The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
WoJ transcription help needed + mention new WoJ's here
sjsharks:
Sjsharks
2010 Brief Side Jobs interview from his Publisher
Jim-
What i wanted to do was collect all the short stories in one place so that the fans could buy one book and be able to get all the short stories. I mean, and these anthologies have been for sale and so on and, you know a lot of folks cant really afford to, you know, to go buy a dozen anthologies. So i said lets get them all in one place and I’ll add a new one that’s got material that picks up strait after the end of Changes and we’ll go with that. It goes in chronological order, there’s an introduction at the beginning of each piece to tell you where it falls within the story line, and then it starts with the older stuff that i wrote and then moves up to the newer stuff and it ends up with; really a novella sized short story called Aftermath that picks up about 45 minutes after the end of changes. its from Murphy’s point of view, she gets to see some of the aftermath of whats happened. And there were pretty big events in Changes in terms of the story world so it should be interesting. I find it terribly interesting as I’m writing, you know, what happens as a result of all these things that Dresden did. That’s just been terribly entertaining and fun, I hope the readers will like it too.
LogicMouseLives:
2010 Dragon Page interview audio
Dictation by LogicMouseLives
*Introduction of interviewers: Michael R. Mennenga and Michael A. Stackpole*
[First ~17 minutes are discussion between the presenters of various topics, including: The iPad, particularly concerning e-Publishing on it. A question of copyright/territorial law vs. e-Publishing submitted by a listener. The predicted crash of the paper publishing market. Various new e-Publishing software including a plug for “Legendmaker”. Interview starts at 16:50.]
And welcome back to more Dragon Page cover to cover, I’m Michael R. Mennenga. Joining me on the phone is the one, the only, the notorious Jim Butcher. His new Dresden Files book is out, it’s called Changes and if you haven’t picked that up, what the hell is wrong with you? Welcome to the show, Jim.
*Laughing* Thank you very much.
Not a problem. My wife, Laurie loves and hates you right now.
I bet. Yeah.
Yeah, she is absolutely– She was floored by this recent episode in the Dresden Files, but–
Yeah, you can’t see me right now, but I’m grinning real big!
*Chucking* Yeah, I bet you are. But she only had one question for me to ask and that was “When the hell’s the next one coming out?!?”
Well, actually the next thing we’ll see will be the anthology called Side Jobs, which will be out in November. It’s a collection of most of the Harry Dresden short stories I’ve done, along with a new novella called Aftermath, from Murphy’s point of view, that picks up about 45 minutes after the end of Changes.
Oh, wow.
That’ll be the next thing in November, and then when we get to the next novel, next April, then we’ll continue with things.
Yeah, you kind of left everybody hanging. Spoiler alert there a little bit, but wow it’s quite the wild ride, to say the least, well I tell you what, for those folks that’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what we’re talking about, let’s talk about what is the Dresden Files, what is this whole Harry Dresden thing about, and where is Changes taking us?
Well, the Dresden Files are–my favorite description I’ve ever heard of it was Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Sam Spade.
Yup.
And I like that a lot.
I do too.
The central character is called Harry Dresden, he’s Chicago’s only professional wizard, and he deals with all kinds of paranormal and supernatural threats to folks that are in the city. He’s often hired on by local law enforcement as a consultant when they bump into something that they just can’t handle.
Changes, well, it’s the twelfth book in the series and, really, Changes was a whole lot of fun as a writer, because there were so many things, so many pieces of the story that I’ve been putting together, you know for twelve books now! And I finally got to pull the trigger on a bunch of really cool events, which is intensely satisfying. But the book Changes starts off with Harry Dresden finding out that his ex-girlfriend had a child the last time they got together, she had a child by him and never told him. And now she’s been taken by some of the nastier enemies he’s managed to make and so he sets out to go find his daughter and get her back no matter what the cost. And for Harry that’s kind of serious, because Harry has access to all kinds of resources that most people don’t, so–
Wow. And it is quite the wild ride, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Harry is just never going to be happy, he’s always going to be tormented and tortured and you’re going to just have fun torturing him, right?
Um, well, I’m gonna have a great time!
*Chuckles*
I think I’ve been too heavily influenced by Joss Whedon. I remember reading an interview where he was on the set of an episode and had shot this incredibly, intensely emotional scene for Buffy several times, and they needed to do it one more time and Sarah Michelle Gellar looks at him and says, “Do you have any idea how hard this is to keep doing this over and over?” and Joss looks at her and puts his hand on a shoulder and says, “Sarah, this show thrives...on your pain.” And I just loved that. It’s like, okay, yeah, this series thrives on Dresden’s pain. That’s what we’re doing here.
Yeah, it really does. It’s been quite the wild journey too. I know we talked last time about some of the twists and turns that you’ve taken him on, a couple of journeys that you didn’t quite expect he was going to go to, and it ended up writing that way. Did any of that come in here, into play on Changes?
