Lycanthropica Jane asked Paolo Bacigalupi:

How do you feel when you write a story like The People of Sand and Slag? I count it as probably one of the best things I have read and I try to make people read it a lot but is made me sad and I cried. So I was wondering do you feel sad or depressed when writing something like that or do you feel joy because you are creating? or something else I have no idea about :)

Paolo Bacigalupi I do actually get emotionally affected by the stories I write; it's one of the ways I know that a story is working. If I feel something as I'm writing it, and later as I re-read it, I have more confidence that the story will evoke those emotions in other people as well.

Some of that it really useful, but it also can take a toll on me, so I'll often work on different projects, or move back and forth between projects, so that I can have some time to get away from those stories that are too overwhelming to spend months and months inside.

When I wrote THE WINDUP GIRL, which was set in an incredibly broken world, I also worked on SHIP BREAKER, which was more of an adventure story. When I was working on THE DROWNED CITIES, which was particularly intense because the world was so brutal and the characters (who were child soldiers) were going through so much, I also wrote ZOMBIE BASEBALL BEATDOWN, so I could laugh, and have fun, and enjoy being in a world where I knew all my characters were going to be okay in the end.

I find that if I balance those experiences out, I feel better about writing and about creating more stories.

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