Kay Solo answers your questions

I'm usually good at picking up references in your writing but I'm not as well versed in mythology. In the Fairfield Frightless there are references to the fates and sirens having a shared history and singing together. Is that from something or is that particular to your series?

Kay Solo Yay another question! <3 But yes, this is in reference to something. Specifically it has to do with The Vision of Er from Plato's Republic. In it is mentioned the Spindle of Necessity, which is kind of a means of explaining the movement/orbit of the planets. The sirens and the Fates are both part of the Spindle and are responsible for keeping it moving, and they all sing together as they do. From the text:

"The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens --Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other."

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What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Kay Solo I don't know if anything in my life is enough for an entire book, but maybe an arc? My biggest mystery is probably about the very start of my life. I don't know when or where I was born. I was just found somewhere and put into the foster system, and there were absolutely no details or trace of my parents. My birthday is an educated guess. So that's pretty fun! I see a lot of adoption stories, though, so I'm afraid it wouldn't be super original. Plus, my situation is unresolved, so I'd have to make up an ending.

I will say I've already planned out where this arc is going, so it'll show up eventually. 👀

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Surprise, me again! Coming from having read Moon and Flame, I was wondering: how much planning did you do in advance for Ghost Walk, and how much more did you have to do for Moon and Flame? Was it harder to write a sequel than a prequel? How much of Moon and Flame did you already know about when writing Ghost Walk/how much of it was new?

Kay Solo Hello again!

Now that I've done both, I found sequels to be more difficult. Moon and Flame was easy for me because most all of it was already there. The specific events, the new characters, all of that was already in my head out of planning for Ghost Walk. So Moon and Flame was really just me writing down stuff I already knew. Whereas, with a sequel, that's an entirely new thing to set up. I often think backward for the purpose of character development, but not as much forward, since my primary concern is making sure the story I'm working on in the present is properly developed. I'll think about how the characters continue to develop over time, but for a sequel I actually need a whole story and structure to go with it, which is where it gets more challenging.

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So I know what your "soundtrack" was for GW... do you have one for MAF?

Kay Solo Kind of! I never have very many songs, there's usually just a few that do the trick... one of these days I want to put together a proper track list for whatever I'm working on, but it's been okay so far!

1) Stand My Ground - Within Temptation
2) Mercy Mirror - Within Temptation
3) The River - AURORA
4) Ashes - Celine Dion

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Another one for you. (I can stop any time lol) I was thinking about Ghost Ship and how we see how Maaya and Adelaide are getting on months after their ordeals, but we get distracted by the plot of the novella to really dig deep into how they're coping and moving on. Has it been easier than expected or difficult? What's their day-to-day situation like trying to get over what happened since it was undoubtedly traumatic?

Kay Solo

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[No, I enjoy these! This is... probably going to be long.

In the immediate aftermath, they had kind of a honeymoon effect going on, and they were still a little too busy with the move for it to really sink in. But once they were settled and they started having a daily routine, that's when it started to hit them. It was a lot harder on Maaya, because she lost almost everyone who was close to her during her mission, and then she ended up settling in a new city when she'd never been away from "home" her entire life prior. So she was in a new place with most of her support system gone, having a job for the first time in her life, living with a new person (who she loves, but nevertheless is someone she only knew for a few months), and being the center of attention of basically the entire world. It really stressed her out. She had constant nightmares, especially early on, and she would wake up not knowing where she was or what had happened. So she and Adelaide would have many late-night walks through the city after Maaya would wake up from a nightmare so Maaya could remember where she was and that everything was okay. So while Maaya definitely moved to a more secure and safe spot than she ever was before, she spent a long, long time dealing with the repercussions of what were severely traumatizing events. Because this change to stability is so huge and jarring, it negatively affects her at first, even if the thing itself is positive.

It was a little easier on Adelaide, who had spent many years traveling and being independent. She also had less on the line during the mission in that she didn't lose anyone close to her immediately before she started, and wasn't traveling with her best friend. As the much more confident person who grew into not caring what literally anyone else thought of her, she was better prepared for this. (Also remember that much of Maaya's trauma happened before she even met Adelaide.) Still, since she spent so long defending her country before she and Maaya met, she's got her own internal battles to fight. We saw a little of this in Ghost Ship; she works best when her grip on reality is strong, but when little things happen to undermine that, she starts losing herself in it quickly. Her routine was broken and her trust messed with, and after everything that had happened, she couldn't handle it almost to the point of literally not being able to process what was happening.

Crucially, they cope by sticking together and emphasizing the security and stability in their lives. Maaya needs constant reassurance that she isn't in danger and that this all won't come to a sudden end, and Adelaide is getting used to settling in with a life partner when she's never really had one before (and has always been on the move). So routine might seem boring, but it helps them both because, in a way, they both never had routine. Maaya was always moving houses and never knew where her next meal was coming from, and Adelaide had her own chaotic relationship with her family and was constantly on the move. So their life after GW is enjoying their time together, seeing their friends regularly, and not taking on anything too strenuous. Maaya especially tries to keep things simple, because she's been overwhelmed to the point of shutting down, and recovering from that will take years, if it ever happens at all. And for all her understanding, it's so bad that even Adelaide doesn't truly understand the depths of it.