Yeah, it really did. The whole issue with Harry’s child was something that, it wasn’t in my original plan, it didn’t start showing up until book three or so. I knew I wanted to have this centrally motivating event, something that would really make him have to exceed all his former boundaries if he was going to accomplish it. And I’d originally had some other kind of much dopier plan in mind, but for this one, for him in particular I think it was perfect. To give him this child. Harry himself grew up an orphan, and he always sort of promised himself along the way was that if he ever had children, that child would never be alone, you know, he would be there to guide and protect the child. And you know, finding out that he’s got an eight year old daughter, that was just devastating to him, and so he had a whole bunch of real personal issues to go along with this.
Wow.
I never really wanted to plan out Dresden’s romance. I wanted that to be kind of an organic thing that would grow up through the course of the books, but it turns out that the people you love sort of have an effect on other parts of your life? Other than just who you’re going out with. Strange, but true. So it’s thrown off my pace a little bit. I had originally planned these events for book ten, but it took me a couple extra books to get here, so–
Wow. Well it is an amazing, amazing series, and like I said, for those of you that have not checked it out, it is definitely well worth your time. Go out and buy all twelve of ‘em! Right now! Just do it.
Yes, please!
Yes, please.
So you’ve got another project that you kind of wanted to chat about.
Oh, the Dresden Files Roleplaying game! Which has been under construction for years and years and years. And there’s been a whole lot of “No really, we promise, it’s almost done!” Some of which has been caused, I’m ashamed to say, by me, because they had to wait a lot of times for me to be able to throw my input to ‘em. And let em know “Okay, yeah, this is good, this is not good. No, wait you have erase this, you know, I don’t want people to know this yet! etcetera.” But they’re currently taking pre-orders. It’s being produced by Evil Hat games, that’s the company that Fred Hicks is running. Their FUDGE system, which, it’s not quite diceless, but it’s real close to it, has won several awards in independent game design and they have really gone all out for this game, I mean it is unbelievable how much they have delved into the story world, how much research they’ve done in the books to create this roleplaying game for folks who want to come play in the world of the Dresden Files.
So now you said it was diceless, does that mean it’s a card game, or, how does this play out?
No, it’s a roleplaying game, it’s not quite diceless, you just have to go check out FUDGE it’s really, really interesting. The game is run basically by involving the players much more in terms of how the story’s going. You know if you’re going up against an enemy and you want advantage against him, if you’re in your standard roleplaying game then maybe you’ll cast some kind of Bless spell or something like that, that’s your basic D&D 101 sort of thing. If you want to go up against an enemy in this, then what you have to do is you have to find out about your enemy, you have to learn things about him and understand, “Oh wait a minute, you know these ghouls are not all that bright, they could be tricked!” and then you have to find some way to work a trick into the game system, and then you get your bonus!
*Laughs*
But it’s much more of an interactive storytelling thing, with your Game Master. And there’re rules and guidelines for it. I really love the central core of the game, which is exploration of the concepts of free will, and making choices, and how long does it take for these choices to sort of shape you, shape your destiny into something that you can’t change anymore, and so on.
Mhm. Well, we’ve been talking a lot on this show about cross media and taking your property and moving it into other areas, you know, adding things to it like this, like a roleplaying game, maybe an interactive website, some other elements and so forth. Is this the first step into kind of cross media and tying it to your series, or, I mean the TV show was out there for a little while which, sucks that it’s not around anymore.
Right.
But I mean, are you looking for other things?
I’m open to the idea of other things! I know that there’s been a little bit of interest expressed in doing a Dresden Files video game. One guy wanted to do a console game. Another group came to us and were talking about the possibility of a Dresden Files Massive Multiplayer game, which, oh my gosh, if they made that, I would never write another book! I would just be stuck there.
*Laughs* I think I’m with you on that. That would be amazing!
That would be fun.
That world? That world in a Massively Multiplayer? Holy cow.
Yeah, exactly. It’d be a lot of fun.
That’d be as bad as Evercrack and frickin’ World of Warcraft.
Yeah, exactly. It’s bad enough that I play City of Heroes, and I’m the only one who’s actually legally allowed to play Harry Dresden on City of Heroes!
Really!
You’re not allowed to use copyright names, but I was able to say, “Hey, look, I’m Jim Butcher, and I own the copyright, you can see at the beginning of all the books. I can offer you reasonable assurances that the copyright holder will not hold this against you!”
That’s awesome!
So I get to play Harry Dresden, and run around on the game like that, and prob’ly waste too much time.
Are you a big gamer? I mean, do you do a lot other than that?
Oh, yeah! I’m still a member of my gaming group–the gaming group gets together at our house every Friday night, and almost always, at least once a month I’m out doing live roleplay, LARP events, where we get dressed up in the costumes and smack each other around with boffer swords. And that’s kind of what I do with my son, it’s our father-son activity. And then we’ve got an online group that we meet once a week, we play City of Heroes. I met my wife at a Dungeons and Dragons game, I can fly my gamer flag with anybody with no fear, so–
And it’s important that you do so, absolutely.
*Both laugh*
I know I think I asked you this once before, but do you really feel like your life has changed, as much as it has, or are you still trying to just be the regular old Jim?
