Correction:

I'll be signing books on Friday, July 25, from 3:30 to 4:30, and again an hour before my panel late Saturday afternoon.

http://otterdance.livejournal.com/205664.html

It is indeed the place that inspired Yhakobin's house. In reality it's the Getty Villa museum in Malibu. I didn't have a strong idea of what Y's house should look like until I happened to visit there. The layout is a little different, but things like the fountains, the inner garden, and overall style are there.

Just thought I'd share that. :-)

If you thought the incense at the Temple of Illior was more than just a pretty smell, you were right, and it was intentional.




Gleaned from abearius's LJ:

Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses

ScienceDaily (May 20, 2008)Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses.

Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080520110415.htm

OK, now it's official and real. 8-)

Please remember to use spoiler warnings and space.

Happy Author

List member Darkstar interviewed me recently. Read it here.

:-)

Yep, that is the Getty Villa in Malibu, one of my new Favorite Spots on Earth. But that's not why I showed it to you.

>:-)

You'll see.

WHOO HOOO! Happy dance.



Bantam sent me two copies of the finished SHADOWS RETURN. They are beautiful! Today my editor passed on the first official review to come in:

Four and a half stars: Fantastic—Keeper
The fourth book in Flewelling's superb Nightrunner series picks up right where the last book left off with nary a hiccup. Seregil and Alec continue to be entertaining, while Flewelling pulls off the near impossible in this compelling page-turner.

—Romantic Times

It's been a while since I've posted a recipe, but Louise Marley lmarleybrought up the subject of food in fiction and that prompted me to come up with something new.

So here you go, on what here is a grey misty soupish day.

Leek Soup a la Cockerel

2 large leeks, stems and leaves, sliced
1 med. rutabaga or small turnip, peeled and diced
1/4 lb. good tasty mushrooms, sliced (Shitaki work well)
2 T. oil or butter
2 quarts chicken or vegetable broth or bullion (Update: Used "Better Than Boullion" vegetable soupbase tonight. Excellent! No salt needed at all.)

1 egg
2 Tablespoons milk or cream
salt and pepper to taste

Cut leeks lengthwise, then into 1 inch pieces and rinse well to get rid of any grit. Prepare other vegetables as directed.

Heat oil in deep pot and cook vegetables over medium heat for five minutes, then add broth and bring to a boil. Simmer for half an hour.

Whisk milk and egg together. Remove soup from fire and mix in the egg mixture.


******

Oatcakes (Nightrunner, favorite of Nysander)

3/4 C. oat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 tsp. baking powder (or the medieval levening of your choice. Purists can leave this out)
1 beaten egg


Combine dry ingredients, stir in wet ones. Mix well, adding a little more flour if necessary to make
a soft dough you can handle. Pat out to 1/4" thickness on a floured board. Cut into 6 rectangles.

Heat 1-2 tablespoons of oil on a griddle over medium heat (oat cakes burn easily) and fry cakes 3 minutes or so per side, until nicely brown.

Serve at once. May be served with honey or jam in civilized circumstances. Eaten dry in case of crisis or on the road.


*********

Name Day Honey Cake (Bone Doll's Twin)

1/2 pound butter, softened
1 1/2 C. sugar
3 eggs
1/2 C. yogurt or sour cream
2 1/2 C. cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp each: cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg, mace
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 C. orance juice


Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat 3 min. more. Add eggs and half the yogurt. Sift flour, baking powder and spices together and add, then remaining yogurt. Mix soda into orange juice and add.

Bake in greased square pan at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. (*Note: My 8x8" pan was too small)

While it is cooking, make syrup:

Combine in heavy saucepan:

1 C. honey
1 C. water
1 1/2 C. sugar

Heat and stir to dissolve sugar. Bring to boil and simmer 15 minutes.
Cover pan for the last 5 minutes. Pour over cake as soon as it comes from the oven. Let cool.
Makes a very moist, heavy, rich cake.

A new interview with me can be found on my agent, varkat's LJ.

Someone asked about getting a print of the SR cover, and I seem to remember Michael saying he was going to create some. He sent me a signed print, which is gorgeous!!!!!! I believe it's the $30.00 size

I don't see my cover on his website, but his ordering info is to be found at: http://www.komarckart.com/prints.html Can't hurt to ask.




For scale:

Not sure what this is all about, but looks like the titles might be doing well.

http://www.c-novels.com/new_book_pickup/2008-02-15-1673.html

The fifth NR book will be titled: The White Road

:-)


PS: Forgot to add that The White Road will be published next summer. (I may need massive infusions of expensive chocolate and tea, but as dog is my witness, I will get it done on time! This book-a-year thing is taxing for a slow poke like me.)

