MarsCon Q&A session--
Here's the link to the first of the videos, recoded and uploaded by Serack, it should be easy to find the subsequent ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKCc5tTpppM And here's my transcript of the interview--the segments correspond to Serack's videos.
Segment 1:
Jim: “....the model city of Tokyo and then he finally gets to strap on the Godzilla suit?” (Mimes stomping motions, to laughter from audience.) “Stomp on it, that’s what it felt like, it was great.”
Interviewer: Well, let’s talk about the biggest change….uhh, you cut your hair!”(Audience laughter)
Jim: “This is long compared to what I had, but I think, uh, in Side Jobs they put out the new photo, uh, which is with me with the, with the really, really short buzz cut. This is getting to where, uh, I don’t know, there’s a lot of maintenance on this hair-do. Uh, I’ve got to stick my head under the faucet and get it all wet and then do this (shakes his head quickly side-to-side, like a dog shaking off), and that seems like a lot of effort compared to the buzz cut.
Interviewer: All right, we, we started late because everybody in Virginia wanted Jim’s autograph, (laughter and applause from the audience) and everybody got it, so uh, we’ve been promised that we’ll get our full hour still. (Applause). So, we’re going to talk for a little bit, and then towards the end, we’re going to let you guys ask some questions. Um, let’s with start with what you finished, let’s talk about Alera for a little bit.Jim: Ok
Interviewer: The uh, how, how did it feel to wrap the series, you know, you been doing one for so long?
Jim: Uh, well, the Alera was about six books long, but, I mean, I, it was planned, I had planned it to be six books. Um, and, uh, to finally get it done, uh, you know, I got finished with it and I’m like, well, we’ve got all the, all the exciting story really closed out here and we know what’s going on and I could’ve done another fifty pages of, of kinda dull boring stuff. And I thought, who wants to talk, uh, road projects, yeah, it’s critically important to Alera, but you realize as far as readers go how exciting could that possibly be? Um, and the sort of political fallout after we’re all done with the giant war, it’s like ok, you know what, Star Wars, after the Death Star blows up, there’s exactly zero lines of dialogue and a minute, you know, maybe sixty seconds of movie. And so it’s like, ok, look, let’s just have people walk up, we’ll hang the medals on them, end of the series. And there’s, there’s…that’s not a bad way to end things. But, um, to finally finish it, I’m like going, “Oh, man, now I’m done with that. I still have ideas for characters and stuff, uh, so I’ll have to hijack them for other stories in the future.”
Interviewer: Do you think you’ll revisit Alera?Jim: It’s possible, it’s possible that I could. I had kind of one idea for a series of sort of misfit Cursors, uh, once Ehren takes over the Cursor Academy. Um, which would be a lot of fun, you know, to train the first Canim Cursor, and so on. Oh, my gosh, that would be a difficult thing to do.
Interviewer: You’ve apparently got an audience for it already, though.Jim: Yeah, I have an idea for that and then the other thing we might do is, is to head 150 years or so down the line, where Alera is a much steam-punkier place than it was before, and uh, about the time that it’s time to deal with the Vord that are still on the other continent. And then, you know, then the real trouble shows up, um, as opposed to the Vord being the real trouble.
