It always sounds like a cop-out to say so, but I never intended any of this to be taken literally. My stubbornness about equating “Worm” and “Word” and “Weird” and “Wuerd” (I don’t know how to make this software do umlauts) was never meant to imply that those things are all identical. They are all thematically/morally/symbolically/archetypally relevant to each other; conceptually interwoven. But that doesn’t mean the physical or practical manifestations of those ideas are interchangeable. So: any relationship of relevance or meaning that exists between the Elohim and the Worm does NOT entail a relationship between the tangible Elohim and any mundane offspring which the Worm may (or may not) have produced in its slumbers. If “Word” has Biblical resonances, however, that’s no accident. (03/03/2009)

“Why on earth didn't Foul's Raver just destroy all of that stuff?” Because you never know what’s going to come in handy? (At one time, LF got a lot of mileage out of the Staff of Law.) Because maintaining the illusion of beneficence is important to the Clave’s show of moral authority? Because Vain was formed by UR-VILES? (How can any purpose of theirs *not* serve the Despiser?) Because even if Vain does not serve the Despiser, he can sure mess with the Elohim; who can sure mess with Covenant and Linden? Because it’s no fair asking people like the Clave to justify their decisions when *you* know how those decisions are going to turn out and *they* don’t? Because maybe it’s just inherently TOXIC to a Raver to handle (never mind destroy) “all of that stuff”? Personally, I think that destroying the contents of the Aumbrie is just too obviously EVIL for an organization that evolved from the Council of Lords, claims moral authority over the Land, and still has true believers (Memla) among its members. As for your other question: I guess “person” doesn’t mean “sentient being”. In one form or another, the Viles, the Demondim, and the ur-viles all joined up with LF for their own reasons. So did the Cavewights. But where human beings are concerned, many seem eager to do LF’s dirty work (e.g. decimate the One Forest, wage war against Berek)--as long as they don’t know (or don’t care) that’s what they’re doing. One possible exception is Kasreyn of the Gyre. (03/03/2009)

It sure seems obvious, now that you point it out. But it didn’t cross my mind while I was actually working on “Daughter of Regals”. And I can’t pretend that I was unaware of Plato, since studying “The Republic” was mandatory where I went to college. So I guess I have to call this yet another “unconscious influence”. In this case, I do so with some chagrin because in retrospect your point seems SO obvious. How could I have missed it? <sigh> (03/03/2009)

<sigh> I suppose it’s always a mistake for me to say things as if I really mean them, even though I really *do* mean them. Your question is a good example. The answer is so screamingly self-evident to me that, that…well, that I can’t figure out how to put it into words. I’m too busy gasping in shock. But, trying not to tear my hair, or beat my forehead on the table…. Maybe this will work. Sure, every story requires characters, settings, and events/conflicts. But the characters are what make the settings and events interesting and meaningful. Without the essential passions of characters, settings rapidly devolve into mere scenery, and events/conflicts soon become empty activity. When character becomes subordinate or subservient to setting or event, the result is reliably trivial. That’s theory. In practice, I’ve read plenty of books--historicals and westerns as well as sf and fantasy--that place setting above character; and each and every one of them was junk. I’ve also read plenty of books--thrillers and mysteries as well as sf and fantasy--that place events above character; and each and every one of *them* was junk (although it is true that activity is usually more interesting to watch than scenery). Think I’m wrong? Show me. Before you try, however, I will admit that in the VERY BEST stories, character, setting, and event (not to mention narrative voice) show a remarkable tendency to become indistinguishable from each other. (03/03/2009)

