Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 126

Artemis Invaded Cover Art and More!

News Flash: Darynda Jones, who I interviewed��a couple Wanderings ago, will be the guest speaker at this week���s meeting of the Albuquerque SF Society.�� She���s speaking about ���Story Beginnings ��� Getting the Hook into Readers.��� ��For more details, click here.

News Flash: Just this week, I added a new page to my website.�� ���The Universe of Artemis Awakening��� contains a lot more than the list of titles featured on most such pages.�� Regular readers of the Wednesday Wanderings will find previously scattered information grouped in one place. ����There is information about the audiobook, a link to the popular ���What would your Profession Be?��� quiz, and a host of reviews.�� There���s the beginning of a fan art gallery (and not all art is visual), which I hope to expand in the months to come.

Contests ��� several of which are planned in anticipation of the release of Artemis Invaded at the end of June ��� will also be listed here.

Interested in turning a friend on to the series?�� Here���s a place to start.�� Take a look at the Universe of Artemis Awakening��here��or by going to the Novels page on my website.

Artemis Invaded Cover Art

And now for our featured presentation: The Cover Art for Artemis Invaded!

As with Artemis Awakening, the cover art is by Cliff Nielsen. It carries on the motif from the previous book, but with some interesting twists.�� The half-face is positioned to the right, rather than the left, so I don���t think this one will be a wrap-around. (I don���t know for sure, since I have only seen a digital image.)

For Artemis Invaded, instead of a stylized puma���s face, we have that of a young woman, her hair and part of her features melding with the star field.

In many reviews, the cover art for Artemis Awakening attracted a lot of attention.�� What do you think about this one?�� Will it stand out when shelved with other offerings or blend in?

I���m too close to the book to be able to make a fair call.�� I���d love to hear what you think.

People have been asking me to drop a hint or two as to what Artemis Invaded is about.�� Since the Advanced Review copies (ARCs) are now out and the book is available for pre-order, let���s see what I can add���

SPOILER WARNING for Artemis Awakening.�� (I���ll try to be coy, but if there���s a way to talk about the second book in a series without giving something away about the first, I haven���t figured it out!)

At the beginning of Artemis Invaded, Griffin must accept that the Sanctum in Spirit Bay is not going to be able to offer him the means to contact his orbiting ship.�� (It���s called the Howard Carter, by the by���)

Terrell and Adara aren���t about to abandon him, though.�� Terrell suggests they try a remote mountain fastness called Maiden���s Tear.�� As Terrell says in the second paragraph:

������Maiden���s Tear has been a forbidden area since before the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines.�� There were other such prohibited zones, but they were not as absolutely off-limits as Maiden���s Tear seems to have been.���

Since forbidden areas were often off-limits because they held concealed technological bases, Maiden���s Tear seems like a promising destination.���� However, will they ever get there?�� Before the trio can even lay the groundwork for their departure ��� Griffin is attacked.

Hmm����� Maybe I���d better stop there.�� I could get seriously carried away.�� Instead, let me say a little bit about why I���m excited about Artemis Invaded.

The first book in the series, Artemis Awakening, was a lot of fun to write, but there���s a lot of set-up involved in writing a book with a complex new setting and history ��� especially if the book is fairly short.�� Short?�� Let me show you some figures.�� In hardcover, Artemis Awakening was 304 pages.�� Through Wolf���s Eyes, the first of the Firekeeper Saga, was, by contrast, 590 pages ��� and printed in a slightly smaller font.

So, with Artemis Awakening a greater percentage of the book had to be devoted to basics of who is who and how the society is set up.�� I enjoy this sort of thing but, with that done, in Artemis Invaded, I could focus more on plot and characters.

I also got to move more deeply into the complexities underlying the planet Artemis.�� My main characters don���t stay static, either.�� By the end of Artemis Awakening, both Terrell and Adara have learned some very disturbing things about themselves.�� In Artemis Invaded, I get to deal with these.

Oh, yeah, and then there���s the ���invaded��� part����� Artemis Invaded isn���t a switchover to military SF, but invasions can take many forms and this one holds some real shocks for all sides.

I���m really excited about Artemis Invaded.�� I hope you���re getting excited, too!�� Over the next few weeks, we���re running a couple of contests where you can win an ARC and be among the few to read the book before its release.�� The contests will be announced in the Wednesday Wanderings but, if you���re afraid you���ll miss one, you can sign up for my new mailing list.

Oh! ��Maybe I should tell you. ��The first ARC contest will begin tomorrow. ��Go over to the Jane Lindskold Facebook page for details!

FF: Read On!

Winter View Outside My Window

Despite our usual warm trend — the one that makes me hope the cold is going to quit early — it’s still winter. ��So why not climb into a good book?

For those of you who are new to this feature, the FF feature lists of what I���ve read over the past week.�� They are not meant to be a recommendation list.�� If you���re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.

This is not a book review column.�� It���s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

A Brother���s Cold Case by Dennis Herrick.�� A good mystery with lots of local NM color.

