Interview with Lauren Alder
Today's post is something new for me: an interview with a fellow writer. I don't know yet if it's a one-off or the start of something regular. We'll see how it goes.
My guest today is Lauren Alder, author of The Codex of Desire, a "tragic tale of prehistoric love" amongst intelligent feathered dinosaurs.
1. Tell us a bit about yourself. What made you want to be a writer?
I am a 53-year-old freelance commercial artist, happily married for 23 years to a fellow artist. We live in Winnipeg, Canada, in a third-floor walk-up apartment (which bit us HARD when my husband recently broke his ankle, but on the whole it suits us down to the ground). I’m a Wiccan, a science fiction and fantasy fan, and a person with an abiding love for cats, dinosaurs, and the movie “A.I.: Artifical Intelligence”. I deal with treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, which made finishing a novel quite the challenge.
As far as what made me want to be a writer… what makes me want to breathe? It feels like the answer to both those questions is: fundamental instinct. If I don’t write, I feel much worse emotionally and mentally. I won’t say that writing is therapy for me, but it certainly makes life more beautiful and more bearable.
2. Tell us about your book. What makes it stand out from the crowd?
Well, it’s a time-travelling adult science fiction novel about tragic dinosaur love triangles, which certainly aren’t a dime a dozen.
This is my three-sentence pitch: “Love and violence, war and lust, lies and betrayal — even intelligent feathered dinosaurs fell prey to such destructive impulses, more than 67 million years ago. Girn'ash, a cunning female slave, falls in love with a dashing military prisoner and will do anything in her power to win his freedom. But Girn'ash's queen is determined to coerce the handsome warrior into her harem, and when so many savage desires collide it might doom an entire civilization to nuclear extinction.”
So: intelligent feathered theropod dinosaurs, a human paleontologist who is mentally drawn back in time (via an alien memory storage device) to witness the catastrophic intersection of their lives, and the barbaric splendor of a long-lost primordial world. That’s a lot of interesting content (and all my beta readers LOVED it).
3. What was the inspiration for the book?
The inspiration for “Codex” came through a non-fiction book called “Ninja: 1000 Years of the Shadow Warrior” by John Man. As I was reading about the samurai and ninja cultures (both in real life and in myth), the idea struck me: “Romeo and Juliet”, with those two cultures as the warring factions! However, I was reluctant to set the novel in the actual cultures, since I felt I wasn’t capable of properly sympathizing with them. Then the second element came to me: “Set it in the distant past, with intelligent dinosaurs as the main characters!” And thus the seed for “Codex” was born (although it ended up being a very different story once it was done).
[Steven: This wouldn't be the first time a story has taken a long and winding road from inspiration to publication :-) ]
4. Describe your writing process. Do you have a daily writing routine? If so, what is it?
I don’t edit while writing the first draft: I believe that only slows me down and causes me to second-guess myself. Instead I concentrate on writing down everything and anything that comes to mind, even if it’s out of sequence. To me, the first draft is a process of telling the story to myself. I worry about perfection in the editing phases.
Because I’m both a visual and a written word artist, I tend to alternate between the two. When I’m in a writing phase, I start writing each morning after I’ve had an hour or so of Internet time plus at least a half a cup of coffee, and I write for 1-2 hours with the goal of producing 1000-2500 words. Rinse and repeat until I feel the need to switch to visual arts, or a visual arts project hits my studio and I need to change tracks.
Once I’m in a writing phase, I generally don’t take days off because I find that disrupts the creative flow.
5. Which character was the most enjoyable to write, and why?
Although I took great pleasure in writing all the “Codex” characters, I have to admit that the ones who were the most fun to write were Fir’ala~Enk, the indomitable leader of the Furies and Tir’at’s implacable enemy, and U'nur~Mik'Ur, the Chief Cook of the Tribal settlement of Permanence where Tir’at is imprisoned for most of the novel. Fir’ala is shrewd, sly, bloodthirsty, possessed of a wicked sense of humour, and admirable (to a certain degree) in her relentless ruthlessness and her devotion to her Most Potent Chieftess. U'nur… well, I don’t want to say too much and give away part of the plot, but his genuine tenderness of heart is highly endearing to me and I admire his devotion to his family.
6. Are there any plans for a sequel?
Yes, but it won’t see the light of day unless “Codex” achieves a degree of commercial success. I always craft my final works with an audience in mind, and if nobody reads “Codex” then nobody is likely to read the sequel either.
7. What things did you have to research for this book? What was the strangest or most unlikely thing you had to research?
Dinosaur and bird physiology. (Did you know that birds have a circular respiratory system, instead of the “lung” system that mammals rely on? I didn’t, until I started writing “Codex”.) The making of ale and beer. What plants and flowers were in existence during the Late Cretaceous Period. And the one that caused me the most headaches -- how long WAS the lunar month, 67 million years ago? (Answer: less than an hour shorter than it is in modern times.) Finding the lunar month length required a good 2 or 3 hours of Googling, and then the in-depth reading of an academic astronomy paper until I found the tidbit of information I needed.
