archive

October 2006

From the guestbook

Kate, in Europe, said: 

hello. I know this may seem irritating, but i still haven't recieved a newsletter. Do i re-sign up or wait a little longer?

No, it's not irritating at all. I have no way of knowing if the newsletter function didn't work unless subscribers tell me. Unfortunately I also have no idea why it worked for some subscribers and not others, but at least now I know I need to investigate!

Each time I've sent one out a few 'returned mail' emails have arrived in my inbox. These come whenever a subscriber email address isn't right or doesn't exist any more. If you email me to say you didn't get the newsletter, I can check your address against those bounced email notifications. If you don't... well, I can't notify you that the address you subscribed with is wrong if all I have is a wrong email address, can I?

Walter asked:

I am a big fan of fantasy novels at the moment, and i find your worlds particularly interesting, i love all of the details. When you write your books, do you create the world first and then base the book on it or vice versa?

The creation of character and world happens so closely that it is a near simultaneous occurance. Sometimes I get an idea for a character and immediately know the sort of world he or she needs to live in or encounter. Sometimes I think of a world - particularly a societal structure - and immediately know what sorts of characters in that world would have the best stories to tell.

Sometimes the world is the character, and the character is the world. But not very often, because it makes my brain hurt if I think about it too much!

Trudi's Three Methods of Naming Characters

I've been answering fanmail today. (The ones from before the end of May.) A question one reader asked gave me the idea to blog about how I come up with character names.

1) Usually when I’m writing down an idea, I just grab a name from something around me – a co-worker or book or whatever is showing on tv - and change the letters a bit. That’s how Sonea and Dannyl got their names.

2) Once I’ve started worldbuilding, I look at the names I’ve already created and decide on a naming conventions for different nationalities. Ever noticed that many women’s names in english speaking countries end in and ‘i’ sound? (Sally, Wendy, Kirsty.) I decide how many syllables and what sounds are favoured, for names of men and women of each nation. I can come up with lots of names following my 'rules'.

3) When that fails, I bang my head on the keyboard. Then twiddle with the letters, applying the naming conventions if I know what nationality the character is, and then change the first letter if I’ve already got lots of names starting with it.

Info Dump Newsletter #2

I just sent out my second newsletter. Well, I think I did. Or I might have sent it out a couple of times. Trouble is, Internet Explorer appeared to flunk out the first few times, and while it didn't on the last attempt, the confirmation page didn't appear.

I have received a few "The following addresses had permanent fatal errors" emails so it must have gone out to some subscribers (whose email addresses no longer exist). But the confirmation email that is supposed to come to me didn't arrive.

So... apologies to anyone who recieved it more than once... or not at all.

Prologue for Voice of the Gods

An hour or so of html-ing later, and we have the prologue of Voice of the Gods on the site here:

http://www.trudicanavan.com/aboutbooks.php?pg=books47

Introducing a new character, Ellareen Spinner, who, over the course of writing this book, looked me in the eye and said "If you think I'm going to just sit here and co-operate you better wise up. I have other plans. Not what you intended? Too bad. Just try to stop me."

It's here! It's here!

Look what arrived in the mail last week:

My advance copy of Voice of the Gods. Yipeeee!

This means the book (Australasian edition) is going to hit the stores within a month. And that means I can now publish the covers and first chapter on my site. So today I whipped myself into a frenzy of website updating.

I updated my bio and appearances page, added a few points to my writing advice page, added covers (including the german ones for BMT) and tidied the publication dates page (no exciting changes there, I'm afraid).

There's no first chapter of VotG yet. I had to email my publisher for a version that included all the corrections in the later stages of editing. It arrived just now so I'll have to convert it from a pdf file to a html file tomorrow.

Observation for the day: on the US cover of Voice of the Gods, Auraya is such a babe! Cor!