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold.�� Audiobook.�� I really liked this one, possibly best of those I���ve read so far.�� One line stuck with me: ���The one thing you can���t trade for your heart���s desire is your heart.���

Forerunner: The Second Venture by Andre Norton.�� Much longer and somewhat less vivid than the first book in the series.

In Progress:

Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold.�� Audiobook.�� Just starting.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. ��Graphic novel. ��Just starting.

Also:

More of my own short fiction.�� I���m almost done selecting pieces for the collection, but I need to write an introduction.�� And then start going over everything again!

Several of the books I’ve read or listened to this month have been because of recommendations from friends. ��(Chad, thanks for talking up��Memory! ��Sally and Tori, thanks for the loans.)

What are��you reading?

TT: This Land is Whose Land?

JANE: ��We’ve been chatting about moving with cats. ��Although my cats don���t go outside, I did have a fascinating experience with just how sophisticated animals can be in figuring out who owns what where.�� It���s a longish story.�� Are you up to it?

ALAN: Indeed I am. Go for it!

Lurking Cthulu

JANE: It started with a phone call.

���Hey, Dad.�� A wrinkle has come up in our plans to visit you.�� We���d need to bring two of the cats.�� Talli has a U.T. infection and he won���t let anyone but me give him his meds.�� We���d need to bring Arawn as company for him, because Talli���ll panic if he���s alone.���

Dad grumbled a bit, but said, ���Bring the damn cats.���

And so we did����� The drive from our part of New Mexico to where my dad lived in Colorado took about eight hours.�� Jim and I usually started after he got off work, then stayed in a motel overnight, rather than arrive after Dad was in bed.

Arawn and Talli had stayed in motels before, and Arawn in particular was thrilled.�� At home, he���d always been under-cat to Gwydion.�� That night, while Talli curled up next to us, Arawn sat in the window, surveying all and pronouncing his new realm Good.

ALAN: Oh yes ��� I know that posture very well indeed.

JANE: The next day, we completed our drive.�� Dad lived in the mountains, without another house in sight.�� If Arawn had been thrilled with a motel exterior, he was even more thrilled with evergreen forest, especially with the gigantic wild turkeys, which he clearly thought were dinosaurs.

ALAN: And who’s to say he was wrong?

JANE: I���m certainly not going to argue, those birds are huge.�� And, oddly, their footprints do look a great deal like some (only slightly smaller) fossilized dinosaur prints that Dad showed us not very far from his home����� But I wander off point.

Talli was also interested in this new place, up to the moment when he was going through Dad���s living room. This had a two-story ceiling with a ceiling fan at the peak.�� Talli decided that the slowly moving fan was Cthulu, and that Cthulu was going to eat him.�� He fled, but his choice of refuge puzzled us.

ALAN: Where did he go?

JANE: Rather than diving under something, which would make sense, since he was afraid of a monster on high, Talli fled through the house, all the way back to the mudroom that was the first indoor area beyond Dad���s back door.�� Although there was furniture to hide under, he didn���t go under anything, nor did he try to get out.�� Instead, he hunkered patiently in the doorway between the kitchen and the mudroom.

Some hours later, my brother (who at that point lived down the road) arrived, bringing with him his large mixed-breed dog, Otis.�� Now, my cats don���t have any dogs, but we hadn���t figured there would be any problems with Otis since Dad never let him further into the house than the mudroom.

And, additionally, Otis was a very Good Dog, with a cat of his own, so he knew how to behave around cats.

When Otis came in, we all expected Talli to back off or hide.�� Instead, he marched right up to Otis and touched noses.

We were astonished.�� They���d met only once before, in New Mexico, but Talli clearly not only remembered Otis, but also, when he���d needed a refuge, he���d gone to the one room that smelled like the territory of someone he knew.

ALAN: That’s amazing. After years of living with cats, I am quite convinced that they always have their own subtle reasons for everything they do

JANE:�� I agree.�� All those generalizations about animals ��� like ���cats don���t like change��� or ���dogs will chase cats��� ��� are as misplaced as similar statements regarding humans, like ���men are������ or ���women are������

You were telling me about your cats getting used to their new territory and squabbling with the cats who have already staked their claim.

ALAN: Yes ��� we’ve heard a lot of hissing and caterwauling in the night, and Robin has found several huge clumps of fur in the garden. It’s the wrong colour to have come from Harpo or Bess, so obviously they’ve been asserting themselves with some degree of success.

JANE: Knowing that my cats were outside fighting other cats would make me very nervous.�� My cats are indoor only.�� I don���t know what the statistics are for New Zealand but, here in the U.S., the average lifespan of a domestic cat drops to under half for outdoor cats.�� In our neighborhood, where coyotes occasionally dip in for a snack, it���s probably lower.�� I know more than one neighbor who has become a convert to keeping their cats inside.

Domestic cats are actually a great danger to each other, because their bites and scratches have a great chance of becoming abscessed.�� I���d just as soon not deal with that ��� or with the diseases they can pick up.

And then there are cars����� Nope.�� My cats are staying in.

