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WoJ transcription help needed + mention new WoJ's here

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wizard nelson:

--- Quote from: TheCuriousFan on March 23, 2013, 03:14:23 AM ---I may look through that later and see if it has good enough audio to write down a full transcript.

--- End quote ---
There is a pretty good transcript of it in the spoilers section already. Might still need finished off, but transferring it to the archive would probably be easier.

I'll see if i can post a link...
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,36681.msg1761546.html#msg1761546
Yea i don't think he ever did the last 10 min. Pretty good though.

TheCuriousFan:
I'll do a more complete one (which will be relatively easy since I've already done that for large chunks of the video) and try and get someone else to check and see if they can understand any words that are still unintelligible.

TheCuriousFan:
(click to show/hide)John Ward: Hello, and welcome to, this week's very first urban fantasy fan's hangout. This show is called the Salt Circle, today we have fan favourite Jim Butcher with us and we'll *unintelligible*. Jim is the author of the Dresden Files series and we have had so much interest in talking to him about his books, we submitted a post in the community and asked members of the community to, um, what they wanted to ask Jim Butcher. And so that's what we're going to do tonight, go through question after question for half an hour. And I want to thank Jim for taking the time to be with us. The one thing that I've had been, every single person who's, um, talked to us about, who has met Jim in person, they all say two things about him. They say that he's a really nice guy and they say don't make him mad since he knows karate, or martial arts of some form, so Jim thanks for joining us.

Jim: They're liars, they're all liars. All you people, why would you say something like that?

John: The first thing that everybody wants to know is if you have a name and a release date for the next Dresden Files book.

Jim: The title of the next book is called Skin Game, I'm not sure exactly when its going to be released, I've got to write it, its in progress right now though, which is good, the first two chapters are already off to the editor and they're going to be appearing in the back of the paperback for Cold Days. I believe that comes out in July and everybody will be able to get at least a small sneak peek at that point and then we'll also be putting the chapters up on my webpage as we get closer to the release date, as soon as we know what that is.

John: Do you already have an end in mind for the Dresden Files? If so, how many books do you think there will be?

Jim: The series is going to be 20ish books like we've had so far, it might be a little more, it might be a little less depending on a bunch of different factors like if my kid wants to go to grad school. But, and then we'll get down to the end of the case books and then we'll have a big old apocalyptic trilogy to kind of capstone the series. And those'll probably be pretty big, thick books and there'll be lots of action and fun. And I've kind of been planning that out since the inception of the series, I'm looking forward to writing it and having it done.

John: Do you always see Harry staying in Chicago and what made you choose Chicago in the first place?

Jim: Chicago in the first place kind of more or less happened on accident. I had originally set the series in Kansas City which is my hometown and which I knew, the first couple of stories that I wrote which eventually became the Dresden Files has a different lead character and so on but they were also set in KC and kind of had the same setting. But my writing teacher said, while I was getting these books done, at some point she looked at me and said "Jim, you know you're already walking close enough to Laurell Hamilton's toes that you don't need to set your books in Missouri as well, so you need to find another place to write em". And I'm like "okay, where else?" and she's like "anywhere else, just not Missouri" and I'm like "okay". And there was a globe on her desk and there was only four American cities on the globe and they were New York, which I didn't want to use because, you know, Spiderman and people like him have New York all sown up. And then there was DC and I didn't want to write DC because if you write DC you have to write politics and that loses you at least half of you audience right away. One of the other cities on there was Los Angeles and I didn't want to do Los Angeles because, you know, it's Hollywood and movies and that's all in Los Angeles and I didn't want to do that. The remaining city was Chicago, I said "how about Chicago?" and she says "yeah, Chicago will be fine, just as long as its not Missouri" and I'm like "alright" and that's why its in Chicago.

John: Given the events in the book Changes, the White and the Black Courts are concerned and probably making plans of their own, are we going to see them again in the near future?