[Steven: I was vaguely aware that birds had a different respiratory system from mammals, but didn't know any of the details. You've now got me curious as to how astronomers figured out the length of the lunar month 67 million years ago. Did they just extrapolate backwards (the Moon is gradually receding from Earth), or is there some evidence in ancient rocks?]
8. How similar to a real dinosaur species are the intelligent dinosaurs? Are they based on a single species, or a composite of several species? How much is real (or at least based on what scientists have figured out) and how much is made up?
It’s hard to say how similar to a real dinosaur species the “Codex” theropods are, because we honestly have no idea of what that type of dinosaur really looked like and acted like. I based a lot of their behavior on the behavior of highly intelligent modern birds (like ravens and parrots), as well as their physiology. In terms of dinosaur types, physically they’re very roughly based on Velociraptor (the actual type, not the “Jurassic Park” version), and I made them feathered because (1) that gave them many more modes for self-expression, and (2) recent research indicates that most dinosaurs of that type were probably feathered.
The biggest deviation from real life comes from where the fossils in “Codex” were found: no theropods of that type and size have been found in Alberta so far. But new and surprising dinosaur discoveries happen on almost a weekly basis, so I felt safe enough placing those fossils in the Badlands.
9. What do you get from the frame story? The story starts in the present day, when a human palaeontologist finds an artefact left behind by the dinosaurs. He touches it and starts to experience the memories of the dinosaur who wore it. The artefact seems to be "just" a recording device, so the palaeontologist is passively experiencing the dinosaur's story – he can’t influence it in any way. On the face of it, this complicates the story and distances the reader from the dinosaurs (who appear to be the real stars of the show). Why did you choose to do it that way, rather than tell the dinosaur's story directly?
I wish I had a good answer for that -- or at least an intellectual one. All I can really say is that when I wrote out the first draft, I felt like a major element was missing -- an element of perspective, a human connection to the events of the narrative. Raoul Deguchi came to me very clearly and powerfully as a character who needed to be included in the story. (Plus in the planned sequel, he’s the main character and his connection to the dinosaurs in “Codex” becomes a vital plot point.)
I’m a great believer in telling the story that demands to be told, not necessarily the story that rationality tells us SHOULD be told. Time will either prove me right or wrong. I sincerely hope it proves me right.
10. Lastly, where can readers buy the book or find out more?
You can buy The Codex of Desire from Amazon and Smashwords.
I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My blog is at https://laurenalder.home.blog. There's also a trailer for the book on YouTube.
My guest today is Lauren Alder, author of The Codex of Desire, a "tragic tale of prehistoric love" amongst intelligent feathered dinosaurs.
1. Tell us a bit about yourself. What made you want to be a writer?
I am a 53-year-old freelance commercial artist, happily married for 23 years to a fellow artist. We live in Winnipeg, Canada, in a third-floor walk-up apartment (which bit us HARD when my husband recently broke his ankle, but on the whole it suits us down to the ground). I’m a Wiccan, a science fiction and fantasy fan, and a person with an abiding love for cats, dinosaurs, and the movie “A.I.: Artifical Intelligence”. I deal with treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, which made finishing a novel quite the challenge.
As far as what made me want to be a writer… what makes me want to breathe? It feels like the answer to both those questions is: fundamental instinct. If I don’t write, I feel much worse emotionally and mentally. I won’t say that writing is therapy for me, but it certainly makes life more beautiful and more bearable.
2. Tell us about your book. What makes it stand out from the crowd?
Well, it’s a time-travelling adult science fiction novel about tragic dinosaur love triangles, which certainly aren’t a dime a dozen.
This is my three-sentence pitch: “Love and violence, war and lust, lies and betrayal — even intelligent feathered dinosaurs fell prey to such destructive impulses, more than 67 million years ago. Girn'ash, a cunning female slave, falls in love with a dashing military prisoner and will do anything in her power to win his freedom. But Girn'ash's queen is determined to coerce the handsome warrior into her harem, and when so many savage desires collide it might doom an entire civilization to nuclear extinction.”
So: intelligent feathered theropod dinosaurs, a human paleontologist who is mentally drawn back in time (via an alien memory storage device) to witness the catastrophic intersection of their lives, and the barbaric splendor of a long-lost primordial world. That’s a lot of interesting content (and all my beta readers LOVED it).
3. What was the inspiration for the book?
The inspiration for “Codex” came through a non-fiction book called “Ninja: 1000 Years of the Shadow Warrior” by John Man. As I was reading about the samurai and ninja cultures (both in real life and in myth), the idea struck me: “Romeo and Juliet”, with those two cultures as the warring factions! However, I was reluctant to set the novel in the actual cultures, since I felt I wasn’t capable of properly sympathizing with them. Then the second element came to me: “Set it in the distant past, with intelligent dinosaurs as the main characters!” And thus the seed for “Codex” was born (although it ended up being a very different story once it was done).