ALAN: Domestic cats are the largest predators in New Zealand, apart from motor cars. So as long as the cats stay away from roads, they have nothing at all to fear. All my cats have always been outside cats and, apart from Eccles who was run over by a car when he was five, they have all lived to a ripe old age. I have only once had to cope with abscessed wounds from a cat fight ��� poor Ginger had to wear an Elizabethan collar for a couple of weeks to stop her licking the wound. She didn’t like that! But it cleared up without any trouble, By and large, the New Zealand environment is very cat friendly.

JANE: Ah��� this raises an interesting thought but, since it���s a pretty complicated issue, I want to save it for next week.

I���d still like to avoid it ��� but only until next week!

To Theme or Not to Theme

A couple of cool announcements, before moving to today���s wander���

Artemis Awakening made Locus magazine���s list of recommended reading for 2014.�� Needless to say, I���m thrilled!

I now have a mailing list.�� Sign up for announcements of contests and new releases.�� Even if you���re a regular reader of the Wednesday Wanderings, you may find this useful for those weeks when you get busy.�� Don���t worry!�� Your information is not going to be used anywhere else and alerts will be limited. ��Oh! ��You can also sign up on my website home page or on my Facebook page.

Fantastic Anthologies

Award-winning audiobook reader Joe Barrett has been signed on to continue reading the ���Artemis Awakening��� series with June���s release, Artemis Invaded.

As I mentioned in last week���s interview with Darynda Jones, one of my current projects is assembling the short story collection you folks requested last year.�� As I was writing the afterwords that follow each piece, I found myself thinking about theme anthologies and the role they played when I was getting started ��� and continue to play even today.

I���d better clarify that: by theme anthologies, I mean those anthologies for which original works are solicited ��� not reprint anthologies for which an editor collects already printed stories that fit a particular theme.

Theme anthologies have never been given the same respect that the magazines have.�� I once heard a then high-end magazine editor lament, ���I don���t see why writers submit to these!�� I���ll let them write about anything they want.���

Leaving aside that this is hardly true, I���d like to focus in on why I have always found theme anthologies appealing.

While every writer has more story ideas than he or she has time to write, an idea is not necessarily a story.�� To me, an idea is a seed.�� The story is a full-grown tree.�� This is why writers are not thrilled when someone says, ���Hey!�� I���ve a great idea for a story.�� How about I tell it to you, you write it, and we split the money?���

So why, if a writer has all these ideas, would writing for a theme anthology be appealing?�� Wouldn���t that impose an unwanted constraint?

Rather than being constricting, theme anthologies can provide a challenge.�� Whenever I���ve been interested in a theme anthology, I���ve always tried to write a story that will provide a different take on the theme.�� The first thing I do is make a list of all the most common takes on the designated theme.�� Then I try to find a different twist.

The ���Fantastic��� anthology series edited by Martin H. Greenberg with various co-editors, and published by DAW books, provides a good example of these anthology themes.

I���ve had stories in Dragon Fantastic, Fantastic Alice, Cat Fantastic IV, Elf Fantastic, Wizard Fantastic, Spell Fantastic, Assassin Fantastic, Apprentice Fantastic, and Pharaoh Fantastic. There were many other ���Fantastic��� anthologies to which I did not contribute.

Sometimes a theme anthology provides a writer with the opportunity to explore an idea or expand a location.�� ���A Touch of Poison,��� my story in Assassin�� Fantastic, is set in the same world as the Firekeeper stories, but does not feature any of the characters or settings from the novels. ��It did give me a chance to explore Waterland, which Firekeeper heard about, but never reached.

At other times, I���ve used theme anthologies to tell a character���s back story.�� ���Beneath the Eye of the Hawk��� in Pharaoh Fantastic is a prequel to The Buried Pyramid.�� ���Fever Waking��� in Children of Magic tells of the childhood of Ynamynet, a key character in Wolf���s Blood.

One time I received three separate anthology invitations with deadlines close together.�� I really wanted to write for them, but wasn���t sure I could manage all the background material.�� One of these anthologies, Maiden, Matron, Crone, pretty much demanded a story with a central female character.�� It hit me that I could write three stories ��� each fully independent ��� about the same person.�� I wrote ���Seeking Gold��� for Maiden, Matron, Crone, then expanded Andrasta���s story in ���Fire from the Sun��� in Women of War, and ���Comes Forth��� for In the Shadow of Evil.

I���m not the only author to find theme anthologies inspirational.�� Roger Zelazny���s award-winning novella, ���Unicorn Variation��� was written to fit into three different (reprint, in this case) anthologies.�� You don���t have to take my word for it.�� He writes about the story���s genesis in the introduction to the story in his collection Unicorn Variations.�� It���s a fun anecdote ��� and a good story, too.

Readers seem to like theme anthologies.�� I���ve had many tell me they hunted out the ���Fantastic��� anthology series because they would be assured of a degree of variety and creativity, but without the sense of ���potluck��� they got from many of the magazines.�� ����Andre Norton���s Cat Fantastic anthologies went to multiple volumes.�� As I noted above, I have a story in number four.

Oh, and that editor whose lament I quoted earlier in this piece.�� Funny thing.�� Several of his most recent projects have been theme anthologies.�� I guess he finally saw the appeal.

