Keith asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

This question contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

Lois McMaster Bujold The notion of Jole's character and relationships existed ever since he popped onstage in The Vor Game, which I wrote back in 1989. But that wasn't what the books I was writing then were about. So the ideas rode along through time in a potential reservoir of story that I dub "Schrodinger's Cat Carrier". No telling whether a story-cat is alive or dead till I open the box to actually write it.

Then there followed those several years when I was writing the seven fantasies for HarperCollins, and didn't think I'd ever get back to the Vorkosiverse at all. But then I wrote Cryoburn at a special request from Toni Weisskopf following Jim Baen's death, and then Ivan's book because it seemed like it would be fun. And by that time, 2011 or so, I realized the cat was definitely alive, and yowling to get out. So, to continue the physics metaphor, it was both preexisting and slotted in; both a wave and a particle.

Ta, L.

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