Notes from ThiefCon (Summarized in Haste)

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

When I realized how many Sounisians were having technical difficulties, I grabbed a pen and paper and set to work making (imperfect) notes. Here they are!



Questions & Answers with MWT (attributed when able)

Q1 (FreeNarnian): To what extent do you plan ahead (outline) your stories vs. winging it?

MWT: She tells the story out loud to her husband, then sketches it out. Said this was the hardest part of the story-plotting. She acknowledged that every writer has a different process.

Q2 (FreeNarnian for whichever Sounisian asked it): Are some characters harder to write than others? Which ones?

MWT: Some characters have more immediate depth than others, while some are just placeholders. (Here she tantalizing mentioned something about the character she’s currently writing being one of the most involved/challenging so far?)

Q3 (Dee Cable): I've always wondered if there is any music that you associate with the books, Megan. Do you listen to music as you write?

MWT: Not while writing (she can’t hear her children) but sometimes on breaks. She’d be embarrassed to have you listen to her music (she mentioned ‘Little Mermaid’ and ‘Stayin’ Alive’.) She likes author Maggie Stiefvater’s playlists and wondered if Maggie would create one for the Queen’s Thief series.

Q4: Tell us about Norway.

MWT: Her kids like Norway. Food is expensive. She said that chicken is $10 a pound and beef is like $25 (or was it $30?) a pound for the really cruddy cheap ground beef (the kind where you wonder if it came from Chernobyl). They once flew to Dublin for hamburgers because it was actually cheaper than eating out in Norway.

Q5: What effect has the traveling had on your writing?

MWT: Writing goes well in Norway. She’s written some short stories. One is about a troll.

Q6 (Bookishbabe): Are any of the short stories set in Gen’s world?

MWT: Uncertainly, “…Nnoooo…”

Q7 (Bookishbabe): A question about how the short story “Thief” was published in a magazine (I can’t remember the exact question).

MWT: The magazine went out of business shortly afterward. She hopes it had nothing to do with her. She has the story up on her website, with the illustrations (permission of the artist).

Q8: Tell us about the curse you inherited?

MWT: (This one was answered vaguely… I can’t remember details, sorry! She mentioned a book by Rosemary Sutcliff – Sun Horse, Moon Horse? - that she loved. I’m not sure how it related to the question.

Q9 (FreeNarnian): What’s a story about Gen (and friends) that you’ll never write? (It was an odd question, I know…)

MWT: A story that would not further her purpose/ends for the series, one that has no beginning, middle and end. She sometimes thinks of Gen as a parent (as she herself is), and all the funny situations that entails. “What happened to your hand, Daddy?” “Don’t cross your mother.”…which would be entertaining, but not complete.

(We begged her for these stories anyway)

Q10 (Bookishbabe): Why the POV switch between books 1 and 2?

MWT: Because she wanted to explore the story from other characters’ perspectives, and because Gen is too unreliable a narrator for readers to believe his pain when told from his perspective. He complains a lot.

Q11 (Hazelwillow): My question is when did you realize that Gen was going to fall in love with Irene?

MWT: This was a great answer… it included something about Dite...unfortunately I don’t think my memory can do it justice! Someone please fill in for me here!

And I recall this question but can’t remember where in the order it went, so I put it last:

Q12(Dee Cable): Do you think we'll ever get the chance to learn more about Gen's Mom and the MoW? Or is theirs another story that will have to stay out of the books?

MWT: She knows a lot about their story, but doesn’t know just how much will be incorporated into future books.

*Phew* I’m only dipping my toe in here, so I hope everyone who was able to make it will help fill in the blanks. It was AWESOME. Many thanks to Bookishbabe for organizing it and a big round of applause for MWT!

Sounisians in attendance:

Bookishbabe
R. J. Anderson
FreeNarnian
bluejayfic
CrazedEddisian
Hazelwillow
kulai
Frith Te Aroha
Alex Nolan
RosaleeLuAnn
Octopirock
(hope I got everyone)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Awwww man! I wish I would have been able to be there...I want a transcript....

Puppeteergirl

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

The Rosemary Sutcliff thing was in reference to a Travel Curse. She related a story of renting a car in England (and bravely driving on the left side of the road even though it terrified her) because she wanted so badly to see the White Horse of Uffington (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse) as mentioned in the Sutcliff book, and how grateful she was for the SatNav that helped her get there. Until it unexpectedly quit on the way back, and left her stranded.

