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Dan Wells (Author of the Partials Sequence) Q&A Event--May 5-8th
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Jenny, Always smiling! :-D
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May 08, 2014 06:38AM
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Angela(demonsangel) wrote: "Maybe you'd consider adding all your books to Audible one day."With the exception of The Hollow City, which I'm working on, all of my books are in audio, and Audible has them all. Rejoice!
18. Harlee-- I would like to ask if the little girl in your profile picture is yours? She's adorable and I love her outfit! :)Thanks! That is my third child--two years old when that photo was taken, seven and a half today. For a long time we had a photoshop of that image on our fridge, so it looked like she was flying in her little supergirl outfit. It was awesome.
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What does your typical day look like, Dan?
19. Tommy--If you could credit only one writer, from any media, as your biggest writing inspiration, who would you pick?A. A. Milne, the guy who wrote Winnie the Pooh--not because I aspire to write like him, but because he was the author who convinced me, as a child, that writing was awesome. More so than Winnie the Pooh, my favorite of his books was the Christopher Robin poem collection, which I love to this day. I read that book until it fell apart, and then I read another one until it fell apart, and today I'm working on a third copy.
I love these poems because they're so fun--when you read them you can tell he was having the time of his life when he wrote them, because he wasn't just "writing stuff down," he was playing with words. Watching the way he combined different words in different orders to make the poem happy or bouncy or silly or sad, I knew right that this is what I waned to do with my life. I wanted to play with words. So here I am :)
20. Karen--Do you have any favorite fan moments?My first standalone book, The Hollow City, is a thriller about a man with schizophrenia, struggling to figure out what was real and what wasn't. At a book event in Salt Lake City a reader came up to me and told me that this book had changed her life: her mother had schizophrenia, undiagnosed for most of her life, and this poor girl had grown up in a living hell because of it. Her mother was erratic and impossible to understand and sometimes even dangerous, and she blamed her mother for everything bad that ever happened to their family. Reading my book, she said, was the first time she'd ever seen things from a schizophrenic point of view, and the experienced helped her to understand and ultimately forgive her mother. That was, hands down, the best review I've gotten, and a story I'll treasure for the rest of my life.
HERE THAR BE SPOILERS21. Jen--I know you covered this somewhat in the other forum, but I would love to know how the strange creature guy scientist was able to fix the weather. Also, if weather was his specialty, then how did he end up playing around with DNA enough to transform himself into that strange creature?
That was Jerry, a gifted genius who specialized in genetic engineering, but who loved to branch out to every other field that interested him. He had very poor social skills, and was fairly far along the autistic spectrum. He helped to design the Partials, and RM, and everything else ParaGen worked on, but when everything went wrong and the world fell apart, he dedicated himself to trying to save the world, starting with the burning city of Houston. He was able to use a ParaGen lab in Houston to start modifying his own DNA, helping him to survive the toxic air down there, which eventually turned him into a giant, thick-skinned monster. The more he studied the environment, and the ecological science required to fix it, the more he realized that he had to start by undoing the damage to the atmosphere that had altered the climate and destroyed Winter. The exact details of what he had to do are beyond my own comprehension, but consider The Preserve in Denver as a good example of how genetics can be used to alter the environment: you have too much poison in the soil? Then create a bug that eats poison. You have a lot of radiation in the atmosphere? Then create a bird or an insect that can absorb this radiation and convert it into something else. With insects and worms and even microbes in the clouds (did you know clouds have microbe colonies in them? They do!), Jerry was slowly able to tweak the conditions of the environment, finally resulting in a cascade effect that dropped the temperature and brought back the snow. That storm is going to last several more months, but after a year or two the climate will normalize again, and Earth will be on the same old seasonal schedule we know today.
22. JP--Do you have any advice for aspiring writers that don't know how to get started?The number one most important thing I can tell you is to listen to my podcast, Writing Excuses, which I do with three other authors: Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler. It's 15-20 minutes a week, designed specifically for aspiring writers, and we cover everything from plot and dialogue to how to talk to agents and editors. There's nothing I could say here that I haven't already said better and more completely there, and it's totally free and all five years or so are available online. If you're a writer, or simply just want to be, definitely check it out.
23. JP--Also, what were your favorite books growing up? Dune, by Frank Herbert
The Christopher Robin Poems, by A. A. Milne
The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
The Sword Series, by Fred Saberhagen
The Pern series, by Anne McCaffrey
The Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander
These are the books I read and reread as a child. You'll notice that most of them are fantasy, which is why I used to think I was going to be a fantasy writer, but when I finally got published it was horror and SF. I do have a fantasy novella out now, though, called the Butcher of Khardov, which is especially cool because it just got nominated for a Hugo Award.
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Dune, by Frank Herbert
The Christopher Robin Poems, by A. A. Milne
The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
The Sword Series, by Fred Saberhag..."
Holy schnikes... No wonder I love your writing!! Dune, Lord of the Rings, PERN!!?? I read those books to death (still do) and had to purchase new copies to replace my old worn out copies!!
24. Meghan--The poem Marcus recites for the burial of Maija and Rob. Did you write it or was it a piece of poetry by someone else? It's really beautiful and perfect in the moment.That's an English poem called "Death Be Not Proud," by John Donne, written around 1610. I love poetry, and I include some in my books whenever I can get away with it. This one was funny because Marcus misquotes it, and I did that on purpose, and all the copy editors kept trying to fix it and I'd have to go back and say 'no, I want him to screw it up, just leave it how it is."
