The Giant Question Catchup Post
Someone once told me that a blog post should never be more than 1000 words. Well, maybe if I posted everyday I could do that, but I doubt it. So, first up some information on the upcoming book signings. I did find out who all is supposed to show up at which signings, so here we go.
Tuesday, August 14 from 6 to 8 PM at the Fort Union Deseret Book in Salt Lake city. Authors Josi Kilpack, Lisa Mangum, Rachel Nunes, and Tyler Whitesides.
Wednesday, August 15 from 6 to 8 PM at the University Village Deseret Book in Provo. Authors Josi Kilpack, Lisa Mangum, Rachel Nunes, and Tyler Whitesides.
Thursday, August 16 from 6 to 8 PM at the Bountiful Deseret Book. (Yes, that’s in Bountiful.) Authors Julianne Donaldson and Lisa Mangum
Saturday, August 18 from Noon (12) until 2 PM at the Salt Lake City Downtown location. Authors Julianne Donaldson, Lisa Mangum, Rachel Nunes, and Tyler Whitesides.
So share the info with family and friends, but maybe not strangers you meet on the street ’cause they’ll just think your strange.
O.K. so, Thank you Dan for your soapbox moment. Yes it is hard when people keep asking answered questions over and over, and for the most part I won’t answer them. That’s why Dan and several other readers of the blog have been so helpful in putting up answers for you. Thanks.
Person’s question about going back and forth between known lands and the adventure shop to change age and live for a long time or even forever is an interesting one. Alex doesn’t need to do this as he is a wizard and will probably live for a very long time anyway. Alex is also a dragon, and dragon’s also live for a long, long time. Other adventurers might try this, but it doesn’t happen often. One lifetime is enough for most people, and one lifetime lived well is all most people want.
Is it possible to have adventures on Alex’s “Home” world. I’m sure this means the world he grew up on, which I never said was earth but most people think is earth so I’ve just kind of gone alone with the basic idea that it is earth. So, Yes, it is possible and it might even happen before we get through the whole series. This could be a lot of fun because adventurers from other worlds would be very confused by almost everything in a “Modern” world like earth.
Book Signings: So I know that all of the book signings I’ve done so far have all been here in Utah, and there are a couple of reasons for that. First of is that I live in Utah and signing close to home makes life easy for me. Secondly I don’t setup the signings the publisher does. I would love to do signings all over the country, but where I get to go depends on how well the book sells, and if the publisher thinks it would be a good idea to send me someplace. (Yes, if they send me someplace further away than I can drive, they pay for it, so the money things has a lot to do with where I go.)
True Silver is a lot like Mithril from Lord of the Rings. I think it is just more than super hard silver that doesn’t go black as it gets old. It has some magic in it, like the fact that it will reflect curses back at the person casting the curse. There might be more to true silver than that, but for now you can think of it is magical mithril if you like.
As far as I know Alex does not have any wizard or dragon lord ancestors. Magic doesn’t run in family lines, and as wizards are uncommon and dragon lords very, very uncommon, well, it is possible that he did have such an ancestor but that would be hard to prove.
For those of you asking about age and age changes, Alex is currently around 20 years old. I don’t think he will be changing his age much in the future, we’ll have to see what happens if/when he comes back to his “home” world once more.
Who would win a fight, Salinor or Shruikan? Well, I don’t know much about Shruikan because I never finished reading that series, but I think Salinor would win and I’ll tell you why. Salinor is not just an ancient, magical dragon, but also a guardian and lord of dragons. Salinor is also a dragon made of true silver, and if it makes such great weapons and armor, imagine how tough a dragon it would make. 
Bane? Lots of thoughts there and I’m not sure what’s going to happen with our “Paladin” friend. Alex didn’t recognize what Bane was mostly because he didn’t understand what a Paladin was. As he said, he knew a different name for what Bane is, so the word Paladin didn’t really mean anything to him. Will Bane be back? Not sure. Will Alex and Bane team up on a quest? Probably not because Bane is already on a quest and wouldn’t take time off to go on a normal (if there is such a thing) adventure.
Female wizards. We went over this once before and the answer is yes, there are female wizards. I think we decided that they were just called wizards, or possibly wizardess if you like. Are there female wizards on the counsel of wizards? Yes I believe there are.
Does Alex have to fully change into a dragon or can he partly change growing only scales or wings or something? Good question, and I never really thought about it. Right now my thoughts are that Alex always fully changes into a dragon when he changes. On the other hand, Alex can call on his dragon magic and power when he is still in his human form, so I guess it is possible for a part change but I don’t know what use it would be. Remember that Alex doesn’t want too many people knowing that he can change into a dragon, and a part change might give his secret away.
Book 3 and using magic destroy the hellerach. O.K. here’s the thing. When Alex destroyed the hellerash he was upset, angry, and almost out of control. He did destroy all the hellerash in Thraxon, but that doesn’t me all the hellerach in all the known and unknown lands. No, I don’t know what other lands have hellerash in them, but if it’s important I’ll find out. To destroy an entire race of people, like the elves or the goblins would take a lot more than what Alex did in book 3, and I’m wondering why he would even try to do something like that? If there was some great need, maybe he could, but all goblins in all lands, a difficult task and maybe just too much for anyone to do.