Sometimes I really ought to just keep my mouth shut. 1) In today’s publishing world, editors aren’t “assigned”. They simply have every book in the known universe dumped on their heads. They can hardly be blamed for being hasty--or ill-prepared. 2) The woman who bought TLCOTC for Putnams moved to a different publisher soon after working on “Runes”. She is no longer involved, so it seems churlish to critique her. But it’s worse than that because 3) she bought TLCOTC after three other publishers said--in so many words--“No, thanks. Donaldson is a has-been.” Admittedly, my circumstances made gratitude problematic. But the editor we’re talking about certainly *deserved* some. Yet it’s even worse than *that* because 4) she was my editor for all five of the GAP books, and in those days she was *the* ideal editor, a perfect example of John Irving’s observation. Back then, I was in author/editor Heaven for the first and only time in my writing life. (Which in fact explains some of my dismay regarding “Runes”. I was expecting a return to author/editor Heaven: instead I found myself in Purgatory. She had changed *so* much….) I really should not have complained about her in public. My dealings with my current editors are certainly congenial. Their involvement improves the quality of my books. And they don’t try to micro-manage my chosen style of prose. But their involvement is necessarily brief: by the time they’ve sent me a 2-page letter (Lester del Rey used to send me 20-page letters), they’ve fallen a week behind with their other duties. And I’m inclined to think that they’re *too* respectful. When they’re really unhappy about something, they don’t tell me: they tell my agent. As a result, I wouldn’t describe our dealings as “creative”. In any case, my contract assures that I get the final say about every detail of my text. (I may have to work for it, but I get it.) Lester arrogated that right to himself: no modern editor of my acquaintance would do so. On the other hand, the same contract assures that my publishers have the final say about whether or not the book gets published. I can’t afford to forget that fact. (03/03/2009)

Some people wonder why all of my READERS haven’t already slit their wrists. An editor once expressed the forlorn wish that at least *one* of my characters had a “can-do” attitude. I asked, “Seriously, can you *imagine* a Donaldson character with a ‘can-do’ attitude?” The editor, even more forlornly, admitted, “No.” Asking me how I keep myself motivated is essentially the same thing as asking me why I write what I write; why I write these kinds of stories and not others; why my mind and imagination work the way they do. But I have no real answer for you. When Ross MacDonald (if memory serves) was asked why he wrote mystery novels instead of “serious” literature, he replied that the form and requirements of the mystery were what made writing *possible* for him. One of Stephen King’s many answers to the question, why do you write what you do, was, “What makes you think I have a choice?” Both of those responses make sense to me. Both also seem inadequate; but I can’t put my finger on where the inadequacy (if any) lies. I’ll just say this: I write what I know. And if what I write discomfits you, maybe--I’m only speculating here--that’s because I write what *you* know, too. (03/03/2009)

It’s difficult to draw valid comparisons between (I know this is a crude oversimplification, but bear with me) physical and mental skills. Assume for the purposes of discussion by analogy that both playing the violin and writing fiction require the exercise of muscles; the training of muscle-memory. Nevertheless playing the violin depends largely on *external* muscles. You can count how many hours a student spends practicing because you can (to a significant degree) see and hear them practice. Not so with writing. Sure, you might conceivably be able to read a given writer’s “practice” work; but that work, no matter how substantial, represents only a tiny portion of the effort the writer put into it. In effect, the only thing you can observe in any external sense is the typing. So. What I call my “journeyman” work certainly totals less than 1000 pages of fiction. It probably totals less than 800 pages. But that does NOT provide a meaningful comparison with the “virtuoso violinist” you mentioned. In any case, “mastery” is an elusive concept. In a very real sense, the more you know, the more aware of your own ignorance you become. I suspect that if your goal is “to become a master at something,” you’ll never get there. Just my personal opinion, of course: I don’t know you. But I strongly suspect that this is one of those subjects where “You can’t get there from here. You have to go somewhere else and start.” Mastery, I believe, is something that happens as if by accident along the way to something else. God knows *I’ve* never “mastered” anything. Putting it another way: mastery is a process, not an objective. I’ll be astonished if the virtuoso violinist doesn’t agree with me. (03/03/2009)

I’ve discussed the circumstances under which I write short fiction elsewhere. And I’m sure I’ve explained before that I have a one-track mind. No matter when or how ideas for stories occur to me, I can only think about and write one at a time; so the others simply have to wait their turn. If one of those ideas for stories happens to take 10 or 12 years, so be it: the others still have to wait their turn. Many years ago, I *once* made the mistake of interrupting a novel (the GAP books) to write a shorter story (“The Woman Who Loved Pigs”). Doing so did severe damage to the novel, and I’ll never make that mistake again. (Meanwhile, thank God for rewriting! Many many MANY hours were required to undo the damage in question; but I believe I finally succeeded.) Other than that: it’s a curious fact (one which I cannot explain) that I was unable to write an effective short story until after I written a viable novel. But one day after I was done with the first “Covenant” trilogy, I suddenly thought: Oh, *now* I get it! A short story is just a novel with fewer characters and less background. Sounds silly, I know; but that recognition made shorter fiction possible for me for the first time. Until then, in shorter fiction I had consistently tried (and failed) to write something so fundamentally “different” than a novel that I couldn’t make sense out of it. (03/03/2009)