Here's the full text, because it's amazing:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more, death thou shalt die!
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My first standalone book, The Hollow City, is a thriller about a man with schizophrenia, struggling to figure out what was real and what wasn't. At..."
Such an inspirational story!!
25. Jenny--I thought I'd ask you this hypothetical question, since Partials is all about saving what's left of humanity. Is humanity worth saving, and if so, why?That's the big question, isn't it? Kira and Tovar in particular are big on this point, insisting that they won't go to 'immoral' lengths to save the human race because the human race needs to stay good enough to be worth saving. It's a very idealistic point of view.
More practically, the human race is inherently worth saving, when seen from a human perspective, because our entire concept of worth must be, by necessity, filtered through our own capacity to experience it. If no human is around to see what comes next, then there was no value gained by failing to survive. It's a weird, reflexive question, that we can only really consider properly when put up against an alternative perspective: if, for example, the Partials could have survived without the humans, would it have been better in the long run for the humans to just bow out gracefully and let the Partials take over?
My personal feelings, however tainted by my puny human brain, are that humans are amazing, glorious, wonderful things. Have you ever made a child laugh? That's such a stupid, cliched question, but seriously: have you? Have you ever comforted someone who was sad? Have you ever watched someone make a painful sacrifice, of time or possessions or even emotions, so that someone else could be happy? Those kinds of experiences make humanity worthy of every praise we can possibly heap upon it. Humans are stupid and selfish and flawed and terrible, but we're also wonderful and selfless and brilliant and stirring. Our very existence is a miracle.
Maybe a story could explain this better. One day my son came home from school without his coat, in the middle of the winter. It wasn't just cold outside, it was actively snowing. I asked him if he'd lost it, and he told me he'd given it to a kid in his class who didn't have one, because it made him sad to watch him shiver all through the first period, trying to warm up from his walk to school. That, right there, is all the justification humanity ever needs. We are capable of greatness, and those moments where we achieve it outshine every tragedy.
26. Karen--What does your typical day look like, Dan?I get up around 7:30, help get my kids off to school, then I crawl back in bed and check email/twitter/facebook on my phone for another half hour or so. Eventually I'll get up, eat, and get to work, usually around ten, which I do in a home office with a door that locks--that's very important with five kids in the house. I'll work until around 5:30 or 6, usually on some kind of video game rotation: two hours working, one hour playing, and so on, back and forth. I've found that if I don't play games, I get between 1500 and 200 words written on an average day. If I stop to play games, and rest my brain and recharge my creativity, I can do 4000 words a day easily.
5:30 or 6 I go downstairs and have dinner, then I play with kids and put them through the bath and get them to bed around 9pm (which is later than I'd like, but that's usually how it works out), after which I'll finish up a few quick things and then retreat to my bed, where I watch Hulu or Netflix for a few hours. Then I go to sleep around 1am.
Keep in mind that this is a "typical" day, and very few days are typical. Right now I'm trying to divide my writing time between two anthologies I'm helping to put together, which takes a TON Of time, include one anthology for my brother, Rob, who suffers from a bunch of mental illnesses (OCD, depression, and Severe Anxiety are the main ones). My friends and I are putting together an anthology of alternate versions of our stories, with the proceeds going to help pay off my brother's medical and tax debt. If you like my books, or books by Claudia Gray, Lauren Oliver, Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull, Bree Despain, Jessica Day George, Aprilynne Pike, or dozens of others, definitely check out the anthology. It's for a good cause, and you'll love the fiction in it: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/al...
Dan wrote: "24. Meghan--The poem Marcus recites for the burial of Maija and Rob. Did you write it or was it a piece of poetry by someone else? It's really beautiful and perfect in the moment.That's an Englis..."
Thanks! I like the rest of the poem, I'm gonna look it up :)
Dan wrote: "HERE THAR BE SPOILERS."Good golly gracious Dan. That is amazing! All that back story for one character who just happens to show up in the latter half of Ruins - briefly. Wow, wow, just wow. I am so impressed! Thanks, because it explains perfectly who he was and why he did what he did. I never got the whole why he turned into the thing part. Pretty ingenious! Turn yourself into your own hazmat suit, become the thing that will protect you. I'm thinking about that concept in terms of space travel - well, there's a whole 'nuther book you could write.
I had no idea that clouds had microbes in them, but that does make sense now that you say it. Like I said, amazing concept to bring in. Yet another thing that makes this series one of my top favs of all time.
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That's the big question, isn't it..."
I agree completely. I think you look at humanity very differently once you are a parent :)
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And thank you, Dan, for visiting us and letting us bombard you with questions! This was really fun :)
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Thanks for having me! It was awesome, and you were all wonderful to talk to. Thanks for reading the books, and here's to many more books in the future.
Thanks Dan it was so awesome having you !!! :)
Thank you Dan for participating in this awesome Q&A! I loved your answers and your books.
his Q&A was really interesting and has reminded me just how awesome the Partials series is! *runs off to get a copy of Ruins*
David Estes Fans and YA Book Lovers Unite!
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