Sink into a Good Book

Spending more hours at my desk this week, but still some time for reading���

For those of you who are new to this feature, the FF feature lists of what I���ve read over the past week.�� They are not meant to be a recommendation list.�� If you���re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.

Kel Sinks In

This is not a book review column.�� It���s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Tamsin by Peter Beagle.�� Audiobook.�� Read by Peter Beagle.�� I���m still not precisely certain why all the material set in NYC couldn���t have been condensed to one chapter.�� That said, I found it smooth reading.�� The book really became a ���don���t want to stop��� once the setting shifted to Dorset, though.�� I loved both the conclusion of the plot and Jenny���s final conversation with a hedgehog.�� And Beagle was a very engaging reader ��� one who could make you forget that a man was reading a story narrated by a teenaged girl.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer.�� Although smoothly, even richly written, with a well-designed setting (although one that held surprisingly few ���oh, wows��� for me), this book confirmed that, for me, great writing and cool premise can���t trump strong characters.

In Progress:

A Brother���s�� Cold Case by Dennis Herrick.�� I���m a sucker for mysteries where current events are rooted in past events.

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold.�� Audiobook.�� This time the runaway train seems to be in Miles���s own neurological system.�� I���m only just started, but I have a strong suspicion of what happened.�� Be fun to find out if I���m right!

Also:

After cleaning up lots of administrative stuff, I���m back to re-reading my own short fiction for the collection you folks requested.�� As I commented to Darynda Jones in our recent interview, I���ve discovered that, in the afterpieces, I���m writing about writing again���

Seems to be an addiction.

TT: Cats in Strange Places

News Flash: Darynda Jones interviewed me, focusing in on��my new book,��Wanderings on Writing. ��It’s really lots of fun.

JANE: Last time, duty called before I got to tell you about my cats and motels.

ALAN: Yes! That sounds like a story with possibilities. Tell me more.

Rhiannon Shelves Herself

JANE: Years ago, when I was planning my cross-country move between Virginia and New Mexico, I received many warnings about how badly my cats would take spending the night other than where they were accustomed.�� I received much advice ��� bring the cats��� baskets, toys, favorite blankets and other comfort items, recorded music they know to provide a familiar audio background, preferred foods, water from home, and more.

If I had followed this, it would have necessitated my having a much larger vehicle than my small sedan, since it was already filled pretty much to the brim with two humans, six cats in carriers, their litter boxes and other gear, my computer, a few other things I didn���t want to trust to movers, and a small amount of clothing.

ALAN: I’d have given you the same advice. How did it work out?�� Did the cats panic without their accustomed comforts?

JANE: Not at all.�� Only one, Mannawyddan, who was the shyest in any case, was at all upset.�� The other five checked out the room, admired the king-sized bed (mine is only full-sized), located where I���d put their litter boxes and other comforts, then marched to the door into the motel corridor, clearly expecting me to let them out to see their new domain.

The second night on the road, even Mannawyddan wanted to go see the motel.

ALAN: I’ve never had to put my cats in a motel ��� pretty much everywhere here can be reached in one day. But I have had to move cats into new homes, and I’ve been amazed at the different coping methods they’ve used the first time they see their new home.

JANE: My cats have reacted to new houses much as they did to motels ��� a little trepidation, then easy adjustment.�� What are some of the different tactics you���ve seen your cats use?

ALAN: The first cats I moved with were Ginger and Milo. They were brother and sister, so you might have expected them to react similarly. But no. Ginger explored the house using a strict left hand rule. She kept her left side close to the wall so that she only had to guard her right hand side from hidden perils. She examined every room like that, then she was happy.

JANE: That���s very clever!�� She also would have been good at solving mazes, since I think the tracing one wall is a recommended way to solve them.

What did Milo do?

ALAN: Milo adopted a different, but just as effective, technique. He started from his food bowl where he took a fortifying nibble. Then, suitably fortified, he set off in a straight line until his courage failed him. Then he came back to his bowl, had another nibble, and did it all over again in a new direction.

JANE: Courage in food.�� Very feline.�� Very human, now that I think about it.

What did Harpo and Bess do?

ALAN: Harpo and Bess are not related so, not surprisingly, they reacted very differently. By and large, Bess was actually much braver than Harpo. She was quick to come out of her travelling cage and she looked around her wide-eyed and amazed. Who knew there were such places in the world? She made sure that Robin and I were always in sight and she walked with us hither and yon and it wasn’t long before she was reasonably comfortable with the strange new rooms.

Harpo, on the other hand, initially refused to come out of his cage at all. When we finally poured him out, he quickly found a dark corner to huddle in, and there he stayed complaining bitterly at the unfairness of it all. I assume he had little explores here and there during the night when we weren’t looking because we found traces of him in the morning ��� vomited-up fur balls and the like ��� but mainly he just huddled and howled.

JANE: Poor baby!�� The mighty hunter missed his accustomed jungle.