If you want to think in Biblical terms (which are not necessarily relevant to "The Chronicles"), the hairs are already split. The New Testament does posit two different *kinds* of resurrection: the Lazarus example, where a dead person is restored to ordinary physical life (including ordinary physical mortality), and the Armaggedon/Judgment Day "final" example, where the redeemed ascend unto Heaven as immortal souls with immortal bodies. Hollian's resurrection obviously follows the Lazarus model. Whether or not anyone in this story will ever follow the other model remains to be seen. (03/04/2009)

I find your message very distressing. It has never been my intention to discourage anyone else's creativity. Quite the contrary. In my view, if you believe in what you're doing, you should do everything in your power to pursue it. Sure, getting something you've written into print is hard. Anyone who says otherwise does you a disservice. But so what? Everything in life that's really worth doing is hard. And as I've said many times, in the GI and elsewhere, "More things are wrought by stubbornness than this world dreams of." In fact, I'm the Poster Boy for people who succeed when the odds are stacked dramatically against them. A massive epic fantasy about despair and LEPROSY? Which was rejected 47 times (including by every fiction publisher then in the US)? How can *that* turn out well? But it did. I like to say that we live in a *possible* world. Everyone can tell you horror stories. On any subject. But good things happen too. As with everything else in life, there are more practical and less practical ways to go about trying to break into publishing. Much of the advice on my site deals with being practical. Being practical is more likely to succeed than being impractical. But there's a side to modern publishing that I probably haven't talked about. Because of the relentless, uncaring pressure for profit that megacorporations put on struggling editors, it is frequently *easier* for a complete unknown to get published than it is for an established "mid-list" author who has consistently not delivered the scale of profit demanded by the megacorps. With a complete unknown, the editor can think, "Ah HA! Here's my chance for a breakout book." But with an established mid-list author, the editor is more likely to think, "I sure like this writer's work, but he/she has already spent 10 years proving that she/he will never produce a breakout book. I have a better chance of appeasing the megacorp with a complete unknown." Here's the cold truth. If you give up, you guarantee failure--and have no one but yourself to blame. If you *don't* give up, you at least keep the door open--and who knows? something good may walk in. (03/04/2009)

I have no desire to discuss my personal life, opinions, and experiences in the Gradual Interview. As I've said before, if you include an email address with your message, you will probably get a (brief) personal reply. You may even get an answer to one or more of your questions. But I'm not going to use the GI for such things. (03/04/2009)

SPOILER WARNING!

This question has been hidden since it is listed in the following categories:

Spoilers - Fatal Revenant

To view this post, click here.

You can choose to bypass this warning in the future, and always have spoilers visible, by changing your preferences in the Options screen.

[Heavily pruned to conserve space and privacy.] Here's another message which would have received a personal reply if you had posted an email address. Naturally I'm grateful for your good opinion. But the Gradual Interview is already absurdly long. And I've already commented at length on LOTR. (03/04/2009)

As I'm forced to say on so many subjects, it ain't up to me. My publishers own those rights. And from a publisher's perspective, these books just don't sell well enough to justify the expense of illustrated editions. (03/11/2009)

I’m not sure what to say. I don’t think of Lena as “delusional” (although in some sense she obviously is) because I don’t use words like that when I think about her. And I don’t think of Elena as “delusional” at all. I suppose, if we have to label her, we might say she suffers from a neurosis, a kind of perceptual blind-spot which doesn’t interfere with her ability to function supremely well in every other area of her life. But it’s important to remember that most (all?) neuroses are simply survival-skills which have outlived their usefulness. Weaknesses are strengths misapplied, just as strengths are weaknesses appropriately used. At one time in her life (her childhood), Elena’s blind-spot enabled her to emerge with far fewer scars than she might otherwise have borne. For that, she and everyone around her ought to be proud of her. Such blind-spots/neuroses only become problems if they aren’t unlearned when they’re no longer needed. By my reasoning, if Elena fits your definition of “delusional,” then I’m at the top of your list. In any case, the power of hearing “that it wasn’t her fault” doesn’t come from the words: it comes from the *hearing*. I doubt that Lena would ever have been able to *hear* what those words mean. I’m confident that Elena would have dismissed them as utterly irrelevant. (03/19/2009)