Also, the remark about Dite was in the context of how Gen thought Dite was a useless fop and his crush on Attolia was hilarious until he suddenly realized he was totally jealous of Dite (?) and thus realized he, Gen, was in love with Attolia. At least I think that's the gist of it, because I missed the beginning. But the point was, I think, that MWT didn't realize until a certain point in actually writing QoT (?) that Gen was in love with Irene. But she hastened to add that she had never planned for Gen to be in love with anybody but Irene, either.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Oh, and re the music, she said that music from "The Little Mermaid" was actually a lot less embarrassing than the music she associates with the books. She doesn't listen to music WHILE writing, but sometimes she takes a thinking break and listens to music then. She mentioned the theme from the Inspector Morse TV series:



But she also confessed that a lot of her books are associated in her mind with really embarrassing things like "70's Bee Gees' music" and she specifically mentioned "Stayin' Alive", which was hilarious. ("Oh, oh, oh, Gen's stayin' alive, stayin' alive...")

I think somebody needs to take pity on MWT and make her an Awesome and Inspiring Playlist. :)

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!!!!!! I tried for like 45 minutes to get in but was obviously unsuccessful. I was hoping someone would take notes. I hate I missed it but am happy with this information.

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Anytime. I only wish I'd been better prepared to take notes in more detail for y'all. Alas!

[shelver506.livejournal.com]

I'm so, so, so, so, so very sorry I missed the conference. I would've given anything to make it.

I think of the things mentioned, my favorite point is the one MWT makes about the change in viewpoint. In light of Gen's unreliability and his propensity to complain, changing to third person was a brilliant move. It wouldn't have hit me as hard to hear what he went through if Gen himself had been telling the story. But to hear it told objectively from an outside viewpoint... woof, what an impact!

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she said something along the lines of this: Generally if the pov character is hurt and keeps going he's denying his pain to get something done, and Gen isn't big on denying his pain. and if someone complains about how much pain they're in, no one feels as sorry for them.
Which is totally true.

[tearoha.livejournal.com]

She also mentioned that in QoA, she wanted to bring in events happening to other characters, and so leaving it in first person would lead to soe pretty contrived circumstancces in which the narrator would always have to be miraculously in the right place at the right time to observe events for the hapless reader. So third person it was.

Hapless reader is my words, not MWT's. Thank goodness for the edit button.

[shaylee-ann.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting that! It's nice to still be able to know what you talked about, even though I couldn't watch. :-)

[drashizu.livejournal.com]

Wow thank you! I'm really sad I missed this. I hope all you Sounisians who attended had fun! But with MWT in the house, that's kind of a given.

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

The only thing I remember that you missed is that she knew Gen was fascinated with Irene back when she was writing The Thief. Which is not at all the same thing as love, of course.

I'm really glad I managed to do this. Even though it's a little unfair that a newbie like me was there and so many other people could make it.

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! And realizing that she never intended for Gen to fall in love with anyone else. Put that together with his fascination and what do ya get...?

[inkasrain.livejournal.com]

I dearly wish I could have come! Glad you all had the chance to participate though, it seems like a grand time! And it's okay, because someday Megan will come to New York and I shall bring her cookies.

(That last was me bellowing in faith to a universe increasingly hard-of-hearing.)

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

Wow! It sounds like everyone had a great time! Good job, bookishbabe! You rock socks! I didn't get to come because I was getting my hairs cut and voting and grocery shopping and such. (Yeah, Frith, the Brits haven't taken over, yet, so I'm giving voting another shot. But I'm studying up on the English language in the meantime. Who knew English had so many big words??!!)

Thanks for the write up, freenarnian! (and rj and kulai and bluejayfic...also welcome, bluejayfic!)

[tearoha.livejournal.com]

Hey hey, we're both ex-colonials here! My exotic foreign-ness got MWT to stay, hmm, maybe 30 seconds longer, so I count it as gain to the world in general.

[crazededdisian.livejournal.com]

And then we decided there should be a version of the series specifically for Sounis, with extras and tidbits and fun stuff like that.

We should do this more often.

[kulai-raito.livejournal.com]

...and she asked were our pockets emptied from having to buy the paperbacks for the extras, whether we enjoy having the extras which we all said: yes and were all screaming in our heads (while some said) to please add more extras, though i suspect probably everyones top extra would be the queens wedding night..
Then there was something about pitchforks ...

[tearoha.livejournal.com]

I only managed to turn up for the very end of the chat, so I don't really have more to add! Except, except, that MWT also said (at some point) that Attolia kept switching between blonde and black hair in her mind until the third draft of QoA. I just cannot imagine Attolia with blonde hair. Cannot. Why this is the only thing that stuck in my mind while I missed most of the explanation of Why Gen and Attolia, I do not know. Come on, brain!