September fanmail

As part of my new system of dealing with fanmail, I said I would write a list of the people who contacted me during the month and answer unusual or particularly interesting or amusing questions. (Naturally, I won't be responding at all to rude or obnoxious emails.) Here is last month's list:

Aleksandar – wants me to finish the sequel before 2007. Not unless you can build me a time machine, Alek!
Anja – hey, that’s a great name for a fantasy character. Anja, the answer to your hopes is on the FAQ page.
Anna – read the BMT in two days. OMG!
Annika from Hessen, Germany – Most of your questions are answered on the site. Sonea and her son are, indeed, both main characters in the sequel
Bianca – hmm, have I ‘got over’ hearing how much my work is appreciated? Let me think… Nope!
Carles – glad to have kept you entertained in those 3 hour train journeys. And no need to apologise for your english – it’s better than some emails that I get from english speakers!
Catherine from Hedge End, Southampton, UK – awww! Thanks.
Catrin – who was the other contender? Who has the third blood ring? That would be telling.
Chris from Hampshire, England – Ah! Yours is the sort of email that makes writing – and not compromising on what I wanted to write - so worthwhile. I read it and sigh with relief and say ‘Phew! It worked”. Thankyou.
Christina from Berlin, Germany – don’t be disappointed. Check out this
Colin – short and sweet, my favourite kind!
Dan from Copenhagen, Denmark – how cool, a real life magician reading my books! Hope you enjoyed the rest of The High Lord.
Georg – hope you enjoy the rest of The Novice. Where did I find my agent? I didn’t. A friend found her for me.
Georgina – Happy Birthday!
Guðfríður from Reykjavik, Iceland – My books have reached Iceland! My books have reached Iceland! That’s so cool!
Hanna from Middlesbrough – Could your role-playing forum for the Black Magician Trilogy become the official one? Hmm. Not unless it involves us negotiating a contract, which would probably involve my agent, and therefore money. Otherwise you’ll have to content yourself with running an ‘unofficial one’!
Harriet – read the BMT in one day. I’m utterly flabbergasted.
Heidi from Bad Kreuznach, Germany – (Is there a Good Krenauznach? Hmm, I bet English speaking tourists make that joke all the time.) Glad you found an escape in Kyralia. Thanks for pointing out the ‘giggling’ translation quirk. I can see how that would be a problem!
Holly – I haven’t got answers to your questions about writing on my website because they are really very basic ones that can be answered by any good book on writing, writing courses, etc.
Iris from Germany – I’m afraid no amount of flattery and begging will persuade me to bring back any character from the dead. But I do appreciate the flattery, all the same : )
Jackie – my books are like chilled chardonnay on a sunny afternoon. You’re making me thirsty! THANKYOU so much for reading my website.

As for the legal reason for not reading other people’s story ideas... I’d love to write up a more authorative  article on the perils involved but that would be very time-consuming. I was advised that cases of readers accusing authors of using their ideas have gone to court before. It sounds crazy, but when I consider how I do regularly come across wannabe authors who are so paranoid that someone will steal their ideas they won’t even send their ms to a publisher, I realise that it is possible someone will be loopy enough to think if I used an idea similar to theirs then I must have copied them.

As for writing reasons. Well, given enough time and readers sending ideas, most of the possible plot directions would be covered. I’d end up wanting to reject good ideas that I’d had just because someone else had also thought of it. Or I’d not use a good idea someone else had first, but which I might have stumbled up on in the course of writing anyway. Or it would start to seem like most of the ideas were coming from outside sources, and none were my own. Since I’m always brimming with ideas anyway, I really don’t need other people’s ideas messing with my mind.

Jeanette from Germany – thanks for the enthusiasm! Your questions are answered in the FAQ.
Jenny – your email was almost unreadable, but I think I get the gist of it. At least, the ‘kissy kissy’ bit seemed to suggest it was positive… though slightly creepy!
Julia – don’t let your mother call you crazy! You reread those books as many times at you want!
Justin from South Africa – a big grin from me. I hope I can stir you to tears a few more times in the future!
Karl - : )
Lor – yo back from another Aussie. Go look at the publication dates page, mate!
Louise – am I planning to write about the War of the Gods? Not so far!
Mabel – did anyone in real life inspire Akkarin? No. Afraid not. Cor, imagine that!
Marie from Melbourne – if a magician, in a fight, runs out of magic, would there be any left in order for them to ‘explode’?
Mariko – to answer your question specifically I’d have to know which book of the trilogy you were referring to. I believe the man on the cover of TMG is Cery, on TN is Regin, and on THL is Akkarin.
Matt from Liverpool, England – there’s nothing better than a happy reader… except a happy reader who works in a bookshop!
Max from Massimiliano, Cremona, Italy who works in London – lol! Rest assured I will not sell myself (just my books). Writing is too much hard work to write anything but what fills me with excitement and passion!
Michael from Copenhagen, Denmark – what a lovely email!
Michael from Cape Town, South Africa – hope you like the rest of Last of the Wilds and enjoy devouring Voice of the Gods as much!
Mireia from London – ah, I love it when readers give me this sort of feedback. Thankyou. And good luck with your short stories.
Natasha, who emailed Orbit -  I hope you won the battle with your Mum over The High Lord!
Nicola from Slough, UK – says