Jim: Um, let's see, they're, everybody is pretty busy right now dealing with the Fomor, that's kind of, they're upsetting the balance of things and they're figuring out where people are gonna fit inside the power vacuum that the Red Court left behind them, good job Dresden! (said while rolling his eyes) And um, so while they're not going to be directly involved, we're going to be hearing a little bit more about them in the next book and in the next book we're kinda focused on, you know, just Dresden's part of the world and in Dresden's part of the world there are hijinks afoot and he's gonna be facing them and dealing with them, plus he's got this thing in his head that's about to explode and he's got about three days to fix that by the time we get to the next book, you know, no pressure or anything.

John: Now, a lot of people were asking if there is a real pub that Macanally's is based off of?

Jim: No, no Macanally's place is, the closest thing it's based off of in real life is Cheers. Which is about as much as I know about pubs personally. There was an Irish pub that I would often go to in Norman, Oklahoma where I went to school. And I wound up going there mostly for the chips and salsa because I was the guy in the crew who didn't drink so I always got invited to go everywhere so that I could be the one to drive the car. So while there might be a little bit of influence of that place there which has sadly since then been torn down, beyond that, mostly Cheers.

John: Given the events of Changes through to Cold Days, what's Harry's relationship with the White Council now?

Jim: What's Harry's relationship with the White Council now? He doesn't know yet, I can't really, I don't want to give too much of that away, but uh, goodness, they are not going to be terribly pleased with him. The last wizard that they had that was running around, dying and then coming back again kinda caused them a little bit of trouble. They don't really appreciate that sort of thing too much, so as usual Harry is showing all the signs of being a horrible monster and if you don't know him that's what he looks like. And the White Council, they've never really had any patience for him and I'm sure that they will continue to be their charming and generous selves.

John: And what does that mean for the Grey Council?

Jim: Well, business as usual for the Grey Council, the real question is going to be how are the members of the Grey Council going to react to Harry in the position that he is in now, working for Mab and now mucking about with Demonreach? Everybody is going to flip out about that, at least everybody who knows.

John: And the other popular question and I'm sure you get this all the time but a lot of people want to know, why Dresden is wearing a hat on all the book covers but never actually wearing one in the books?

Jim: Why does everyone ask me that? I don't know. People have this illusion that I'm in control of that stuff and it just isn't so. Pretty much they get the cover and they send it to me and they're like "Jim what do you think?" and I tell them and they're like "great!, we'll out that on the cover" and I go "alright, that's fine". I think someone in the art department decided that that was the perfect way to say "wizard PI" was to have the fedora represent the PI and the staff represent wizard and that was the ideal thing to do. I don't know, I think that's what happened, but they haven't really asked me, that's why I keep making jokes about Dresden not having a hat. But I'll continue to make jokes about Dresden not having a hat and you watch, by the time if I ever get to a point where I actually give him one in the series, that'll be the cover where it's not there.

John: Do you have any plans for making a short story from Johnny Marcone's point of view? Similar to the ones you did for Thomas and Karrin.

Jim: Uh, I did one from Marcone's point of view, its called Even Hand. And it was in an anthology, I can't off the top of my head remember what one, I think it was called Dark and Stormy Knights maybe? (yes it was) I don't remember. But you could find out about it if you go to jim dash butcher dot com, you'll be able to look it up there and people will be able to tell you where it is. So, you can find out about that there. I'm also, if I manage to get a couple more short stories written I'm going to try and get that one and three or four others that have so far only appeared in a couple of anthologies and get them all put together into a second collection of Dresden short stories which I will probably title More Jobs or something like that, I'm so original that way. And uh, and then you'll be able to round them up all together I hope but it might be a while before that happens, I don't know.

John: And rumour has it there's a Bigfoot trilogy floating around out there.

Jim: Indeed, the Bigfoot trilogy of short stories. Which starts off with Bigfoot as the client and he hires Harry Dresden to help him manage some problems with his son who is half human and who is off in the mortal world doing things and so it's a little hard for Bigfoot to show up in the middle of Chicago and try and help parent, so he's got some issues and he hires Dresden to help him with the issues, so the first one is called B is for Bigfoot and it happens when Irwin, Bigfoot Irwin who is Bigfoot's son is in grade school and the next one is called I was a teenage Bigfoot at at that point Irwin is a bit older, he's in high school and then the last one is called Bigfoot on Campus and Irwin has gone off to college where he's playing college football, being half-Bigfoot he's awesome at it. And Dresden has to show up in all of these situations and help.