ALAN: All the advice we got said to keep them inside the house for a fortnight to get them used to the look and feel and smell of the place before we let them outside. If we let them out too soon, said the pundits, they might start to hitchhike back to Wellington. However, Harpo has always been an outside cat and after three days of almost non-stop howling, we couldn’t stand it anymore, and so we opened a door and showed him the world. He looked at it suspiciously and then trotted outside to explore the garden. He quickly found a nice soft pile of earth to empty himself into (Robin’s herb garden) and then he was happy. He jumped over the fence into next door’s garden and vanished. We worried about him all day, but he was back by tea time, so we considered him properly settled in.

JANE:�� Good fertilizer for the garden.�� You can thank Harpo when you have gigantic parsley.�� Back when I lived in Virginia, I happened to look out the window right when a neighborhood cat was leaving a deposit in my vegetable garden.�� The plant to which he had tended grew markedly larger than one just a foot or so away.

What did Bess do once the wide open spaces were available to her?

ALAN: She’s always been much more of an inside cat. She is used to coming and going at will, but mostly she stays asleep inside. Initially, she refused to go outside at all (far too scary). One day she did take a few tentative steps into the garden, but a leaf spiralled down from a tree and spooked her and she dashed back inside. She spent a lot of time staring out of the window and she saw a lot of birds ��� she likes birds. Eventually, they tempted her outside. She’s not brought any back yet, so I think they are wise in the ways of cats. Now she is coming and going as she pleases, so she too is now feeling properly at home.

The next big adventure will be territorial disputes. We’ve seen several other cats around so sooner or later the borders will have to be settled…

JANE: Ah, questions of territory.�� That���s a complicated issue. I���ve got an interesting story, but I���ll save it for next time.

Chatting With Darynda Jones

JANE: Today, I���m talking with Darynda Jones, author of the phenomenally popular, award-winning Charley Davidson Series.���� (If you haven���t read these, they���re darkly humorous, rather as if Janet Evanovich���s Stephanie Plum learned she had been born with a really dangerous supernatural destiny.)�� Darynda is also the author of the YA Darklight Trilogy.

I Love the Red Cover Particularly

I first met Darynda at Bubonicon, New Mexico���s SF convention.�� As I recall, we were both at the opening ceremonies and Craig Chrissinger, one of the con chairs, introduced us, telling me that Darynda was a new writer, with her first novel either coming out soon or just out.���� I don���t remember which, and since First Grave on the Right was a February release, I can���t say for sure.

Any chance you do, Darynda?

DARYNDA: HA! I can barely remember my children���s names, a fact they find annoying. While I definitely remember meeting you that first time (as I was beyond honored), I do not remember where I was at career-wise. Those early days are kind of a blur, and I���ve only been published four years.

JANE: Just four years and all those books?�� Astonishing!

All right, then.�� I always start these interviews with the same question, so here goes:

In my experience, writers fall into two general categories: those who have been writing stories since before they could actually write and those who came to writing somewhat later.

Which sort are you?

DARYNDA: I am of the former sort. I started writing before I could actually write and would even pick up sticks and any random piece of paper floating by and pretend to write my masterpieces. Oddly enough, I started writing plays first and would then put on very elaborate productions, but since I couldn���t actually write and my actors had no written lines to memorize (nor could they read), the plays quickly deteriorated into chaos. Good times, baby.

JANE: You have mentioned several times that the late Jack Williamson ��� author of such phenomenal classic SF novels as Darker Than You Think and The Humaniods ��� was one of your teachers.�� Can you talk a little about that?

DARYNDA: Yes! I had the enormous honor of taking a class with him before he passed away, God rest his soul. It was like sitting in the presence of greatness. We would start out the class with Dr. Patrice Caldwell, who is a force of nature and probably missed her true calling: standup comedy. Then the graduates would go to Dr. Williamson���s house, sit around his dining room table, and talk writing. It was surreal to say the least. I couldn���t get enough, and for the first time in my life, I was disappointed when the semester ended.

JANE: That really must have been wonderful.�� I met Jack several times and chatted with him a little, but I never had the chance for that sort of roundtable.�� I did get to contribute a story to The Williamson Effect, the collection in Jack���s honor, though.�� That was great���

Back when we did that book signing together, when both of us had new YA releases (I think mine was Fire Season), you mentioned that Charley Davidson and Lorelei, the protagonist of the Dark Light Trilogy, have a rather incestuous relationship, that Lorelei is, in a sense Charley���s older sister, even though she���s younger and lives in a different universe.

Could you share the story?

DARYNDA: Haha! Yes, Lorelei came before Charley by a couple of years. I wrote the first in that YA series then started on the Charley series and, believing the Darklight Trilogy would never sell, I cannibalized my own work by stealing many of the plot points and character traits from the YA. Huge ones. I even fashioned parts of Charley after Lorelei.

I paid for that. While Charley sold first, the YA trilogy sold about a year later, so I had to rethink my entire foundation and figure out how to set Lorelei apart. Thankfully, by then Charley had evolved into a much sassier, sarcastic version of Lorelei, so it wasn���t too difficult, but trying to reimagine the entire foundation of the YA trilogy for the next two books in the series was way harder than I thought it would be. Lesson learned.