Yeah, I have an easy time kind of staying me, because my wife and my son have been very good at letting the air out of my head, whenever it threatens to swell too large. There are a lot of things that are different in my life. I have a lot more things to do now. It always seems like I keep thinking to myself, “It’s gonna get easier, it’s gonna get easier, as soon as I’m done with this,” but then I find out, oh no, there’s many more things on my plate. It’s one of those things, it’s like a really really great problem to have. I know that for the first ten years I was writing, I would have murdered somebody–and it could have been somebody fairly close to me too–for the chance to be able to say, “Yeah, I’m just so busy with all these projects,” because I couldn’t get somebody to look at my stuff to save the world!
Yeah, I hear that. And I mean we have a lot of aspiring writers and authors out there that listen to this show, and I know they listen to stories like this and go, “Oh yeah, I’m sure that’s a really tough problem to have, but how do we get there?”
Exactly. Yeah, it is a fantastic problem to have, I’m very happy. My wife and I can give each other PJs at Christmas and open ‘em up and go, “Aha, work clothes!” Which is, as far as I’m concerned, the very best thing about being a writer.
That’s about the best thing about being a podcaster too, yes! Oh, that’s awesome.
Well, let’s talk about some of those horrible time killers that you’ve got coming up. You’re out on tour right now. You’re somewhere in some hotel out East, I think.
Out West. I’m in Portland, Oregon today.
Oh, you’re in Oregon! Okay.
Yeah, Seattle last night, and Huston the night before that.
So is this a continuing tour? Where can people see you?
Yes, I’m gonna keep going this week. From here I’ll go to San Diego. That’s on Friday, and on Saturday I’ll be in Los Angeles. If you’re in the area and you need information you can go to www.jim-butcher.com and they’ve got my tour schedule up so you’ll be able to see where I’m appearing.
Fantastic. Are you hittin’ any of the Cons? Are you doing ComicCon, DragonCon this year or anything?
I believe I’m gonna be at New York Comic Con, I’m gonna be at the Romantic Times Convention with my wife. I’m going to go to DragonCon this year. And, then I’m going, I believe TusCon is this fall.
TusCon! That’s right. You said you were gonna be out here close, so there we go! We’ll see what happens with your schedule, it’d be awesome if we could get you back in the studio, but I know that you’re a busy, busy famous guy now.
Yeah, apparently. I just kinda walk into places and you know, people, I think they’re expecting me to come in with an entourage and maybe a bodyguard with sunglasses and one of those little curly things in his ear? But I just kinda cruise into a bookstore and, they didn’t recognize me when I walked in in Huston cause I’d cut my hair, and–
No! You cut your hair!
Excuse me sir, you can’t be back here! This is the booksto–Oh, I’m so sorry Mr. Butcher! You know.
Wow. You cut your hair? Really?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, Dude!
It’s kind of a theme thing, you know, where I’m writin’ a book called Changes where I shake everything up and off went the hair.
Okay, well, I’ll break that to Laurie gently.
It’ll grow back, it’ll grow back! The hair will be back. Harry will be back.
Okay, there you go. Well unfortunately we are completely out of time, but it was absolutely awesome talking to you and, uh, any last thoughts?
I don’t think so. I hope you like the new book!
Awesome. Well, I’m sure they will, unless there’s something wrong with them, they will!
*laughs*
Alright well, thank you so much, Jim
Thank you very much.
And we’ll be back with more Dragon Page right after this….
LML
(Sorry it took so long, been busy. ;D)
Icecream:
I'll do the dorkgasm 2008 interview.
Ok first part is done, I've done it in my own way so as long as it's understandable I don't care.I got most of the words but ones I put in [ ] I couldn't really make out, I think it's the accent. You all talk funny england.
Dorkgasm 2008 interview . Dresden files. A conversation with Jim Butcher
Part 1
Interviewer: So what have you got going on here?
Jim: Uh. Stock signing I think
Interviewer: I’m not exactly sure what stock signing is.
Jim: That’s when you sign some books that like, I think these are presales.
Interviewer: OK
Jim: They’re already sold to somebody and they want to get it signed but they can’t be here to get it signed so...
Interviewer: Gotcha
Jim : It’s nice to get them out of the way ahead of time and then sometimes there’s a bunch of them, like I’ve been in stores where there’s been like a hundred of them and it’s good to let my wrist rest between then and afterwards because I can run my mouth for awhile , it’s easier on my hand. *opens can of coke*
Interviewer: there you go. So do you, um, you mentioned the hand cramping thing, do you write,um, longhand or do you type the stuff out usually?
Jim: Oh I type when I’m working; yeah it’s me on a couch with a laptop usually.
Interviewer: Well I think it was in this one (SmF) that you mentioned, uh, the thing in the thank you that, um, you finished writing the book while playing Nero.
Jim: *nods and makes approval sound with mouthful of coke*
Interviewer: So do you have a laptop out in the fields and...
Jim: No no, it was in the corner of a tavern where there was an outlet.