John: Given the success of the Dresden Files, is there a chance for books covering spin-off characters or secondary characters?

Jim: Yeah, certainly, in the future, I think so. I have several different ideas for books that are set in the Dresden Files world, but I will... but that's a long ways off. I'm really trying to stay focused on this stuff right here, now, that I'm actually doing, you know, the actual Dresden Files and then I can worry about spin-offs after I've done a good job with the Dresden Files. And then I'll do some more

John: Now, I think it was in book 1, we're told very clearly that Harry's father is dead, but the demise of his mother has always been more nebulous, has there ever been a reliable source that saw her die or did she merely disappear?

Jim: Oh no, she died died. I mean she died in childbirth, or shortly after but it was written down and documented and everybody saw it, that was out in the open.

John: Okay, Why didn't Ebenezar take over Molly's training after Changes?

Jim: Ebenezar, he was not able to afford...we'll have to get into some of the politics of it, he was not able to afford to actually show up and do it, he was able to keep the council off of Molly's back and that was as far as he could go at the time. Meanwhile, she was getting trained up by the Leanansidhe so it's not like she was, so it's not like she did not have an instructor. She probably could have had a friendlier instructor, one who didn't throw knives at her, but on the other hand maybe it was kind of good for her to have somebody tough because she wasn't hanging around in the kiddie pool anymore after Harry was gone.

John: Now, prior to Cold Days Dresden still owes Mab one favour, does he still owe her that favour or did the events of Cold Days make up for his obligation?

Jim: Technically yeah, he still kind of owes her that one favour, but on the other hand, he also sort of owes her his complete loyalty, devotion and obedience so the extra favour is, you know, it's like "yeah okay, he also does have a hand grenade in his hand while he's sitting on top of a nuke that's about to go off", so you know, technically she could probably mess with that if he somehow got out of being the knight, But uh, generally speaking that didn't just get wiped away, Mab keeps very good books and that's not something that's going to be, she does not let things slide, it does not happen.

John: For a while there was a girl named Lash who hung out with Harry, is she gone for good or do you think we'll see her again?

Jim: Her story's not over and we're gonna have a bunch more of it in Skin Game.

John: And is there any hope for the revival of the TV series or perhaps a movie? Any other media knocking at your door that you're allowed to talk about?

Jim: There's almost always somebody knocking. I can't say who at this point but its all just talk until the check clears. You know, I mean there's always somebody who is willing to talk it up and enthusiastically get on the phone with you and go over stuff but its not really, nothing really materialises for a long time. And when it does there's plenty of warning and I'll be able to shout it from the rooftops as soon as I will be able to know something about that, we'll see what happens.

John: Given the new friends that Harry made in Cold Days, will he be learning any new magical techniques from them? And how are you going to prevent Harry from becoming too powerful?

Jim: Well the fun part is, I think it was Scalzi? John Scalzi who said in one of his books "you never send a soldier off to war with what you want him to have, you send him off with what you need him to have in order to survive" and historically speaking that's what soldiers get, it's like "here, this is what you need just to survive the conflict". So the things that Dresden is getting, it's like "here, it's what you need just to survive the conflict" because now Harry isn't playing in the kiddie pool anymore either, which he kind of was in the beginning of the series, kind of having these low level conflicts with neighbourhood bullies just within the city of Chicago. Now going to be sticking his thumb in the eyes of things that are truly hideous and uh, really, he's not in any better shape now than he was before.
And that's the first 15 minutes done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yawup19r-w4&feature=c4-feed-u

TheCuriousFan:
(click to show/hide)John: Okay, now then, Cowl had a female helper, and Harry thought there was something familiar about her, but wasn't sure, was her identity ever revealed? Or is that still a mystery?

Jim: Uh it hasn't been revealed yet, there have been people who have approached me occasionally on the side, making guesses, some of them have been right, I haven't confirmed any of it. But I mean, it's figureoutable if you are fanatic enough about it, apparently.