Interviewer: Uh, last time I talked to you, you said that you had never had a really original idea; you described the influences that became Alera. So, tell these guys what they were, because it’s hystericalJim: Many moons ago, when I was young and had long hair, um, I was a part of the online writers workshop that Del Ray was running, something they were doing at the time. It was me and a bunch of wanna-be writers, we would be submitting material every couple of weeks, and critiquing each other’s material and of course discussing writing craft and how you go about writing. And there was this huge flame war discussion going on, uh, it was one of those “discussions” where you pretty much just hit the capslock key on your, and you hit “reply,” capslock, and then start typing. (Laughter) But, uh, there was a big discussion that was going on about story craft and about how you put together a story, and the, uh, the two sides of the discussion that were going on is that, uh, one side was holding up the idea of the sacred idea of a story, that if you have a good enough idea for a story, you can write it miserably and it will still do really, really well and it will be very popular, and they said look at Jurassic Park. (Laughter) That was their example, not mine. And then, the other side of the argument was, it’s all about…it’s not about originality of ideas, it’s about presentation, and that a good enough writer, uh, can take an old idea and give it his own spin and his own good presentation and write a compelling story out of it. And uh, you know, it’s like how many versions of Romeo and Juliet have we seen over the years? And everyone’s like ok. So the discussion ping-ponged back and forth and there was a couple loudmouths on each side sort of leasing the charge, and I was the loudmouth over here on the craft side, and there was another loudmouth over there on the, uh, ideas side. And, uh, finally, the guy says, ‘All right, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, let’s see you write a novel out of one of these terrible ideas.’ And, me being young and arrogant, I said, ‘No, you know what, why don’t you give me two terrible ideas; I’ll use ‘em both!’ Because I wasn’t gonna get one-upped by the guy, and, uh, I wasn’t too bright. And the guy said, ‘Ok, well, first terrible idea that I want you to use is lost Roman legion. I am sick of lost Roman legions, all the lost Roman legions should have been found by now. And Lost Rioman legion is the first terrible idea.’ I’m like, ‘Ok. Now I need number two.’ And he says, ‘Number two? Pokemon.’ (Audience laughter.). And I said, ‘All right.’ And, uh, that’s where Alera came from. Um, lost Roman legion, what happens to them? We’ll send them to the land of the Pokemon. And, um, and that’s how it got started. But if you ever go back and reread Furies of Calderon, and you get to the scene at the ford where they’re trying to get away from their, from pretty much the first serious fury fight that we see, and everybody’s calling up their furies, just, uh, saying to yourself, just, in your mind ahead of it, saying to yourself, ‘Brutus, I choose you.’ (Laughter) as you’re reading, and there it is. And after that it’s impossible to take the rest of the story seriously, but it’s funny.
Interviewer: So, how about gaming? What do you…Do you still have time for that?Jim: I don’t know, my schedule’s kinda busy until at least 5:30, and uh…Oh, you mean generally?
Interviewer: In general, yes.Jim: Generally. Uh, yes, our gaming group meets at our house every Friday that I’m in town. Um, and, lets see, we’ve been playing, uh, Dark Sun, we’ve been doing, we did fourth edition D&D, right now we’re secretly doing something I signed a non-disclosure agreement about, uh, because one of the, our GM is actually, is an editor for Watsi (sp?), uh, one of their freelance editors, so we get to, get to play test stuff. I got to play test fourth edition D&D, uh, before it came out and I had to sign all the “I won’t talk about it” papers and then I had to fill in, they wanted a review for it. I don’t know why they wanted a review, the books had already been printed at the time that they said the reviews were due, you know, they were already ready to go, so I filled out my review after I’d been playing fourth edition and I gave them a two word review for fourth edition, which was, “New Coke.” (Laughter) I’ve got to say, fourth edition D&D I mean, it is a great game, but it isn’t really Dungeons and Dragons, it’s some new game. But, uh, so we did that, we’ve done a little bit of Ravenloft play testing, and uh, we generally have a good time. Tuesday night is gaming night, but it’s computer gaming night, and that’s when I play City of Heroes. So, I’m the only guy who can legally play Harry Dresden on City of Heroes. (Laughter) Because you can’t violate copyright, except, it’s copywritten to me. So, uh, they’ve taken my name and costume away several times and I’ve had to go to the staff and say, ‘No, I’m, I actually am the owner of this copyright. I can play the character!’ I guess now there’s a note on my customer thing, so they’ll see it, because they haven’t taken my stuff away in a while. (Laughter)
Interviewer: Have you played the Harry Dresden role playing game?Jim: Oh, I have not played the Harry Dresden role playing game, (laughter) because, if you think about it, it’s impossible. Okay, if I’m the GM, (laughter) it’s just like work. If I’m the player, I’m the GM’s nightmare because I can say, ‘Yes, it is like that, and I’ll write it that way in the next book if I have to!’ (Laughter) But it seems like a lot of people are enjoying it, so that’s good, that’s good. I’m kind of out on this one, but that’s okay.