JANE: I had a similar experience on a smaller scale.�� I didn���t think The Buried Pyramid would ever sell, so I borrowed traits from one of the secondary characters for Derian, in the Firekeeper books.�� Then my agent (who loved The Buried Pyramid) managed to sell it and I had to scramble to re-write.

One of the things that keeps me reading the Charley Davidson books is the odd balance of humor and really serious issues ��� including that Charley doesn���t always solve her case, or at least not to her satisfaction.

This is not something that one encounters often in this sort of book.�� What drew you in that direction?

DARYNDA: I wanted the series to be ongoing (thankfully, my editor did too), so I wanted to tie up most ends while leaving others unraveled until the next book, or even six books later. I wanted fresh questions to arise while old ones were being answered.

And, while fiction is not meant to be a mirror image of reality, sometimes the outcomes are just not what we want and I feel that fiction needs a little of that disappointment so we can be grateful for what does go our protagonist���s way. I think disappointment can be used to drive our characters. To force them to do better next time. To set goals. To learn from their mistakes.

Charley does a lot for the departed, and that right there is a conundrum. There���s really not a lot she can do for that character. He or she is already dead. But she can help the character find peace and give them the ability and the desire to move on.

JANE: That���s a really great insight as to why your characters have so much dimension.�� I appreciate it.

I���m sure you���ve been asked this a million times, so I���ll make it a million and one.�� Where did you get the idea of using quotations from tee-shirts, bumper stickers, and suchlike as chapter headings?�� Have you gotten to the point where you need to make them up or do you keep piles of catalogs?�� And has anyone ever offered to print up some of your quotes on shirts?

DARYNDA: You may not believe this but I have NEVER been asked that! Not once! I actually came up with the idea because I wanted to start off each chapter with a bang, and I was writing a scene in the first book where Charley was wearing a T-shirt to her college graduation that had ���jenius��� written on it. It cracked me up, especially considering the circumstance, and the idea to start every chapter with a T-shirt or bumper sticker quote hit me. I did a lot of research to make sure I could even put them in my books. I used to make up a couple per book, but I haven���t done that in a while.

I do keep a list of quotes I can use. I���d been saving them even before the idea hit me. Now I get a lot from readers. They are always sending me some great one- or two-liners. My assistants have created a Zazzle store called Grim Girl Apparel that has many of the quotes up for sale on various items, and what miniscule amount of money we make off them goes toward giveaways for the Grimlets, my street team.

JANE: That���s really cool����� And I am jazzed to have been the first to ask!�� Maybe there will be a spike in sales at Grim Girl Apparel.

One of my favorite more recent characters is Quentin, the Deaf boy who shares some of Charley���s sensitivity to the supernatural world.�� What gave you the impulse to create him?

DARYNDA: I do love me some Quentin, mostly because he is based on my oldest son, Jerrdan, and named after my little brother. I also have a degree in sign language interpreting, am a certified interpreter, and have taught ASL and interpreting as well. I guess because of all this, I really wanted a Deaf character in the books.

I love showing people tidbits about Deaf culture and what it���s like to be Deaf in a hearing world. They face 10 challenges for every one of ours, and my son amazes me every day. He is independent and strong and gorgeous. Both my sons are! And some of the stories I write about Quentin have really happened. (Not the seeing-dead-people thing, thank goodness.) But he is a joy to write about.

JANE: I won���t provide spoilers, but I���ve loved Amber���s attempts to communicate in sign language ��� especially the mistakes.

I���m not exactly a prude (my novel Smoke and Mirrors featured a prostitute as the main character), but sometimes the degree of violence in the sex scenes in the Charley books leaves me wondering why you took that direction.�� I noticed that this had backed off some in the most recent book, Seventh Grave and No Body.�� Any reason?

DARYNDA: I decided when I first began this series to go big or go home. I love action and I love writing it. The sex scenes are the hardest part of the whole story for me to write, and I am no prude either. I quite enjoy the act, but if I haven���t written a sex scene that makes your toes curl, I have not done my job.

Still, everyone is different. Some hate them. Most of my readers love them. Either way, I have to write both the action and the sex sequences according to my target audience, those who love paranormal/urban fantasy and romance. I read both. I know what my audience expects. And I love to keep my readers hovering on the edges of their seats, wondering what Charley will do next. It���s all about those surprise twists your readers never see coming. Keeping it fresh is what will bring your readers back again and again, and my readers are amazing. I���m horridly grateful for each and every one.

JANE: Practical����� And you���ve certainly made my toes curl, so you���re doing your job.

For those readers of this interview who haven���t yet tried Darynda���s books, I���d like to stress that there���s a lot more to them than hot sex and warped humor (although there���s both of those).�� The last couple of books in particular have started revealing what looks to be a complex supernatural conspiracy that has me completely hooked.

But, speaking of ���doing your job,��� I should let you go and do that.�� Thanks ever so much for your time!

DARYNDA: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR HAVING ME!!!

FF: Lost in Print (and Audio)

This past week, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, figuring out what would go into what cabinet.�� That gave me a bit more time with recorded books.�� I rewarded myself with one day when I let myself read without watching the clock.�� Bliss!