“I'm currently on a website dedicated to the Wheel of time Books www.salidar.com There are several of these and I wondered if you would give permission for me to generate one. You don't have to endorse it, I just thought I'd ask first.”

Thanks for your consideration. Again, I don’t give official permissions without a legal contract. However, so long as you obey the laws of copyright I can’t see why you shouldn’t create a site. Have fun!

O – Hmm. Your email left me wondering why knowing you had to wait two years for a book was worse than not knowing it was going to be written.
Oliver from the UK – Good luck with your book. For writing advice to the About Writing secton on this website. No news of movies yet. Believe me, if there was I’d blog about it.
Rhodri of Devon, UK – asked a hilarious question (deletions made to prevent spoilers):

“… Throughout the books, you mention that the magicians’ energy and skin form a barrier that protects them. What I was wondering is, if another magician was to put some of their energy into someone that had died … would the body theoretically not decay, or change in any way - as it would be protected by this energy?

Sometimes it's nice to feel there could be a happier ending further down the line (don't ask me exactly how … having a perfectly preserved, deceased [person]would be any better than the alternative, but hey: with magic who knows? ;)”

I suppose if healing energy was used it might be possible to preserve a body… but it would have to be applied constantly, in great quantities, with great skill. You’d have to have a darn good reason to do it – perhaps in order to keep a corpse intact so it could be identified. Or if you were a necrophiliac.

Rob – short but sweet. I like it.
Robin – the answer to pronunciations is in the FAQ. Who is the person on the UK cover of Last of the Wilds? I’m assuming it’s Emerahl, too.
Ross  - answered his own question. (See? Reading the site is worthwhile!) He also makes a smart point about the approach to prejudice and acceptance of difference in my books. Always nice when people pick up on that.
Sarah – the answer to your question is in the FAQ
Sej – I can’t most any of your questions because they may (or may not) give away the plot of the sequel, or I don’t know the answer.
Shay – aww thanks!
Sheradean – I’m afraid all of your questions apart from the last one are actually answered in the Last of the Wilds. The last one is one of those ‘if I didn’t answer it in the book, it wasn’t relevant’ ones. But I can see why you would find them all interesting right now!
Silvia from Vienna, Austria – lol to your comments on the covers! And on broody, tall, dark haired magicians, and on kangaroos! Very enjoyable email, this one.
Stephanie – your questions are answered in the FAQ.
Stephen from West Lothian, Scotland – he called my books ‘great literature’. Now that’s how you flatter a writer! Thanks Stephen. And good luck with your writing, too.
Taryn from South Africa – asks

“…I have noticed one thing about the books that I have read most of them you can relate to every day life, to politics and to the world in general the only difference is we are with out magic. You can often relate certain things in life to the characters and what took place in the book. I would really like to know if that was a conscious thing and was it planned or did it just happen?”

Yes, it is a conscous decision. I like to imagine how societies might develop if magic were real. Of course, I couldn’t create a convincing scenario on how magic might affect society if the society I created didn’t have any relationship to the real world.

Thorsten from Germany – I hope your writing inspiration continues. Good luck with it. And I soooo love your ‘I understand you are not living in a 50-hours-per-day world’ comment. And I can’t see where you could possibly improve your english. I’d never have guessed it was your second language.
Tina from Lingen, Germany – Yep, writing is hard work. Good luck with your book.
Tobias from Germany – thanks for pointing that out!
Victoria from Germany – sorry, I skimmed over your ideas (as explained in my FAQ, I have a policy of not reading other people’s ideas), but thanks for your enthusiasm.