Swan Tower

The Kickstarter for Wraithmarked's deluxe illustrated edition of the Memoirs of Lady Trent is live as of this morning! I can't actually tell you how fast it funded because that literally happened before I even woke up; all I know is that in the first four hours, it nearly QUINTUPLED its goal. These people know how to run a Kickstarter, y'all, and they have a large base of dedicated followers. I have absolute faith that what they produce is going to be gorgeous.

(And a reminder: if you're interested in getting the whole series + all three short stories, you're best served by backing this omnibus now, and the second one when that Kickstarter campaign happens. Obtaining copies later on is likely to be harder and more expensive.)

Also, I'm doing an AMA on the Clarion West Discord server today! Not posting a link because they asked it not be sprayed all over social media, but if you're on that server, do stop by!

I’m doing a mini-AMA over on Reddit Fantasy today, in support of Worldbuilders’ fundraising drive. Check it out, and come ask me anything!

Edited to add: Also, Myke Cole and Bradley Beaulieu are doing the same thing on behalf of Worldbuilders today.

Mirrored from Swan Tower.

I figure I'll leave the question post open until I answer the last one. (At present, I probably have this post and one more to make.)

Also, you don't need an LJ account to post a comment -- I've resisted locking that down, despite the spam.

***

bookblather asked, How do you feel about Mary Queen of Scots?

My feelings there are . . . complicated.

I basically have two perspectives on her: the one acquired through reading Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, and the one acquired through writing Midnight Never Come. The latter is decidedly skewed toward Elizabeth's side of the tale, while the former is more partisan to the Scottish side (though I wouldn't say it's strongly so). Sometimes these two conflict, and which one wins out depends on my mood and what I had for breakfast.

In general, I think her life was a deranged soap opera. All the parental drama and marriages and murders and imprisonment -- it's just crazy. I can't really imagine what it was like to live through that. One of these days I should really read a good biography of her life.

(Also, even when I'm feeling less than entirely sympathetic to her, I still think her execution was awful. Nobody should have to go through that.)

***

logovore asked, What fictional settings would you most like to (temporarily and safely) visit?

I appreciate the qualifiers, which change my answer rather substantially. :-)

The Chrestomanci 'verse from Diana Wynne Jones' books would be a great one; I'd love spirit-traveling around to the different worlds. Pern, because flying and going between sounds awesome. Pamela Dean's Secret Country, even though I don't know enough literary references to truly enjoy myself there. The Commonwealth of Letters from Silverlock, even though ditto. :-) Florin, from The Princess Bride, just to say I'd been there. The World of Two Moons, from Elfquest.

The funny thing about trying to answer this question is, I have a hard time separating the setting from the roles within it. I can't think of Pern without also thinking of having my own telepathically bonded dragon. I can't think of Chrestomanci without imagining myself as an enchantress within it. Do I get to be special in these worlds? Or am I just me, with no skills or benefits I don't already have? That affects my opinion quite a lot.

Any way you slice it, though, almost all of my answers are places I've had in my head since childhood. It seems the settings I've read about more recently don't flip that "I wish I could go there" switch in my brain.

***

wshaffer asked, If you were a rock star*, what instrument would you play, and what would your band be called?

I'd be the keyboardist, probably. (My two instruments are piano and French horn, and while I could name some random instrument I don't actually play, the truth is there's no instrument I love enough on concept alone to overcome my love for the ones I know in reality.)

As for a name, that's harder. What kind of band is this? (I take "rock star" in a broad sense; it isn't necessarily a rock band in genre terms.) Let's say we do sort of world-folk fusion, with maybe some electronic and percussive elements on particular songs. I'm sort of tempted to call it "Cabinet of Curiosities" or "Kunstkammer" or something of that sort, but that makes us sound steampunky, which isn't necessarily what I'm after. I dunno. It's cheating on the principle of these posts, maybe, but I'll hand this one back to the commentariat: what do you think such a band should be called?

Continuing with the open question thread. Head over there if you want to add anything to the list.

***

teleidoplex asked, If somebody were to ship your characters, what would be the _most wrong of all wronginess_ ship you could possibly imagine, and why?

A corollary to this: if someone were to write a crossover between the Onyx Court books and another series, what cross would you most want to see, and what cross would make your soul shrivel and die in your body?

Oh good lord.

Okay, crossover first. I actually discussed at one point with matociquala, but never followed through on, the two of us running a joint fanfic contest for her Blood and Iron/Ink and Steel and my Midnight Never Come. Because they are Elizabethan faerie fantasies that almost but not quite step on each other's narrative toes, and it just sort of seems natural to see what might happen when you overlay one on the other.

What would make my soul shrivel and die? I dunno, really. Possibly my brain is protecting me against the answers, because I can't think of anything that seems suitably awful. But then, I'm not very good at the crossover thing to begin with: either my brain mugs me with the perfect idea (e.g. Hogfather/Nightmare Before Christmas) or it turns up a total blank. I'd probably vote for some really bad Elizabethan faerie fantasy, but I try to avoid reading those, so I can't name one suitably awful. Maybe a time-traveling crossover with, like, Mercedes Lackey's modern-day elf-punk urban fantasies, just for the tonal disconnect.

Most wrong of all wronginess ship . . . well, let's avoid things that are wrong in the "that person is underage, yo" way (not that there are a lot of kids in my stories) and try for brain-melty wrongness instead. Leaving short stories out of it -- because I'm too lazy to think through them all -- let's go with Nadrett (from With Fate Conspire) and the Goodemeades (from any point in the series timeline). Because, just, what? No. (I was going to pair them with Invidiana, but really, if you tilt your head at the right angle and squint, that one could maybe make sense. Nadrett, on the other hand -- no. Just no.)