Ready to Read!

So what exactly are the Friday Fragments? The FF feature lists of what I���ve read over the past week.�� They are not meant to be a recommendation list.�� If you���re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.

This is not a book review column.�� It���s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

The Book of Kells by R.A. MacAvoy.�� Set in Ireland something over a 1,000 years ago, the plot intertwines with intricate historical detail much like the Celtic knotwork of the title.�� I found myself tangled up in historical details in the middle, but enjoyed the book a great deal.

The Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner.�� Audiobook.�� Middle grade.�� In a city where protecting the children from any and all dangers has become the excuse for an increasingly dictatorial regime, the greatest thing one can steal is oneself.

Chobits.�� Manga.�� The complete series.�� Interesting tale that starts out looking like a romantic comedy and evolves into a meditation on identity, the nature of relationships (including ���mere��� friendship), and love.�� In these days where Social Media is coming to dominate so many people���s lives, even more timely than when first written.

In Progress:

Tamsin by Peter Beagle.�� Audiobook.�� Read by Peter Beagle.�� The first part of the book could be any book about a major life transition but Beagle is so good that his rather whiny narrator (who knows she���s whiny) still held me.�� I���ve just gotten to the ghost.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer.�� Just started.

Also:

Isn���t this enough?�� �� My to-be-read shelf is crammed, but I���d love to know what you���re reading.�� There���s always room for more.

TT: Moving with Cats

JANE: Last week, we were talking about things you found difficult to live without when you and Robin moved.�� Noticeably omitted were your cats, Harpo and Bess.

When you moved house did you bring the cats with you in the car?

Kwahe’e Contemplates Travel

ALAN: No, definitely not. The cats both hate car journeys (I think they associate the car with visits to the vet). Harpo howls and Bess shivers with fear. Both sets of symptoms are unpleasant and upsetting, so there was no way I was going to put either them or us through the trauma of a 300 km journey.

JANE: So what did you do?

ALAN: About a week before we moved, we put the cats in the local cattery. They don’t like it, but at least it’s familiar ��� they’ve been there many times before. Then we started packing up the house, something else that would have upset them if they’d seen it.

JANE: How did you get them from the cattery to the new house?

ALAN: There’s an organisation called VenturePets who, for an inordinately large fee, will transport and deliver your pets door to door. So once we’d got the majority of our furniture unpacked and ready for the cats, VenturePets picked them up from the cattery, flew them on a commercial flight to the nearest airport, picked them up when they landed, and delivered them to us. The lady in the cattery sent me an email when they were picked up and she told us that Harpo howled all the way down the driveway to the van.

JANE: I know that when my mom has flown with her cat, she���s been required to have it tranquilized.�� Were Harpo and Bess cats tranquilized?

ALAN: No ��� VenturePets doesn’t believe in drugging the animals they transport. And a vet friend of mine tells me that the practice of tranquilising animals under these circumstances is much more for the benefit of the owners than it is for the benefit of the animals!

JANE: I presume they both arrived safely?

ALAN: Yes. The lady who delivered them to us told us that Harpo howled at the top of his voice all the way from the airport to our house. She sang nursery rhymes to him to try and make him feel better. But it didn’t work.

JANE: Maybe she didn’t sing them very well.�� Or maybe he would have preferred folk or filk���

ALAN: No, I think he’s more of a jazz fan…

Have you ever moved with your cats? How did they (and you) cope with the trauma?

JANE: I���ve moved with my cats several times.�� The first time was from New York to Virginia, the second from Virginia to New Mexico.�� Maybe because I used house call vets for routine care back when I lived in both New York and Virginia, my cats didn���t react too badly to car trips.�� Well, I should probably qualify that.�� I did have one cat, Gwydion, who reacted badly.�� Precisely forty-five minutes into any car trip, he would get carsick.

ALAN: How did you figure out the timing?

JANE: Back when I lived in Virginia and needed to drive to New York, I���d make the trip via my mom���s place in Maryland.�� The cats (who loved my mom) would then go stay with her for a few days.�� The first time we made this trip, Gwydion threw up.�� Usually, I���d have brought a roll of paper towels, but I didn���t have them.�� However, there was a roadside stop just down the way, and we solved the problem, cleaned Gwydion up, and finished the trip without further incident.

The next time we made the trip, at exactly the same point, he threw up again.�� With the store as a landmark, I then calculated back to past trips and realized that we had a pattern.

Eventually, we made good friends in Virginia who would cat sit when we travelled, so this wasn���t a problem until the day I left for New Mexico from Virginia.�� I didn���t take much when I left, shipped my books ahead, and only took my six cats and a few things that I wouldn���t trust to shippers with me in the car.

ALAN: How far apart are New Mexico and Virginia? Don’t answer that ��� I haven’t unpacked my atlases yet, but I do have an internet connection…

(Alan goes googling…)

Gosh! That���s a really long drive.�� You certainly couldn���t do it in one day.

JANE: No, I couldn���t.�� What I did was drive as far as North Carolina to meet Roger, who had flown from New Mexico, so he could share the trip.�� This was a several hour drive, so by the time we got there, Gwydion had already done his throwing up for the day.