My favorite moment to write in the books??? Hard to say as it changes with each story. There are many parts I like to write, I liked writing in Horn when Alex turns Otho into an ox, in Slathbog when Alex fights the three-legged-troll, and so many other bits. I honestly don’t know what my favorite part to write is, but I know how happy I am when the final version is done and off to get published. I also know that if I re-read the stories once they are published I’ll find things I want to change but cant.
Tara, well, that’s a problem. O.K. so I had planned on bringing Tara back in a story called, “The Madness of Lazbo”, but that one won’t fit into the series. (Dang it was mostly written as well.) So now I don’t know if Tara will be back or not. The broach that Tara gave to Alex was a symbol of friendship, but not what you think. Tara is the daughter of a king in the land of Kess, and the broach was a sign for anyone in that kingdom to know that Alex was considered a friend of the kingdom. (does that make sense?) So, in the now missing book, Alex wears the broach and when he and his friends get to the city gates the guards see it and treat them in a more friendly way, escort them to the king, ect. There was also an old wizard in that story named Pykle that I really liked. (That is pronounced Pee-Kill in Kess, not Pickle, so don’t make the mistake of calling him Pickle.)
The wizards counsel is not a formal body, there are no set number of seats on the counsel, and no age requirements to be part of the counsel. Alex could become a member now if he wanted to and if the other members agreed. They are more a group of volunteers who try to keep track of what is going on, who is doing what, what lands are in danger, what evil is out there causing trouble, etc. They meet when they can, but there is not set schedule as different wizards are free to meet at different times. As Alex is now helping the counsel to discover what evil is moving through the known lands he might be considered a part of the counsel, but there aren’t any official papers or anything like that.
My favorite book??? Tough one there as I love so many different ones. I don’t think I have one favorite, but there are books that I re-read every few years because I like them so much. A short list… Well, The Lord of the Rings series, obviously. The Wizard of Earthsea series also gets read over and over again. Most anything by H.P. Lovecraft even though some of his stuff is a little weird. Lots of sci-fi, some horror, and a fair amount of non-fiction historical stuff. Dang, I’m behind on my reading again.
An apprentice, a familiar, a love interest, and what else does he need? O.K. so, apprentice, sort of . Love interest, Yes. Familiar, maybe or something close to it anyway.
Now a few off topic answers because you asked.
Jacob: About writers conferences. Yes, I also find out about many of them after the fact and am way to late to attend. Keep track of the ones you’ve heard of anyway because they will probably happen again next year and you can go to them then. You can also check the internet for things in your area, but be warned, some conferences are expensive $$$ so you want to look at that before setting your heart on going to them.
SilverPen: The story, “Seeds of Power” is mostly written now. What that means is that I have a complete story but I’m not 100% sure I like it all and want to go back and change some stuff before I send it off to a publisher. Once we finish up edits and such on “The Sands of Nezza” I will probably pull it out and work on it some more. If things go well and I get it really finished it could be available in bookstores in a eighteen months or two years. If things do not go well… then we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to it.
Cameron J: Advice for young writers? Write! O.K. as things in your story have slowed down and you haven’t moved forward much after that first 50 or so pages, you might try something that I do. First of all, don’t try to tell the whole story in the first 50 pages, that never works on a novel size story. Second, write each chapter as it’s own story, which means, tell the story of that chapter, then in the next chapter go from what just happened to the next important thing. I look at the book as a series of events, and each chapter is one or more of those events. O.K. so in chapter 3 this happens and moves my characters to this place where, in chapter 4 this can happen and that moves my hero to chapter 5 where something bad happens and maybe my hero isn’t so heroic which brings me to chapter 6 where… see how that works. If you tell me everything in the first 50 pages, well, then you have a short story or a novella, not a novel. Two more very important things to remember when writing. 1. If you are bored writing it, your readers will be bored reading it. If you are writing and the story bores you, stop, delete the boring parts, change the story so that you are excited to write it. You might have an overall plan for the story, an outline, don’t be afraid to break it, change it, or just toss it out. Let the story speak to you, and stay excited with the story you are telling. 2. Read. Read everything you can, read a lot of different things. Pay attention when you read to how the author writes the story. What do they do to keep things moving? How do they keep it interesting? No, there doesn’t need to be a major battle or giant explosion in every chapter, but something does need to happen, and it has to be important to the overall story. Finally, if the story just wont come to you, leave it alone. Do something else, write a new story, write a short story, go fishing. Sometimes you just need to walk away from a story and let it sit before it is ready to be finished. Good luck, and keep writing.
Wow, I think that’s it, and we’re under 2400 words. So much for what the expert blogger told me to do.
I’ll see you all next time, and I will try not to make it such a long wait. No, really, I’ll try.
-Mark