[Steven: This wouldn't be the first time a story has taken a long and winding road from inspiration to publication :-) ]
4. Describe your writing process. Do you have a daily writing routine? If so, what is it?
I don’t edit while writing the first draft: I believe that only slows me down and causes me to second-guess myself. Instead I concentrate on writing down everything and anything that comes to mind, even if it’s out of sequence. To me, the first draft is a process of telling the story to myself. I worry about perfection in the editing phases.
Because I’m both a visual and a written word artist, I tend to alternate between the two. When I’m in a writing phase, I start writing each morning after I’ve had an hour or so of Internet time plus at least a half a cup of coffee, and I write for 1-2 hours with the goal of producing 1000-2500 words. Rinse and repeat until I feel the need to switch to visual arts, or a visual arts project hits my studio and I need to change tracks.
Once I’m in a writing phase, I generally don’t take days off because I find that disrupts the creative flow.
5. Which character was the most enjoyable to write, and why?
Although I took great pleasure in writing all the “Codex” characters, I have to admit that the ones who were the most fun to write were Fir’ala~Enk, the indomitable leader of the Furies and Tir’at’s implacable enemy, and U'nur~Mik'Ur, the Chief Cook of the Tribal settlement of Permanence where Tir’at is imprisoned for most of the novel. Fir’ala is shrewd, sly, bloodthirsty, possessed of a wicked sense of humour, and admirable (to a certain degree) in her relentless ruthlessness and her devotion to her Most Potent Chieftess. U'nur… well, I don’t want to say too much and give away part of the plot, but his genuine tenderness of heart is highly endearing to me and I admire his devotion to his family.
6. Are there any plans for a sequel?
Yes, but it won’t see the light of day unless “Codex” achieves a degree of commercial success. I always craft my final works with an audience in mind, and if nobody reads “Codex” then nobody is likely to read the sequel either.
7. What things did you have to research for this book? What was the strangest or most unlikely thing you had to research?
Dinosaur and bird physiology. (Did you know that birds have a circular respiratory system, instead of the “lung” system that mammals rely on? I didn’t, until I started writing “Codex”.) The making of ale and beer. What plants and flowers were in existence during the Late Cretaceous Period. And the one that caused me the most headaches -- how long WAS the lunar month, 67 million years ago? (Answer: less than an hour shorter than it is in modern times.) Finding the lunar month length required a good 2 or 3 hours of Googling, and then the in-depth reading of an academic astronomy paper until I found the tidbit of information I needed.
[Steven: I was vaguely aware that birds had a different respiratory system from mammals, but didn't know any of the details. You've now got me curious as to how astronomers figured out the length of the lunar month 67 million years ago. Did they just extrapolate backwards (the Moon is gradually receding from Earth), or is there some evidence in ancient rocks?]
8. How similar to a real dinosaur species are the intelligent dinosaurs? Are they based on a single species, or a composite of several species? How much is real (or at least based on what scientists have figured out) and how much is made up?
It’s hard to say how similar to a real dinosaur species the “Codex” theropods are, because we honestly have no idea of what that type of dinosaur really looked like and acted like. I based a lot of their behavior on the behavior of highly intelligent modern birds (like ravens and parrots), as well as their physiology. In terms of dinosaur types, physically they’re very roughly based on Velociraptor (the actual type, not the “Jurassic Park” version), and I made them feathered because (1) that gave them many more modes for self-expression, and (2) recent research indicates that most dinosaurs of that type were probably feathered.
The biggest deviation from real life comes from where the fossils in “Codex” were found: no theropods of that type and size have been found in Alberta so far. But new and surprising dinosaur discoveries happen on almost a weekly basis, so I felt safe enough placing those fossils in the Badlands.
9. What do you get from the frame story? The story starts in the present day, when a human palaeontologist finds an artefact left behind by the dinosaurs. He touches it and starts to experience the memories of the dinosaur who wore it. The artefact seems to be "just" a recording device, so the palaeontologist is passively experiencing the dinosaur's story – he can’t influence it in any way. On the face of it, this complicates the story and distances the reader from the dinosaurs (who appear to be the real stars of the show). Why did you choose to do it that way, rather than tell the dinosaur's story directly?
I wish I had a good answer for that -- or at least an intellectual one. All I can really say is that when I wrote out the first draft, I felt like a major element was missing -- an element of perspective, a human connection to the events of the narrative. Raoul Deguchi came to me very clearly and powerfully as a character who needed to be included in the story. (Plus in the planned sequel, he’s the main character and his connection to the dinosaurs in “Codex” becomes a vital plot point.)
I’m a great believer in telling the story that demands to be told, not necessarily the story that rationality tells us SHOULD be told. Time will either prove me right or wrong. I sincerely hope it proves me right.
10. Lastly, where can readers buy the book or find out more?
You can buy The Codex of Desire from Amazon and Smashwords.
I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My blog is at https://laurenalder.home.blog. There's also a trailer for the book on YouTube.
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