***

tooth_and_claw asked, Are you coming to visit Bloomington anytime soon? ;)

Bloomington, probably not. GenCon, possibly, as it would be a much more effective bang for my plane-ticket buck. A lot will depend on how next summer shapes up.

***

sandmantv asked, What is a villain?

I've talked about this issue before, but that was mostly from the angle of "why I prefer to write antagonists instead of villains." For me, I think the break point has to do with whether the character in question believes they're acting for the greater good, or knows they're acting selfishly and doesn't care. The nobleman who thinks sheep need a shepherd can be an antagonist, even if he's horribly mistreating his peasants. The nobleman next door who truly only cares about his own pleasure can be a villain, even if his peasants are actually better-off than his neighbor's.

I don't know if that makes any sense or not outside of my own head, but in here, it works.

Long-time readers of this journal know I have a tradition of "birthday egotism" posts, wherein I stave off any birthday-related depression by making myself post, without deprecation or qualification, about the awesome things I've done in the last year.

This year, I find myself less in the mood for that -- though not for any depressive reason. (I am, for example, damn proud of the fact that one of this year's achievements was the completion of the Onyx Court series, ridiculous levels of research and all.) Instead, I think I'll indulge in a different kind of egotism, and make this an Ask Me a Question post.

You can ask about anything: writing, reading, gaming, sewing, movies, music, travel, favorite breakfast foods, my opinion of the Cathar heresy. I'll put the answers in new posts.

And now, I'm off to enjoy my first day of being level 31. (With thanks to yuki_onna, from whom I believe I stole the phrase.)

Question the fourth: What's your daily/weekly routine like now out in the Land of Sunshine and Magic?

Answer the fourth: I don't really have one yet. I despise living among boxes, so the last four weeks have been spent alternating between a madness of unpacking and a madness of novel-finishing, with no particular structure. (Interspersed with the occasional bit of flopping on the couch to watch Supernatural with kurayami_hime and kniedzw.)

I do, however, intend to get into more of a regular routine, and in fact I have a series of posts planned on that exact topic. So stay tuned for adventures in the life of I'm A Full-Time Writer Now.

***

Question the fifth: What are you doing to keep your idea inputs levels where you want them?

Answer the fifth: I assume this means, how do I keep feeding my mind so it will come up with ideas? At the moment, I lack sufficient brain to process much in the way of non-fiction, so I've just been catching up on a variety of novels and TV shows -- feeding the mind with fiction. But that's because I've been way overworked for a few months now; once I've regenerated a few grey cells, I'm planning on resuming a practice I had a few years ago, wherein I tried to read some of the nonfiction accumulated on my shelves. I may, for example, go on a kick of reading about ancient China, because there's a series of short stories I'd like to write that requires research in that direction. Or, y'know, that book over there about the Mongols, just because I don't know much about them. Or whatever.

But yes -- if I want to get much out of my brain, I am going to have to be careful to keep feeding it. Grad school used to take care of that for me, but I haven't been in classes for two years now; it'll be up to me to keep the food supply going.

***

Question the sixth: Will you be writing any more books in the world of Warrior and Witch?

Answer the sixth: You know, one of these days I'll do the smart thing and post the answer to this question on my website. I'm kind of afraid to know how many times I've answered it in e-mail.

So here it is in a blog post: I'm not currently planning to, no. Yes, there's the question of the younger generation, and the Cousins, and Mirei and Eclipse (though I rather feel like where that one's going is obvious), but none of that is a conflict. It's just consequences to the work the characters have already completed, and that does not an exciting book make. If I come up with a conflict that excites me? Sure. My publisher would have been happy for me to do a third book two years ago, and I don't imagine it would be terribly difficult to convince them to take one later on -- not so long as the first two keep selling. But I finished the story I was telling; I'd have to come up with a new one before I'd sign on for another installment.

The closest thing I have to an idea is much smaller and more personal, and it keeps stubbornly resisting my attempts to make it grow enough plot to be a worthwhile book. But if such a book ever happens, the likeliest scenario is that it will take place about ten years later, and it will be about Indera. I think she's up in Kalistyi somewhere, under another name, doing something else entirely with her life -- not sure what -- and I know she would run into whatever Amas/Hoseki is calling herself by then. Because if there's one question I want answered, as the author, it's what would happen when Indera comes face-to-face with her. (And, I suppose, how Indera has come to terms with herself. Or failed to do so. Whichever.)

Or maybe I could make it be a short story, though it's hard to imagine writing it in a fashion that doesn't require the reader to be familiar with the novels. Anyway. The idea sits in the back of my head, and if one day it jumps up and starts waving its arms, it'll get written. But poking it with a stick isn't getting it anywhere, so I leave it alone.

***

Go here to ask me more!

I sent off a draft of In Ashes Lie to my editor yesterday, and within a few hours had succumbed to the bug I think I've been fighting off for a few days. I strongly suspect a connection.

So today is a day of being the laziest lump I can manage to be. (Which is harder than you might think, unless you have my sense of guilt masquerading as a work ethic.) Ergo, I will recruit help from you, the internets, and hop on a meme while I'm at it:

Ask me a question!

Writing-related or not, though I won't, of course, give spoilers for unpublished work. Comments are screened; I'll answer the questions in later posts. Ask away, and we'll see if I can marshal enough brain cells to give coherent replies.

In the meantime, I'm going to go contemplate eating a waffle, and find a book to collapse with.