Segment 2
Interviewer: So, with Alera wrapped up, do you have plans for anything that’s not Dresden-related right now?Jim: Um, yeah, there’s a lot of things kicking around right now, uh, I’m, uh, I’ve got a really good…I was trying to outrun an electrical storm, uh, on the way home from a game at about 5:30 in the morning and I had a van full of sleeping kids who were, you know, who were just exhausted because we’d been playing the entire day before, uh, so, they’d been up, I’d been up for about 24 hours straight, I was really tired, I was playing, uh, some Nine Inch Nails album like really, really loud, one of the really heavy industrial ones, I think it was Pretty Hate Machine (?) and then I noticed, uh, an electrical storm coming, it was coming perpendicular to my course so, if I could get to the city fast enough, I could get ahead of it and I’m like going, ‘Oh, I could so make a steam punk book out of this situation.’ You know, imagine actually being in that. So I had a great idea for a steam punk world setting which, I mean, it would seem like fantasy but actually be science fiction sort of like the Alera books kinda seem like fantasy though really they’re built more like science fiction, and uh, but…That might be something I’d do next. I’ve got an actual science fiction science fiction series that’s got a little bit of space opera, called U.S. Marshals. I went to all this trouble to create this, uh, it’s 200 years in the future, and everybody who lives off the planet has seceded from Earth because they were tired of taxation without representation, you know, being a teeny, teeny, teeny minority of the number of people on the planet, and, uh, they form their own, you know, they kinda form their own conglomerate of a nation called the United System, and so I had to figure out 200 years of history just so I would be able to have characters named U.S. Marshals, (laughter), uh, and the Marshals are the only ones who know about the aliens. So, it’s sort of Men in Black meets X-Men on the Moon, 200 years in the future, uh, and it’d be a lot of fun. Actually, I’ve got fir...I’ve got half of the first one written and I stopped writing with my character having ejected from his ship in a decaying orbit over the Moon with a solar flare coming on, and he’s been there for like five years. Uh, you know, it was funny, though, writing up to like the hugest, most tensest, deadliest danger moment in the book and then just kind of leaving it there. I feel a little bit bad for doing that, uh, it’s bad enough that I kind of did it to the whole world at the end of Changes. Boom! Haha! (Laughter) And now it’s gonna be a year before you hear anything. Actually, it’s going to be longer than that, but we will deal with that in a second. (Assorted gasps and exclamations of “WHAT?!” from the audience)
Interviewer: So yeah, speaking of Changes, how many people here were ready to form a lynch mob? (Laughter)
Jim: Officers, here they are. (Points, to more laughter)
Interviewer: Did you get a lot of trouble from your editors about that?Jim: Uh, I…they were like, ‘What?! What, what, what are you doing?’ And I assured them that no, I’m not ending the series there, um, and they’re like, ‘But but but but but but but but but….,’ they sounded like that, and I said, ‘Okay,’ and I wrote the first three chapters of the next book and sent it to them, and they went, ‘Oh. OH!’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, come on. My kid’s just starting college, I’m not gonna…(laughter), I’m not gonna end the Dresden Files now!’ So, uh, and then once they had the idea of what Ghost Story was gonna be like and be about they, uh, it was much more, uh, they were much more amenable to it.
Interviewer: You had mentioned before that you saw the series going around 23 books or so?Jim: Yeah, the original plan was to have about 20 of the case books like we’ve had so far, and then a big old apocalyptic trilogy at the end, um, it’s taken me a little bit longer to do the story as I’d originally planned it, like, I think I’m about two books behind. On the other hand, I think it’s cool that book 13, you know, uh, I get to have my character being dead solving his own murder. But uh, still it’s going to be 20-ish books, depending on, uh, if the kid goes to doctoral school. (Laughter) I really hope he doesn’t want too much education, uh, goodness knows how long it could be.