*laughter*

Jim: Really, some of the folks that come up, they know the material better than I do, and I'm the one who wrote it. It's really disconcerting, but on the other hand, they've also made a wikipedia, so I can go and when I need to go and look up something from a book I can go check the fan wiki and find out, it's like "oh, that's who that character was, right". I was just reading my own fan wiki the other day and there were characters in there that I didn't recognise and I'm like "who? who is that?" and I had to go read and I'm like "oh right! yeah them, okay, I remember them". Disconcerting, I've been working this project too long, clearly.

John: That's amazing. Does the Codex Alera universe exist in the same multi-verse as the Harry Dresden universe? Cause there seems to be some similarities between Nemesis and the Vord.

Jim: Um, I wouldn't say that there's a similarity between them as such, although, to suggest that the Codex Alera and the Dresden Files exist in the same multi-verse would almost be like suggesting that I'm basically writing a bunch of stories that are all based around more or less the same family who keep interfering with horrible things that happen. And that is obviously not the case because if it was I would have said something about it by now *said while rolling his eyes*

John: Okay, Is your new Cinder Spires series more likely to appeal to Dresden fans or Codex Alera fans?

Jim: A little of both, really I'm not trying to appeal to a specific fangroup when I write, I just kind of grab an idea that I like and that I find appealing and then I just start tearing into it I have a lot of enthusiasm for it, I figure that's the most important thing. So we'll have to see who likes it and who doesn't. So far it's gotten really positive responses from everybody, it's kind of got...This is set in multiple viewpoints, multiple characters, the new Cinder Spires series is so in that it's a little more like the Alera books but on the other hand I'm also writing it with a little bit more of the frenetic pacing of the Dresden Files, where everything pretty much happens in a fairly short period of time. There's a lot more wiseassery in the Cinder Spires than there was in the Codex Alera and I think it'll continue to be more so as I keep writing and get more familiar with the story world. But I think it's gonna be a fun series to read, people who like the Dresden Files will probably enjoy it to a degree too, the folks who only read the Dresden Files because they like urban fantasy aren't going to get onto it nearly as hard. But that's okay I'm writing something that I think is going to be a good adventure for everybody who is going to be open to it and is going to enjoy it.

John: Now you mention urban fantasy, how is the urban fantasy genre different from when you began writing the Dresden Files? And would you sat that your work has changed that landscape over time?

Jim: How is it different? Well Chris Mcgrath gets a lot more work, that's for sure. The cover artist for the Dresden Files, he's everywhere now. Which I'm pleased with, good for Chris. I don't really know how the genre has changed all that much, I mean the genre remains the same it's more prominent than it was before, certainly, there's a great deal more successful urban fantasy authors than there have been in the past. I don't know if my work has changed it or not, maybe, I try not to worry about stuff like that, I'm busy, I got stories to write. I really hope my work hasn't changed it too much because I regard what I do as just simple popcorn entertainment and not something that should be, I read on somebody's profile the other day, I was looking at somebody's profile and they said "I just got done reading the first book of the Dresden Files, not really my thing but my professor made me read it for class" and I'm like "what professor does that? That is not meant for a college level course. I mean for crying out loud at least you could have assigned Dead Beat which is like a much better book". But no, they assign Storm Front to be read in a college class, ridiculous.

John: How much of a role did you have in making the Dresden Files Role-playing game? And have any elements of the game influenced settings of the novels?

Jim: The Dresden Files roleplaying game was largely the work of Fred Hicks and Chad Undercoffler and several other people at Evil Hat who worked really, really hard and put in tons of hour into it. I thought I was gonna have to, you know they said "we're gonna have this running commentary in the sides of the book that's gonna be in character, is that okay?" and I'm like "well I guess you can write my characters, okay" and I figured I would have to go through and rewrite everything. And instead I picked it up and was looking at it and I barely had to touch it at all. I was so impressed with how much that they had put into it. I mean they made it not too difficult at all for me and most of my input was establishing with the guys who were putting the game together sort of the basics of the way magic works and the way the story world works so that they could incorporate it into the game stuff that I had not explicitly put into the books and other than that most of my participation was writing the books, they really, really did their homework, they did tons of research and they kept coming up to me with all these things going "oh, oh, oh, is this going to happen later in the series? I put together these three facts from earlier in the books that look like they're not connected but they are connected through this and that means this" and I'm like "yes, now shut up, don't go telling people that stuff, okay?" "yeah okay, I won't" "don't because I'll find you, I will find you, you're out there somewhere I know". But yeah, the guys at Evil Hat, they worked their asses off and it really showed in the quality of the product they produced and in how little I needed to put in, by the time I got the materials and started reading over it I was just floored at how good it was.