Interviewer: Ok
Jim: But yeah, I couldn’t play until I got a certain amount of stuff done and got the book finished. So I had to get the book finished. Got the book finished, put the laptop away. Got out the armour and entered the game and uh in time to catch all the serious political role-play session, no combat at all. I was like ‘ugh cheated!’.Yeah during those kinds of things, live role-play, I’ll be the guy who throws his shield on the ground, goes to sleep and says ‘Ok, wake me up when there’s something that needs to be broken.
Interviewer: So besides Nero, what else do you like to play?
Jim: Oh , uh, just every tabletop game you could think of ,uh, I’ve played almost all of them at one time or another.I’ve played a paranoia campaign . When you’ve played a paranoia campaign I think you’re pretty far gone, y’know?
Interviewer: I think [call of cthulu ?] is probably the epitome of pointless gaming but ...
Jim: Oh, oh yeah well yeah multiple [call of cthulu?] are. Well we have regular [call of cthulu] campaign , which I wouldn’t let my son play . He’s like “why not? You’re always laughing”. And I said “yeah, but they’re cannibalism jokes and that’s just kinda where it starts, so no no”. But, uh, Warhammer role-play is one of my favourites to play. And I play online stuff, I used to play Everquest and I was pretty serious on Everquest but uh...
Interviewer: So it was Ever-crack for you?
Jim: Oh absolutely and I’ve stay awaaaaaaaay from World-of-Warcrack so...
Interviewer: Yeah World-of-Warcrack has a tendency to suck people in. My executive editor had a problem sometimes pulling herself away. Hey Charlton Heston died the other day, can you write an obituary for him ? Uh no? Uh, you doing a dungeon, uh OK, Yeah I understand that. Your kids, how old are your kids?
Jim: I’ve got the one , he’s 16.
Interviewer: 16,OK. Um now has He read your stuff or no?
Jim: Yeah, He likes the Alera stuff; He doesn’t care for the Dresden stuff so much.
Interviewer: Really?
Jim: Yeah
Interviewer: Um how long the uh Dresden books, there’s ten of them now obviously , Small Favour coming out just last week and the Alera, there’s four Alera books currently?
Jim: So far, I’m working on number five.
Interviewer: Gotcha. And are you flip-flopping, you’re writing Dresden, you’re writing Alera.
Jim: Yep. Yeah it’s usually how it works. Although this time it’s been write a Dresden , write a little bit of Alera, write a comic book , a little more Alera, some more comic book ,write some more Alera, short story, short story , then go back to some more Alera. So...
Interviewer: Got it. Got it. The comic book that’s coming out form Dable Brothers
Jim: *nods* Mmmmm *(mouth full of coke)*
Interviewer: How’s it working with those guys? They’ve got kind of a weird reputation in the comic book industry.
Jim: Oh as far as I’m concerned it seems to be going great. I’m writing the first four issues, uh that’s been fun. Though I didn’t realise how much work it was going to be when I signed on for it. Y’know, a pictures worth a thousand words , there’s between one and six pages on every comic book page and I’m the guy that’s got to write the thousand words and tell the author what I want, or tell the artist what I want . But I’m writing the first four issues and after that they’re adapting the novels to comics and those are supposed to be out and they said those will take between 14 and 18 issues each.I think.
Interviewer: Gotcha. So then the first four issue comic is going to be a side story?
Jim: Yeah , it’s a short story set just before the events of Storm Front.
Interviewer: Will it be the short story you have up on your website or will it be something new?
Jim: No no. It’s not that. Yeah it’s a new one, there’s some problems with the Lincoln Park Zoo and somebody needs to investigate it and Harry gets called in on the case. It’s going to be one of his earlier cases with Murphy where He produced results that made her inclined to use Him again in the future.
Interviewer: So Lincoln Park, the Dresden Files set Primarily in Chicago, you’ve mentioned you’ve played most games I’m assuming you’ve played the Whitewolf stuff back in the mid-90s.
Jim: No actually. I missed it except for a couple of mushes.
Interviewer: It was part of Whitewolf’s thing in the mid-90s at least, that Chicago was the creepiest damned place. In fact, in the newer stuff it still is. There seems to be a propensity, beside the world of darkness, there’s a forthcoming film called “Death walks the streets” apparently that’s being set in Chicago. It’s some mob, vampire, and werewolf trilogy thing and then of course the Dresden Files. What is it about Chicago that screams to you “creepy Damned Place”?
Jim: Oh, well I hate to break up the romance of it but the fact of the matter is I had originally set the Dresden Files in Kansas City and my writing Teacher ,I was doing it as an assignment in my writing class, my writing teacher looked at it and said “Jim you’re already writing something that’s close enough to walk on Laurel Hamilton’s toes, you don’t need to set it in Missouri too, you gotta set it somewhere else”.
“Where?”