The cats and I collected Roger, and we drove west until we couldn���t take it anymore. Then we found a motel that would accept pets.

Now, Roger had been diagnosed with cancer by this time.�� He was seeing an alternative medical practitioner who was doing a good job in helping him manage the side effects of the chemo drugs.�� He���d mentioned our plans to her, including that Gwydion got car sick.�� She gave him a tiny bottle of a homeopathic remedy called something like Be Still.�� We were to give Gwydion a few drops orally, then renew ��� I think mid-day, but it���s been nearly twenty years, so I don���t remember the exact timing ��� by placing a few drops on the fur between his ears.

ALAN: Did it work?

JANE: To my complete and utter astonishment, it did.�� By then, Gwydion was about eight years old and his pattern was firmly established.�� But with this treatment, he didn���t throw up.�� Nor was he dopey or drugged.�� Because of his problems, I���d positioned his carrier so that I could reach him from the front seat, so I could see him easily.�� He was calm, bright-eyed and alert.

ALAN: In some ways I’m not surprised it worked. My late cat Porgy (the Best Cat Ever) had several serious illnesses during his short life and he was very stressed as a result. The vet recommended something similar to us. We didn’t anoint him with it though, we put it in a gadget which had a heating element that vapourised it. The fumes (said the vet) contained calming pheromones. Initially I was sceptical, but it definitely worked and it helped him a lot.

Rather like your Gwydion, my Bess is a vomiting cat. She generally throws up after breakfast and after dinner because she’s greedy and gobbles her food too fast. Once I had a long and illuminating discussion about cat vomit with the checkout lady at the supermarket who was interested in the brand of cat food I was buying. Isn’t it amazing what subjects break the conversational ice and lead to a lifetime’s friendship?

JANE: Yes, it is����� I have a couple more tales about travelling with cats I���d like to share. I���d also love to hear how Harpo and Bess settled into their new abode.�� However, my current crew are asking me to pay attention to them, I���ll leave my stories until next time.

Lustrum Review

Those of you who have read my novels, Changer and Changer���s Daughter (aka Legends Walking),know that once every five years, the immortal athanor gather to catch up both on business and with old (in some cases, very, very old) friends.�� These meetings are called lustrum reviews ����� lustrum being a period of five years, as a decade is ten.

Five years!!!

Five years ago, I started writing the Wednesday Wanderings.�� Since then, the same site has come to include the Thursday Tangents (co-written with award-winning New Zealand reviewer, Alan Robson) and, just this past year, the Friday Fragments, an informal look at what I���ve read the previous week.

The Wednesday Wanderings are also directly responsible for my most recent book, the non-fiction, Wanderings on Writing, which is a collection of and expansion upon those pieces I���ve written about the art and craft of writing ��� with a bit of advice about how to fit writing into your day-to-day routine added in for good measure.

The Wednesday Wanderings are the best place to learn what���s going on in the world of Jane Lindskold.�� Not only will you find out about evolving projects, release dates, appearances, reviews, and contests, you���ll also get a look behind the scenes at how stories evolve, since very often some issue related to what I���m working on at a given moment triggers that week���s essay.

I���ll also talk about other stuff, completely unrelated to writing, like my garden, craft projects, and role-playing game.

Sometimes I bring questions to the readers of the Wednesday Wandering, such as last February���s discussion of what should the title be for the second book in my ���Artemis Awakening��� series.�� The final decision ��� Artemis Invaded (due for release June of 2015) was directly influenced by reader feedback.

Another area where the readers of the Wednesday Wanderings were able to provide valuable feedback was regarding whether I should put some time into a re-release of one of my out-of-print novels, or put together a short story collection.�� The short story collection ���won��� resoundingly, and is now over half-completed, including ��� at your request ��� original afterpieces about each story.

Reader comments sometimes provide the seed that grows into a later Wednesday Wandering column.�� A recent example is ���What English Professors Love��� (WW 1-07-15), which grew out of a question asked by Chad Merkely.�� I welcome questions, as well as suggestions as to topics you might enjoy hearing about.

Too shy to comment on the site?�� An e-mail to jane2@janelindskold.com will reach me.�� Your ghosthood will be respected!

Yes.�� I do post to Twitter but, if you���re looking for more than a quick news flash, the Wednesday Wanderings are the place to be.

This coming year, there���s a lot to look forward to����� In addition to the promised short fiction collection, there will be the release of Artemis Awakening in mass market paperback, Artemis Invaded in hard cover (and e-book), and several new short stories.

I���m also planning to expand the author interview series I started late last year, so that every month or so, without ever going anywhere else, you���ll be able to ���meet��� other authors and hear about their works.�� My promise to myself and my guests is that I���ll try to come up with unusual questions, firmly based in their works, rather than the generic one-size fits all so common on the web.

And, of course, you���ll be among the first to learn about new developments.

Over five years, the Wednesday Wanderings community has expanded into a friendly, interesting place to be.�� Whether you���re a new arrival or a regular reader, I hope you���ll not only hang around, but invite your friends to join us!