Oh, delighted, please - I can't imagine you'd want to write these guilty pleasures if they appalled you, and I for one want more! *g*
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 02:20 am (UTC)I realise that Felix's verbal apologies are few and far between but surely each one is engraved on Mildmay's memory so why "Felix never apologises"? Is the last one so long ago Mildmay has managed to forget it? Or is it easier for him to say that rather than "Felix hardly ever apologises and only when he's done something really, really bad and I've spent a fucking decad ignoring him"?
no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 03:51 am (UTC)As to guilty pleasure writing, it's fun and you should only lightly chastise yourself for it.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-16 11:38 am (UTC)Oh my... I need to send her flowers or something. :) When I started reading The Mirador, I was totally going "Mehitabel... Mildmay... okay, all fine, but WHERE IS FELIX?!" I actually skipped ahead (which I rarely do) until I found, to my infinite relief, a caption saying Felix. I really love his voice and would have missed his point of view very much. :)
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Date: 2009-06-07 01:03 am (UTC)(My boyfriend has claimed that if i were a vampire, i'd be the kind that would be stopped if you threw a bunch of salt in an intersection, because i'd have to pick up and count every grain.) =P
A friend introduced me to your books 11 days ago; thanks! But now that i've finished, i need to go off and find something else to keep me out of trouble.
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Date: 2009-06-07 01:16 am (UTC)