“I don’t care, anywhere, just not Missouri”. And I’m like OK. And there’s a globe on her desk, there’s four American cities on the globe. One of them’s New York, which is already sewn up by Spiderman and Superman. One of them’s DC, which I don’t want to write a story there because it’d have to get political and then you lose at least forty eight percent of the audience. One was Los Angeles , which I didn’t want to do because then I’d have to research Los Angeles . So I said “Chicago!” and she’s like “Yeah Chicago’s fine”. And I said “Ok!” But as it turned out it was a good choice, just in terms of how much lore there is in the area, y’know the various stories and so on that surround the history of the town. It’s an old town for an American city and that helps a lot as well and just generally speaking it’s a good place to set about any kind of story but for my story it worked really well.
Interviewer: Now you mentioned that your creative writing teacher pointed out stepping on Hamilton’s toes. How much of Laurel Hamilton’s work influenced the Dresden stuff? Or is there any one author that influenced you work primarily?
Jim: I think the biggest influence was probably a movie out on HBO long, long ago called “cast a deadly spell”. It starred Fred Ward, it was Gail Anne Herd who was also a producer of “Aliens” and “Tremors” and some other fairly cool movies that were cooler than they had any right to be. And this was another movie that was cooler than it had any right to be. It was set in the 1940s, this whole noir thing you know? But magic was this part of the world and this detective was the only one who didn’t use magic. There was this whole case surrounding these [Cthulu/kudulu?] entities and so on that he was off investigating and I just loved the investigation. The whole tenor and atmosphere of it was great.
Interviewer: Your series has managed to avoid the ‘sex trap’ as it were. I mean Hamilton’s , I think beyond the last novel perhaps three or four novels past were primarily almost harlequin romance , sex novels it seemed like. And her Faerie series seems to border on soft-core show-time kind of thing. You’ve managed to avoid that and keep him fairly well-grounded and not asexual. Is that something you keep in mind or is that something that happens because of the way you write.
Jim: I didn’t have Harry’s love life planned out. That was one of the things, I mean I’ve got most of the things, the general story arc scripted, where I know what’s going to be happening and so on. But Harry’s love life was not planned out. I’ve always wanted that to be something that would just kind of organically go with what we were doing. And Harry Himself is just, it’s not like that He’s actively bad with women or anything, He’s just sort of, He’s the magical equivalent of a computer nerd really. I mean He is just a little bit socially awkward in certain aspects of it, of getting on with the opposite sex.
Interviewer: Another thing that speaks really well to the audience with the people that I know that read the books identify with that aspect rather um...
Jim: Yeah let me go all Mr.Monk on this, it’s not straight
*straightens pile of SmF novels*
There I’m happier.
Interviewer: So you mentioned you have parts of it planned out, not the love life. So does this mean you know where the story ends?
Jim: Yeah. I’m planning on writing about 20 casebooks like we’ve got so far and then at the end I’ll cap it off with a big old apocalyptic trilogy. You know? Because who doesn’t love big old apocalyptic trilogies? I was taken to see Starwars. It was the first movie I remember being taken to see and it’s warped me. It’s warped me.
End of part 1.
cass:
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 hysterical
Jim: 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.’
cass:
More from MarsCon:
Segment 3:
Interviewer: All right, let’s uh, let’s go to the audience because I…we’re going to be flooded here. First one up.
Audience Member: Uh, how did you come up with your characters? Why did you choose Chicago?
Jim: Okay, how did I come up with my characters, and why did I choose Chicago. Um, for Harry Dresden himself, uh, I put him together following a checklist that a, that my writing teacher had on a worksheet that was for one of her lectures, and the lecture was entitled, “How to Construct a Protagonist” And, uh, basically, I wanted to prove to her how wrong she was about everything. So, one semester I said, “Okay, this semester, I’m just going to be your good little writing monkey, I’m going to fill out all your worksheets, and doo all the things, and you’re going to see what terrible, awful, cookie-cutter, pablum crap comes out of that kind of writing process. Uh, which is when I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files. (Laughter)
Interviewer: So have you noticed that Jim’s whole writing career is basically him saying f^$% you to everyone else out there? (Laughter)
Jim: YEAH! Yeah, I’ve…uh, that’s why I try not to be the guy who takes myself too seriously because, you know, I’m basically this idiot that’s just stumbled into things, and uh, gotten a little bit lucky and then…at least, I like to think that I’d recognized that I’d gotten lucky and worked really hard to make it happen. But, but Harry Dresden, the name itself, I was watching TV one night and there were, uh…I had just watched a videotape of one of my favorite movies at the time, which was Cast a Deadly Spell, (applause), yeah, which is a fun movie, and uh, the tape had started skipping, or not skipping but it had gotten, it would stop, and I would rewind it and try to play past it and it wouldn’t go past, but at this part where, in that movie where the guy goes, uh, the main character, Fred Ward’s character, uh, H. Philip Lovecraft shows up to uh, to the gangster bar, and the gangster, the gangster’s henchman comes walking up to him and says, ‘(sneering voice) Harry wants to see you.’ And Fred Ward goes, ‘Oh. Harry wants to see me.’ ‘Harry wants to see you now.’ And what I got to hear about six times as I tried to fast forward past the stuck part of the tape was ‘Harry wants to see me. Harry wants to see me. Harry wants to see’ like that. And then I said, ‘Okay, the heck with that, I’m going to try and find something on normal television, which I hate, because there’s commercials. And, uh, so I’m skipping through channels, it’s like eleven thirty on a Friday night in Kansas City, and I actually find a channel that’s showing reruns of Babylon 5. So it’s like, ‘Okay, acceptable.’ (Laughter) And, uh, I’m watching the episode of Amazon 5 (sic), and, with this ‘Harry wants to see…’ stuck in my head, and then Box Lightner (sp?) is on there playing his character with (deep voice) the gravelly Box Lightner voice, and he’s there talking about various military attacks that have happened throughout history, and one of the attacks that he mentions as he’s going through this monologue is (deep voice) Dresden. ‘Harry wants to’ Dresden, it’s just stuck in my head. ‘Harry wants’ Dresden, okay fine, Harry Dresden, character name, get out of my head. (Laughter) And that’s where the name came from. Um, when I put the character together, I said, ‘Okay, this guy is a wizard detective.’ Uh, so I said, ‘Okay, let’s take a wizard. Gandalf. Let’s take a detective. Sherlock.’ I mean, come on, I could not get any more obvious in terms of picking archetypical choices, and I started pulling attributes from each of them. So I made him tall and skinny like Sherlock, and grumpy like Gandalf, you know, smart and grumpy like Gandalf, and uh, that was pretty much where the character came from. Um, Murphy, I needed somebody who was gonna be sort of an ally-slash-antagonist in the first book, uh, and I’d been really impressed at an aikido demonstration at OU that year, that I’d seem maybe two weeks before where this little, 5 foot tall woman, 5 foot tall, she was 5’ tall, maybe 45, called three of the defensive linemen from OU up onto the stage as part of the demonstration, and said, like, ‘Okay, tackle me.’ And she just dumped these guys everywhere. I mean, it was just flying arms and legs, and she’d like, she’d throw them all on the floor and then like, ‘And now I run away. Okay, get up and do it again.’ Whomp whomp whomp whomp whomp. ‘And now I run away.’ Whomp whomp whomp whomp whomp, ‘And now I run away.’ Like that. And I was like, ‘Wow, that is so cool!’ so Murphy was born there. Um, Bob the Skull was an inside joke between me and my writing teacher. Uh, I was working on Chapter Two or Three, and she’s like, ‘Okay, you’re going to have to be explaining how some of this magic works.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got this character, this assistant character who I think is going to be working with Harry who’s going to help him. And Harry’s going to consult with him and so we’ll be able to get…you know, I’ll be able to use the joy of idiocy principle to get, uh, information dispersed there.’ And she was like, ‘Well, okay, fine, do that, as long as you don’t make him a talking head.’ (Laughter) Which is writing craft for a character who shows up and spews information but otherwise has no other role. Uh, so, I uh, made him a literal talking head named Bob, and when I showed up with that chapter and she read it she looks at me and says, ‘You think you’re very clever, don’t you?’ (Laughter) Um, and it…almost all of them come from stuff like that. Um, some characters are…I only needed for a minute, some characters that I only needed for a minute were actually too cool and I had to keep them. Uh, Butters. (Applause) And, uh, there’s still…there are characters who surprise me with how memorable or how difficult or how surly they are in terms of trying to get them to do what I need them to do. Uh, but…again…now I kind of grab characters when they…when the mood strikes me and I try to recycle a lot, uh, because, you know, I went to a lot of work to try to create these people and so by God, I’m going to get my mileage out of them. Plus, it’s more fun when you get to see folks show up again. Morty the ectomancer who was originally a throw away character, but know you, at the same time, I’m sitting here thinking you know, I’m going to be having Dresden running around as a ghost, I think I’ve got to get that ectomancer back in here. I mean, I went to all the trouble of making him, so you know, he’ll be, uh, he’ll be playing a role in the upcoming book.
Interviewer: All right, uh, saw a hand over here
Audience member: Um, could you explain free will to us from Bob’s perspective?
Jim: Free will from Bob’s perspective? Bob thinks free will is a complete illusion, uh, since he doesn’t really have it. Um, it’s a conceit that mortals have to make themselves feel like they can be in control of things. Uh, but really, it doesn’t actually exist, that’s Bob’s take on it. But then again, Bob doesn’t really have free will, he’s sort of…
Audience member: He said that Lash got it.
Jim: What?
Audience member: He said that Lash got it.
Jim: Lash isn’t Bob.
Audience member: Well, no, but he [Bob] said that Lash got, obtained free will.
Jim: Yeah, Bob doesn’t have to tell the truth to Dresden! (Laughter) I mean, come on! Bob offered it as a possible explanation, but you know, Bob’s essentially…he’s a theoretician. That’s what he does… ‘Explain this’ , ‘Okay, maybe it was this, I don’t know.’ But yeah, he tries to stay out of the whole, anything like, anything that verges on morality, Bob tries to avoid uh, you know, speaking with any authority on because he doesn’t have any compass himself. It all depends on who actually happens to be in possession of the skull at the time.