John: Some people want to know if you still play Muds and Mushes? The old text based games.

Jim: No not any more. Turns out that you can only handle that much typing in a day and then do it professionally, you know, for so long apparently. So mostly you won't see me online or on Muds these days. My videogaming has kind of gone over towards first person shooters MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas IIRC) like League of Legends or DotA and that's kind of where my free gaming time is, and otherwise I'm probably working or going to the gym.

John: And uh, if you could go back in time and change your earlier books, are there any characteristics that you would change about Harry or those early books? Anything that you regret?

Jim: Anything I regret? No, I wrote the best book I could when I was a 25 year old kid when I started writing Storm Front. And really, if older me went back to advise younger me, younger me wouldn't listen to him anyway. So, I try not to look back, I mostly just try and write the best book that I can write here and now and not worry too much about the past. Some of the books aren't as good as others, though there's almost always someone who thinks that a book that I didn't think was all that hot is the best book in the series for some reason. There are people who just love Ghost Story, there are people who hated Ghost Story, I don't know, I guess it depends on your perspective and what you think is good in a story and that changes from person to person.

John: Alright, got two questions left, some people are confused about what Mouse looks like, can you give us any information about his breed?

Jim: Mouse is, he's somewhere between a Tibetan Mastiff and Caucasian Shepherd. He's absolutely huge, there's several pictures online of Tibetan Mastiffs, if you go look up Tibetan Mastiff, you'll find the proper picture that I'm thinking about, this particular dog is brown and black and it looks like this horrible, hideous, lion-bear thing when you look at it, I mean it's just this lion-bear-dog at the end of this huge chain that looks like it's about to snap while this thing comes to kill you and uh, that is what Mouse looks like. That's Mouse all angry. But if you ever go look at Caucasian Shepherd puppies or Tibetan Mastiff puppies they are the most adorable fuzzballs you've ever seen and that's what Mouse looked like in book six when he first appeared, he was one of those furry but fuzzball dogs, just adorable.

John: Last question, well it's two questions, have you based any of the characters on yourself and do you have a favourite character other than Harry?

Jim: I try not to base characters or really on anybody I know, I try and make the character, there's been very few characterswho have been based on actual, real-life people. In terms of my favourite character, the only one who's probably even remotely close to me is Bob the skull, he's sort of my inner puerile 14 year old. When I was a kid growing up I had the very bad taste to be one of the smartest kids in class and one of the smallest kids in class and I could never keep my mouth shut. And I got beat up so much as a kid, and I probably had it coming too. But as far as characters go I try not to do that, I try not to import people into books. Generally speaking though, one of my favourite characters to write is Bob because I can say all those things that really as a guy sort of go through your head but you would never ever say. Your inner filter always catches that stuff and when I write Bob the skull it's like "inner filter? I can throw that thing away and just put whatever I feel like down on the paper" and that's a lot of fun.

John: Jim I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us today, we're right at the half-time mark so we're going to call it quits.

Jim: Excellent.

John: Now next week for people who are watching we're going to have Chuck Wendig in to talk about something (didn't quite hear) black series and he's like releasing four books in this month that are all urban fantasy so we'll be talking about all of those.

Jim: Oh my gosh, four books in a month? Stop, you're gonna sprain something man.

John: He's going to book expo america and he's going to be signing at three different booths during the convention.

Jim: *laughter* With all those books I bet so!

John: So that'll be-

Jim: Good, good for him.

John: That's next week at 9 o'clock eastern standard time and it'll be archived on YouTube as well. Alright, thanks everybody for joining us.

Jim: Thanks guys.


And that's Part 2 done.

Between this and the update for the Questions thread it has been a productive day.

Tami Seven:
You probably have this one already,  but in case you don't...

Whitten Interview

I just stumbled upon a 2004 interview.

I hope you don't mind me posting these here.  Just trying to be helpful.

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