????? Some questions are hard to answer because the answers are too obvious. (E.g. “Why do you write in words?”) “Fist” because the Haruchai have a martial culture with a strict martial code. The point of combat is to demonstrate ability, commitment, and rectitude, not to kill or otherwise eliminate opposition. Hence the ban on weapons: weapons make killing too easy. (And hence the emphasis in many martial arts on “perfection of character” rather than on victory or defeat.) “Faith” as in “keeping the faith,” remaining faithful to oneself and one’s commitments against any and all adversity. “Fist and faith”: prowess and fidelity. But I can’t help feeling that all of this is explained much better in the text. (03/19/2009)

OhmiGod! You want to ADD to the complexity? Does it not occur to you that we’re already drowning in the stuff? And if you aren’t, *I* certainly am? But seriously…. Maybe you should get a life? (No, stop: bad Steve. Pull yourself together.) OK, *this* time I’m serious. Honest. Obviously you’re right--at least in theory. The more dimensions/complexities I can add to my characters, the more real or human or believable they may become. But in practice the theory can easily become an illusion. The *real* reason you want to know more about the Haruchai is that I’ve succeeded at sparking your imagination. So how did I do that? By describing them literally (in any amount of detail)? Or by describing them enigmatically? By *suggesting* who and what they are rather than by definining (and thereby limiting) every conceivable dimension of their lives? The creation of characters in storytelling is always a tricky balancing-act. Too much information (or the wrong kind of information) clogs the reader’s imagination. Too little information (or information that’s too static) gives the reader’s imagination nothing to work with. In both cases, the characters stubbornly refuse to come to life. So when I put it that way, your interest in--say--Haruchai women does *not* seem odd to me (except in the sense that I always consider it odd when I succeed at what I’m trying to do <rueful smile>). At the same time, however, it certainly doesn’t inspire me to fill in any of the gaps. Instead your interest demonstrates that I’ve already said enough on the subject. (03/19/2009)

SPOILER WARNING!

This question has been hidden since it is listed in the following categories:

Spoilers - Fatal Revenant
Spoilers - The Runes of the Earth

To view this post, click here.

You can choose to bypass this warning in the future, and always have spoilers visible, by changing your preferences in the Options screen.

1. My stories never change after the first draft. And I mean *never*--at least 95% of the time. Once I’ve determined the order and nature of events, I do not change my conception. (Except on occasions so rare that I can’t remember any.) In that sense, the story is set in stone after the first draft. No matter how strenuously my editors object. Nevertheless I rewrite a *lot*. And I can tell you without hesitation that the single most rewritten facet of my first drafts is always the dialogue. Always. I may not change the lift of an eye or the twitch of a finger; but I frequently change every single word that every character says in a particular scene. (Or not: the problems come and go.) In my first drafts, I really flounder to express what my characters need to say. Because--duh--I’m still getting to know them in their new circumstances. So obviously the *second* most rewritten facet of my first drafts is the interior description: who’s feeling what why when--and how often have I already said the same things? (Or contradictory things.) In that respect, my rewrites are often *very* different than my first drafts. 2. It’s probably fair to say that I never dream about the worlds or characters of my stories. On one--and only one--occasion, I dreamed about writing the next day’s work; and the next day I did exactly what my dream told me: it felt more like taking dictation than actually writing. Other than that: nada. Dreaming plays absolutely no conscious role in my creative life. I’m very aware that my unconscious mind does a lot of my work for me while I’m asleep; but that work never takes the form of dreams. Once every mumblemumble years, my dreams shed some light on my personal life; but that’s an entirely different issue. (03/19/2009)

