I do love those collections of letters, and I recall once you talked about the HOW of that particular method “alternating letters from each author’s characters”, (FIDONet SF Echo?, Armadillocon? WorldCon, 1997, San Antonio?). But how do you bring it to a close, or put in a particular plot point, or is that JUST NOT DONE?

More Lyran novels would get my dollars, too. Not that ’13th Child’ is not a neat idea, was just hoping for “more, faster, more of the same but different”.

Nice how retiring frees up more time to read, huh?

Thanks,
Sarah

David – Really looking at things everyone else takes for granted and asking “why” or “how does this work, really” is a way of generating stories that a lot of writers get so in the habit of using that they don’t even think about it any more.

Mary – Yes, but there are some tricks to it. I’ll get around to that part eventually, I promise!

Kate – I’ll try to remember that. There’s a fine line between giving my blog readers insight into how I wrote my books, and bragging and puffing them off constantly. And not only do I find the latter irritating when other writers do it, I was raised in typical Midwestern fashion, which means that a high complement is “Well, I guess this isn’t too bad” and “bragging” is defined as saying “I think this came out fairly decent.”

Alex – I kept a mental to-write list for a long time; when it got past about ten stories I wanted to do, I started writing them down. But they have to be more than floating proto-ideas to get on the list; they have to be things that really truly look like they’re going to grow up to be stories one day. I have a separate list of things that set off little sparkles in my backbrain – not the sparkles themselves, but the instigators. Titles of poems, phrases, music, names of pictures (or snaps of the pictures themselves, if they’re available on the Internet), jokes, news headlines…just anything that made me think “Hmm, there’s a story there.” It’s not usually obvious to anyone else why something is on the list, but it works for me.

I also never write down any of my ideas as they occur to me because I know I’d overwhelm myself with them so take it nice and slow, asking my muse for an idea only when I need it. She’s very prompt at replying fortunately.

Thanks for writing the blog and the books!

I’ve used the Boston molasses tank failure, various crimes, etc. I think I got the idea originally from one of the various fantasy books that tie into alternate histories. Influenze of 1917, I think.

Dropping characters from alternate realities into your background is fun. Especially if you have a mythology background and riff an aspect of something – free motivation and background!