Audience member: He could get two Ph.Ds! (Laughter)
Interviewer: Ah, so, that puts you at about the halfway point now?Jim: Yes.
Interviewer: And you have pretty much pulled out every stop in the book for the battle sequence on this one.
Jim: Ah, yeah, but now we can start the good stuff! (Laughter)
Interviewer: Do you worry that you’re going to have trouble stopping it?Jim: Um, actually, no, I mean, I kind of planned it out. We just started rolling and, uh, for what I’ve got in mind, you know, for the rest of the series, I kinda paced myself, in terms of…because I knew that was going to be an issue. You know, power escalation in a series is always something that is a big deal. Although Dresden’s superpowers as he’s growing in the books are mostly, ‘Gosh, I’m getting smarter, sneakier and more underhanded!’, it’s like, yeah, that’s really…that’s how it actually works in real life. But that’s, uh, so far I think we’re doing all…I think I’m on the right pace.
Interviewer: You’ve uh, through the whole series, you’ve always abused Harry.Jim: Abused? (Laughter) I’ve, okay, I mean, I guess some people might consider it abuse. (Points to audience member)…That’s just such a great prosthetic you’ve got for your hand as well, uh, just so you know. But I don’t abuse him. (Laughter)
Interviewer: Well, you haven’t been kind to him.Jim: (Sips his Coke) It’s not my job to be kind to him. (Laughter). That can be for the readers. My job is not, uh, to be kind.
Interviewer: Was there, uh, anything that you took away from him in the last book that was difficult for you to write? Or was it just fun?Jim: Uh, no. It was just fun. (Laughter) I swear, there are some authors who will kind of occasionally write themselves into the books, or give themselves…put a character into the books who more or less represents themselves, um, I don’t do that, but if I did, uh, Harry Dresden would punch me right in the nose. (Laughter) ‘You’re the guy who’s’…you know when Dresden goes, ‘It’s like someone up there just hates me and has it in for me’? That’s me. (Laughter). You know, but yeah, he’d pop me right in the nose if he could.
Interviewer: so do you want to talk about Ghost Story? Is there anything you can say about it?
Jim: Um, Ghost Story, uh, for me to get it done, in…it’s been a difficult story to write, on account of, um, normally Dresden can…I mean, if, um, I run into a problem when I’m writing it, I can just have Dresden kick down a door somewhere, and hat up and get tough. Being a ghost and all, he’s actually having to use his brain, um, which means that I’m actually having to use my brain, and that’s hard. (Laughter) So, it’s been a difficult story to write. If I wanted…if I’d finished it in time to come out on the April date, it would have been a very half-assed story, and I believe in full-assed stories, (Laughter) so in order to make sure the story has a complete ass, I had to ask for some more time to get it done, so it’s going to be out in July instead of April. (Audience expresses its despair) Fine! I’ll just stop writing it at all! I will go home…(makes a sulky/pouty expression)
Interviewer: You’ll get it in July. You’ll be lucky.Jim: But yeah, I needed some more time to get it done, it was hard. Um, it’s been difficult to write it, but I think I’ve gotten over the…I’ve gotten over the roughest parts of the book, um, so, you know, my editors were panicking and everything, uh, they’re…they’ve got this thing they call a calendar, which they say is very important. (Laughter) I don’t know, but uh, so I said, ‘Okay, listen, we’re going to have to do it a different time’ and they’re like, uh, ‘Okay, end of July’, and I’m like, ‘Is there any chance that I’d be, you know, making a Comic-Con appearance as part of that?’ Because if I did, then they would pay for it, um, which I still find vital, for some reason. I’ve had some success, and I’m still used to being the poor college kid living in the little 20’x20’ rental house. In my head, that’s who I see myself as, and I know that’s not true any more, but gosh, it feels like it’s true. Uh, you k now, my wife still cuts out coupons. Uh, ‘We’ve got to get to the store today, before these coupons go!’ Uh, okay, then you kind of stop and think, ‘Do we?’ ‘Yes, coupons!’ ‘Right! Okay, here we go.’