Saltheart Foamfollower (and then his time with Covenant between Andelain and Revelstone) is one of the VERY few occasions while writing when I felt that something was arriving in the story from outside the boundaries of my own imagination. (This is a fairly routine sensation where the ideas that inspire my stories are concerned. But it seldom occurs while I’m at work on the actual telling of the story.) One way to put it is that when Foamfollower came sailing up the Soulsease, I had planned what he would do in the story, and how he would contribute to the larger narrative; but I had never met him before. For me, he seemed to sail into the story from an entirely different dimension of reality (I mean “reality” as it applies to “character”). And my reaction was one of awe. Not, I hasten to add, Gee-I’m-great awe. It started as Gee-he’s-great-whoever-created-him-must-be-a-real-genius awe and moved quickly into Gee-this-is-why-people-write-so-they-can-experience-this-kind-of-miracle awe. I do live for those moments, rare though they are, when I somehow succeed at writing or creating better than I know how. So I’m not surprised that Foamfollower’s first appearance in the story has a special luminence for some readers. (03/22/2009)

For quite some time now, I’ve had a general idea of “where the story goes”. But I’m still effectively drawing a blank (God, what a gift for a phrase!) on “how the story gets there”. From time to time, ideas occur to me; but so far they’ve all rather quickly demonstrated themselves to be unworkable. I’m not worried about this. Eventually my unconscious mind will sort things out. Meanwhile I do have other things to keep me busy. (03/22/2009)

Life is change. We all change. Among other things, we’re all older now. I’m trying to do more difficult work than I’ve ever done before. And there are (far) more external demands on my time, energy, and attention than ever before. Naturally how I keep my focus has changed. Nevertheless some things remain the same. I keep notes in the same way that I always have. I start each day’s work by reviewing/revising the previous day’s work. I isolate myself by playing music loud enough to prevent the outside world from impinging on my senses. But in other ways.... I probably don’t make your distinction between “the mechanical aspect of keeping focus” and “the mental”. From my perspective (or perhaps I should say my perspective *today*, since I may think very differently tomorrow), the mechanical *is* the mental in the same way that the body *is* the brain. There is considerable evidence, I believe, that the brain inhabits the entire body, not just the skull (neurons everywhere, etc.). And as I get older, I find more and more reasons to suspect that the body “thinks”--not independently of the brain, perhaps, but as a facet of the brain with its own specialized functions. Well, assuming you accept any of that, I’m not sure I can explain how it applies to the question of keeping my focus. But I can tell you that if you were able to secretly observe me while I work (and if you can, just shoot me now!), you would see me approach and enter the physical act of writing in ways which are visibly different than they once were. Part of the difference is a side-effect of the fact that I care about different things (or I care about things differently) than I did years ago. Part of the difference is that I experience *way* more anxiety about writing now than I did when I was younger. (For reasons too personal and complicated to explain, I’m no longer able to simply trust that I *will* be able to write on any given day.) And a big part of the difference is that I’m MUCH more ADD than I once was (no doubt because there are so many more external demands on my time etc.), so naturally I need different coping skills to manage my ADD. You said there was no need for details, so I’ve probably already told you more than you wanted to hear.... (03/22/2009)

[posted for confirmation from an independent source] Thank you! (03/22/2009)

No, actually. a) I’m too busy coping with my present story. b) I’m too busy coping with my present *life*. And c) I’m too aware of all the things I *wish* I had thought of (most of them medical) to congratulate myself on the few things I *did* think of. Naturally, this doesn’t mean that I lack ego. It just means that my ego has been trained (mostly by my parents) to focus on different things. (03/22/2009)

Is it that time again already? It must be: I’ve just read several varients of the same question. Of course, you could just check the “news” page of the site periodically for updates. Or you could go to the “publications” page and click on either “The Runes of the Earth” or “Fatal Revenant”. That will take you to a page which includes the hoped-for publication dates for both “Against All Things Ending” and “The Last Dark”. (03/22/2009)

Who do you imagine I could possibly talk to? Seriously? Who do you think would accept a phone call from a mere novelist? (Never mind from a novelist who shudders at the mere idea of having his work taken over by a committee?) Let me remind you, however, that there is an active option on the GAP books (Fully Loaded Pictures). I don't doubt that the people involved have considered/are considering the tv idea. (03/22/2009)