So there are many long nights where they help each other out of the terror of bad dreams, constantly reassure each other that everything is fine, and they try to seek comfort in their new norm. It's not all pretty. They've had their share of crying and sleepless nights and stress. But they build that foundation of each other's love and support and their friends old and new, and they work at building up from there.

Phew! That was fun, thank you. :D I know it's hard to emphasize just how hard all the events of GW hit them since the book ended just as they were settling in together, but it was pretty serious. It's more than anyone, especially teenagers like them, should ever be asked to take on, and that shows for a long time. (hide spoiler)]

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Rebekah F This is perfect, thanks for writing all this out. I liked the minor mentions of this in Ghost Ship. Because these really are just kids. They have spec ...more
Feb 19, 2019 08:33PM · flag

Kay Solo Yeah. They both struggle, but in very different ways. And for her part Adelaide had more ways to cope. There are some ways where she simply has to dea Yeah. They both struggle, but in very different ways. And for her part Adelaide had more ways to cope. There are some ways where she simply has to deal with things on her own, at least partially because mental health care isn't a very advanced field at the time, and a lot of what she's going through doesn't even really have a name yet much less a way to treat it. But she does have a solid foundation to fall back on when she needs it, whereas with Maaya that's totally different.

(Also, thank you, that means so much to hear you have no idea haha.)

It leads to misunderstandings more than disagreements exactly. Adelaide is always willing to listen but her experiences were so vastly different sometimes she just doesn't understand. She's the type of person who understands that buying an expensive product is better in the long run because it lasts longer, but doesn't understand why poor people buy cheap things that break more often instead. She's the kind of person who doesn't immediately understand that all the financial advice about "just save money every month" doesn't work for people who have none to save, or how a single emergency can financially devastate someone. She's never been in a position where she has so little money that she has to seriously think about every tiny purchase and do math and check balances for everything. So Maaya ends up teaching her a loooot about that side of things, thankfully before there are many awkward moments.

Likewise this shows itself in how Maaya acts even months after everything is over. She spends very little frivolously, always keeps track of every cent she has, constantly has to see the numbers before her or she gets anxious, that sort of thing. This isn't to say that Adelaide doesn't understand specifics, because she's in charge of paying her whole crew. But for her personal life it's more like a concept; she knows she has enough and vaguely how much she has, and budgets according to the generalities she has in her head. Whereas Maaya has to see everything written down and figure everything out to the decimal, then check three times to make sure everything is okay and that she hasn't forgotten something. The first time she spontaneously bought lunch for herself from a vendor rather than making it, she felt intensely guilty and then went back and checked all her finances to make sure she would be okay. Adelaide teases her about it sometimes. ...more
Feb 19, 2019 08:54PM · flag

Hope you don't mind if I ask you two in one. :) First, is there a canon explanation for how people like Maaya and Adelaide can see ghosts, use libris, etc.? They don't know all the answers in the book, which makes total sense, but I wondered if you had anything behind it. Second... did you have a playlist for GW?

Kay Solo Yeah! So, in the book it is this big mysterious thing that certain people only get tiny glimpses into, and there are so few people who can do it (and their abilities so negatively looked on) that there's very little research or knowledge about it. They know they can do these things, but not really why. But the more specific explanation is that there are these two worlds that are essentially right next to each other with some overlap (which is why ghosts can be in the living world and things like that). Because of that overlap, what happens is on very rare occasions someone will be born into both worlds at once. People like Maaya and Adelaide.

It's a very lopsided ratio; that is, only a very tiny sliver of them is in the other world. But the more a person is a part of the other world, the more they can do. People who are very powerful with libris, for example, are more a part of it than someone who only gets strange feelings when ghosts are around. Unfortunately the characters themselves don't know any of this, but... maybe someday! They are changing the world for the better after all.

As for a playlist, I don't usually have many, but here are the main ones for GW.

1) I Know A Place, by Muna
2) Key of the Twilight, by Yuki Kajiura
3) The Host of Seraphim, by Dead Can Dance

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Rebekah F Oh I see! That's actually super interesting. I kind of figured the worlds weren't completely separate. Is there anything that decides how someone will ...more
Nov 16, 2018 11:49PM · flag

Kay Solo It's mostly chance, honestly. There's a small chance for it every time someone has a child, and nothing that really influences that chance. As for pow ...more
Nov 17, 2018 12:09AM · flag

Rebekah F That's really fascinating. Even with the unaccepting part of the world aside I think you could see how that affected the people who could see ghosts a ...more
Nov 17, 2018 12:13AM · flag

Have you considered publishing supplemental material for your books? I know you did a few short stories for TDS, and I wouldn't complain if you had anything to add to the world of GW.

Kay Solo I've definitely considered it, especially because they were so much fun to write and I'm not quite ready to leave those stories behind. Plus there's just so much that would be genuinely fun to come back to. TDS five years later, origin stories for Maaya and Adelaide, all sorts of things. I don't know if it's worth the actual publishing process, though, like all the editing, the cover art, etc. Only trouble is I'm not sure what the alternative would be. I might try to figure that out. Though I should also really be working on new things, too. 😅

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