And fervent thanks to bookishbabe, freenarnian, et al!

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Oh! I must add you to the list! I was afraid I'd missed a few names.

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Q2 (FreeNarnian for whichever Sounisian asked it): Are some characters harder to write than others? Which ones?

MWT: Some characters have more immediate depth than others, while some are just placeholders. (Here she tantalizing mentioned something about the character she’s currently writing being one of the most involved/challenging so far?)

I'm almost positive she was referring to the POV character for the next book in the series, and I keep asking myself how I could have milked that answer for more details. I'm dying to know if the next book will be narrated by a new or an existing character!

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, man! I was languishing in bed with some horrible infection, (& actually wondering how Gen ever managed to get so much sneaky stuff done with great gaping holes in his side, etc...) and I missed the whole thing!

Thank you so much for the notes -- awesome!

And now I will crawl back to bed...

I wonder where Megan & family ate in Dublin?

Megan, if you ever get to Galway, and you like Fish & Chips, McDonnagh's is the place to go.

Goodnight, everybody!

~deirdrej

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Aw. Hope you're fighting fit again soon!

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

Details that stuck with me...

Q1 In terms of process, some writers make more of an outline than others. On the other end of the spectrum are people who only make things up as they're writing, and end up with lots of stuff that they never use (I remembered this because that's me, gosh darn it). Apparently Diana Wynne Jones didn't plan, and as a result when she had to leave off writing one of her novels (don't remember which one --something to do with glass in the title maybe?) for major event like surgery, she completely forgot where she was going with it when she got back. So she put it in a drawer, and ages later went back and made up an ending for it again. MWT said we'll never know whether that was the second half she had originally planned or not.

Q2 She said that Gen's personality came to her quickly. The character she's currently writing is requiring more work to get at their depths? (Something like that. I think the character was a "he")

Q3 I believe she said she doesn't listen to music because she "can't hear anything when writing," not even her children (to their peril, she said!). (Aka she just doesn't hear when she's busy writing, I think, not "can't bear to hear"... my sentence wasn't very clear there). But sometimes she takes breaks and listens to things then, but they may have more to do with energizing her or such, rather than specifically inspiring what she's writing.

Q11 She described how when she was writing The Thief she knew Gen was "fascinated" with Irene. Then she imagines that he went back to watch her, and how he thought it was hilarious that she was so oblivious to Dite who was such a fop, until he realized it actually hurt because he loved her himself. My impression was that MWT's process of discovery of Gen's feelings was similar to that or that it came through following that storyline, but I may be putting words in her mouth here. She drew a parallel to this, but ultimately said the specific answer was "I don't know" (exactly how it came to her).

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

I also got the impression that the character was a 'he'. SO, a 'he' we've heard of (the magus? Kamet? Ion 1 or Ion 2? Philologos? I have a slight crush on Philologos and I'm not sure why...) or someone new? *wiggles with suspense*

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

Well, MWT unintentionally answered the question I didn't ask for fear of getting a not telling - Are we ever going to see little Gens and Irenes? I guess the answer is no. *pouts*

Thanks to everyone for the report! I hope y'all had fun ;)

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think it was a definite "No". The point she was making is that in the course of her own real-life parenting she thinks up a bunch of funny little stories she could tell (Gen being a parent/explaining what happened to his hand was an example she used) but that these stories aren't necessary to the end she's pursuing. Does that make sense? In other words, royal offspring *could* still make an appearance so long as it serves a purpose beyond having fun. So let's not give up hope just yet!

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

I wasn't exactly present in the discussion, I only managed to get in after it was all over.

We SO need to do this again.

[elle-winters.livejournal.com]

ARGH i cant believe i missed this!

Also---mwt refers to herself in THIRD PERSON?!

I think we have a new trend on our hands sounis!

Elle is feeling quite frighteningly excited about this.

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Alas, no. I referred to her in 3rd person as I summarized her answers. But it would be an amusing trend!

[elvenjaneite.livejournal.com]

I have to confess that I completely blanked out on this, which is tragic1 Thank you so much for summarizing.

"What happened to your hand, Daddy?” “Don’t cross your mother.”…
*dies laughing*

[lizzyazula.livejournal.com]

It actually hurts me (physically) knowing I missed this whole thing. I'm super glad everyone is posting everything they remember, because I'm stalking all the posts.

Also, on a random note, I'm really enjoying everyone's icons these days...I'm seeing P&P and Downton Abbey, and all my favorite quotes from the books. Good stuff.