Interviewer: Let’s go over this way. Anyone over…yeah.
Audience member: When you play City of Heroes as Dresden, does he have a hat?
Jim: He does not. (Laughter) And the number one question I get asked when I play City of Heroes as Dresden is, “Where’s his hat?” (Thumps his head with the microphone)
Interviewer: (pointing), Uh, blue shirt
Audience member: Yes, what happens when Bob gets let out of his skull?
Jim: Uh, when Bob gets let out of his skull? Um, whatever he can get away with, basically. That’s why Dresden’s usually careful to throw some terms on there. Although, uh, depending on who lets him out and what gets done…we’re going to have some more fun with that next book, I’m not going to say anything else.
Interviewer: (Pointing) Yeah
Audience member: Why does Toot-toot keep getting bigger?
Jim: Why does Toot-toot keep getting bigger?
(Different) audience member: Pizza! (Laughter)
Jim: Yeah, okay, that’s a good answer. (Laughter) Because I’m not going to tell you. Um, I will tell you, however, that the Sidhe don’t start out as Sidhe, and leave it at that.
Segment 4:
Q&A, Segment 4
Audience Member: Can you talk at all about the importance of Harry’s penchant for giving names [Names?] to characters and objects in the story that didn’t have a name [Name?] before he took care of that?
Jim: Um, can I talk about the importance…how important it is to Dresden to give things names [Names?] when he doesn’t have one. So if he doesn’t have a name for something or it’s just too difficult to pronounce he can just call it Shagnasty and leave it at that. (Laughter) Um. Dresden…well, in terms of him doing it himself, I think it’s part of human nature. Really, if we ran into something that didn’t have a name, we come up with a name for it right quick. You know, I mean, it’s not…you can see, I think you see this mostly demonstrated ably online a lot. It’s not just enough to say that you got beaten by the other team. It’s like you got beaten by them while they were rolling on the floor laughing. You were ROFL-stomped. (Laughter) And…we come up with these names for things, especially in English because English is such a thug language, we’ll just, we’ll just take from anybody. I think there’s some sort of academy in France where their like, ‘Okay, we have to approve or not approve the new possible words that we’re going to have.’ English, no, we will make them up left and right, and I’ve made up some occasionally, and you know, I think every family has a little bit of their own language that you know, that they’ll have some word that they made up that has significance to them, uh, and not necessarily anybody else. As far as…we need to name things, we need to understand what their role is. Dresden in particular is somebody who grew up without any solidity, without any concrete foundation underneath him. And I think that is….probably a reflection of that in his character in that he really does need to have things ordered in his own head, because they never are in the real world, and naming things helps with that.
Interviewer: I always saw that as another one of the travis-mcgee (???) traits that you borrowed.
Jim: Uh, possibly. I don’t know, did he do that a lot?
Interviewer: Maybe not consciously.
Jim: Oh, I steal things left and right, unconsciously, all the time. Bob the Skull is like my own subconscious, in some ways. And uh, he would merrily steal things left and right, with no compunction whatsoever. Yeah, every time I think I’ve come up with something bright and new and original, uh, I find out I haven’t. It’s like, Bob the Skull, I thought that was great, great and new and (laughing) you know, and then I watched the opening sequence to Scooby-Doo and went, ‘Oh.’ (Laughter) Like, the very first thing in Scooby-Doo.
Audience member: Do you have any plans to, uh, make a sequel or make another ZOMG Zombie Apocalypse for City of Heroes?
Jim: Oh, do I have any plans to make another uh, module for City of Heroes? Uh, I wrote a City of Heroes module, it’s called ZOMG Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Apocalypse Now, is what it’s called, and…uh, where you have to go out and fight zombies. Uh, and it’s…there’s a lot of zombie fighting involved, and it’s intricate. You’ll just have to believe me, you’ll just have to trust me, if you don’t play City of Heroes. Uh, I wold like to write some more, except that I’ve got this editor, uh, who, while being a perfectly sweet person and just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, really does want to have her book in. So I’ll try to focus on it, I’ve got a…it’ll have to be after this next project gets done.
Interviewer: Yeah, you’re upset enough about July. Don’t make him push it back further. (Laughter)
Jim: I KNOW, RIGHT?!
Audience member: Not now, but ever?
Jim: Yeah, at some point I’d like to.
Audience member: You’re not making Codex Alera any more……(Laughter)
Interviewer: [something unintelligible, to Jim]
Jim: Yes, yes I do.
Interviewer: (Pointing) Greg!
Greg: Yo, I just wanted to thank you (?) I was on a plane when I read the line, “Harry, you stole a Warden’s cloak?” and I’m, I cracked up laughing, and I was unable to explain to everyone that you had been building up to that joke for about four books. (Laughter) [Untelligible] because of you, I have met an Air Marshal. (Laughter and applause)
Jim: I’ve got my own TSA story to go along with that. Um, I was going…well, I do a lot of travelling when they send me on the tour, and I was on the tour last year and I was coming back from San Diego, and I’d been get…occasionally folks will come up and give me gifts, and if they’re small enough, I can accept them ‘cuz then I can fit them into my stuff, and somebody had given me a hand carved, intricately hand carved oak wand, apparently on the assumption that I was a Wiccan, but I thanked them very kindly for it. It’s on my Harry Dresden swag shelf at home. But it had a pointy end, and the TSA they stopped and they opened my bag and they held up the wand and the agent, very serious and dour agent, holds up the wand, looks at me and says, ‘What’s this?’ And I said, ‘(Disbelievingly) It’s a magic wand. Obviously.’ (Laughter) And the guy kept, the guy kinda looks at me, and I look back at him (nods, innocently and with a serious face) (Laughter). And apparent, I don’t know, I don’t know, because he couldn’t give me really a hard time, uh, maybe he also assumed I was a Wiccan and didn’t want to infringe upon my rights, because he just goes, like, ‘Okay’ and puts it back in the bag. (Laughter)
Audience Member: [something unintelligible possibly a compliment to do with Murphy] (Applause)
Jim: Ok, thank you.
Audience member: …now I know that they’re talking Martian.
Jim: Yes, yes, and actually, Shannon helped me with that one, she’s been learning Martian for many years. And occasionally I can say, ‘How you doing, honey?’ and she’ll go, ‘Unh,’ which means, ‘Not so good, leave me alone.’ And I know that, and she knows that, that’s ‘cuz she’s cool, she’s learned that.
Audience Member: So, have any of your kids shown interest in writing?
Jim: Um, I’ve got the boy, and, uh, has he shown an interest in writing? Um, his…we did our first…Shannon and I did our first, like, tandem interview over the phone one day, and he came home from school and the dog made a lot of noise and I had to stop the interview while that was happening and they’re like, ‘What’s going on’ ‘Oh, my son just came home from school.’ ‘Do you mind if I ask him a question?’ ‘No, go ahead’ and he’s like, they’re like, ‘What do you think about your mom and your dad, you know, they’re both authors, I mean, that’s really a remarkable thing…’ and J kinda smiles and says, ‘You know, if these two could do it I’m…I really don’t know how remarkable it could be.” (Laughter) Cruises right on out of the room, I mean, he didn’t even blink coming up with that answer. We’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s the boy.’ And uh, he’s getting ready for school, he’s originally thinking he wants to go into medicine, I think it’s just because he wants to hear, you know, he wanted to be a trauma surgeon, originally, it was just because he wanted to hear, ‘Dr. Butcher to Emergency, Dr. Butcher” I think that’s what he wanted, and then he got a taste of exactly what pre-med students have to go through and med students and interns and so on and so at the moment I think he’s working on computers and he says, ‘You know, I’m going to go to school and…’ one night he sits down with me and he says, ‘Dad, you know, I’m going to go to school and I’m going to get this degree, and, uh, then I’m going to decide that I just want to be a writer!’ and I’m like ‘Well, the hours are good, uh, and you get to wear great clothes.’ As a writer that’s the best part of the job is that I can do it in my PJs. So, who knows, he might be writing himself one day, I told him he has to read books if he wants to do it though and he’s like, ‘Aww!’ (slumps backwards in his chair) (Laughter)
Interviewer: Does he read your books?
Jim: Um, oh, oh no. He read Alera, he read Alera, because he was smart enough to understand that when I was writing about Tavi I was writing about him, but uh, other than that, no. He does…he likes the, uh, gaming books, anything that’s written up on you know, Warhammer 40,000 or Warhammer, he snaps those up, but other than that….
Interviewer: (Pointing) In the back.
Audience member: Of all the cities you could pick, why Chicago?
Jim: Why Chicago. Ok, why Chicago? Um, because, when I turned the first chapter into my teacher she said, ‘Jim, I know that I told you to do something similar to what Laura Hamilton was doing befacuse that was what you’d been suggesting, that was what you kept holding up as what you liked’, ‘cause I really loved the first five or six Anita books, and uh, she says, ‘But, uh, you know, really, you’re close enough to what she’s doing without also setting the story in Missouri.’ She says, ‘You can’t use Kansas City. Find somewhere else.’ And, uh, on the globe on her desk there were four cities, uh, in the United States that were on the globe. Uh, er, no there were three cities. Uh, one, no, excuse me, there were four. One was Washington, D.C., which I didn’t want to write, because if you write Washington D.C. you have to write politics, and if you write politics you alienate half your audience at least. (Laughter) One was New York; I didn’t want to write New York because the Fantastic Four and Spiderman have got that all sewn up pretty good. One of them was Los Angeles, which I didn’t want to write because, uh, I just didn’t want to learn about Los Angeles. And uh, the other city…the remaining city was Chicago, and I said, ‘Okay, can I use Chicago? I know it’s on the river and all, the same river as St. Louis, but can I use Chicago?’ She’s like, ‘Yes, Chicago will be fine.’ That was why I chose Chicago, because otherwise she would not have let me have a good grade.
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