Recently eilonnwy asked: I have a question I was hoping you might answer. Alec's Black Radley, is the basic design like a longbow or more curved, kind of like this one?, or a Flatbow?

I know you mentioned in the book it's shorter than the average longbow but I was just wondering about the general shape.

The Black Radley is a "carriage" or "demountable" bow. It is the same shape as a long bow, but the two limbs are detachable at the grip so that it can be stowed if necessary. I discovered this design in my favorite archery reference, The Archer's Craft published by Adrian Eliot Hodgkin in 1951.


From pg. 103:



From pg. 102


Hodgkin writes: "It is a fact that it is quite practicable, and at times most convenient, to have a bow which can come apart at the handgrip and be packed in a small compass. It is practicable, that is to say, for bows up to about 60 pounds in weight, but not, I think, above that: and it is intended to be applied to the longbow type. The principle is that the butt end of each of the two limbs fits into a metal ferule; and these in turn slide into, and are there locked into, a larger sheath which holds them both; exactly like a large double joint on a fishing-rod." Pg 102

The 60 pounds refers to the bow's "draw weight". The higher the number, the more force it exerts, and the more strength it requires of the archer to draw.

To put that in perspective, Alaska state hunting regulations have the following minimum draw weight requirements:

*40 pounds peak draw weight when hunting black-tailed deer, wolf, wolverine, black bear, Dall sheep, and caribou;

*50 pounds peak draw weight when hunting mountain goat, moose, elk, brown/grizzly bear, musk ox, and bison;

*only use arrows tipped with a broadhead and is at least 20 inches in overall length and 300 grains in total weight

I haven't done any archery in years, but my recurve has a 35 lb. draw, and that was about as much as I could manage and still shoot straight, but my upper body strength is not great.

All in all, I don't think Alec would have any problem killing a man, if his bow could also take down a moose. Any armor geeks here? What kind of armor could that punch through? I believe the English longbow could pierce armor, and changed war technology thereafter?


Added:
Here's an interesting show in Youtube on the subject of longbows:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JaZ6pQiYclo&feature=related

shoshanaruth asks: I would like to know about the spell that turns people into animals. (Forgot what it's called, sorry.) How do you decide which animal people are? Do you know the . . animal forms (?) of more minor characters? Or people who just weren't made into animals in the series?

Ah, yes, the spell of intrinsic nature. It's been a long time since I came up with that, but as I recall, I did it as a bit of magical color, and because it was a fun scene. I thought that the otter was an interesting choice for Seregil. He may be a thief, a rogue, a killer, and a liar when it suits him, but his intrinsic nature—the deeper nature that underlies who we are made into by circumstance— is that of a playful, carefree, loving person. Alec and Micum's family bring this out in him, and you get flashes of it with his sisters.

And Alec as a stag? Stags are strong, powerful, kings of the forest, their natural element. It was useful, but not nearly as much fun as Seregil.

And of course, I have great fun with Thero's inability to be transformed, and Seregil's unflattering speculations as to what he might be. "Probably a badger. I've never got on with badgers."


It was also part of establishing Nysander's area of research, if you will, being transformative spells of various kinds, which we are shown through the first two books. Remember the "brick" episode? ;-)

As for minor characters, no I don't know, because I haven't needed to make that up yet. ;-)


ramenandweetbix asks: Ok, very nerdy english lit geek question, but it is genuinely something that's puzzled me for a long time!

Ok, the Nightrunner books are in general very gay-affirming, gay friendly and all around nice to read for a gay guy that's in to fantasy. But I'm curious as to why the descriptive used by the narrator in Traitor's Moon (well after Alec and Seregil have become lovers) is "friend". This isn't the way they think about each other, obviously, or the other characters seem to think about them, and yet the narration constantly refers to their relationship as "friends". Just curious as to why you picked that particular term.

A fair question. At the time, I felt the constant use of "lover" would give it too romancy an air. And I meant friend in a deeper sense than "just friends". In the new book I use talimenios and lover much more.

Question for you: I love to puzzle over people's LJ names and figure out what they mean, if anything. Would I be anywhere near the mark to guess that you are, or have been, a starving Canadian college or grad student, who has subsisted on ramen (the modern corollary for the Kraft Mac and Cheese in the blue box Doug and I subsisted on back in the day) and Weetabix cereal? On my honor, I haven't peeked at your profile.

And my spell checker, ever creative, wants me to change Weetabix to "wetback".

slave_2_a_husky asks: I have always wondered if you take current (and not so current) events and incorporate them into the storylines. Does the 'real world' find its way into your stories?

I look to the real world to glean details of how people interact. Why wars happen. Why one culture oppresses another. And as I've said many times before, while I was creating Mardus, Jeffery Dahmer was constantly in the news. I know that had an effect. The mechanisms and trappings of modern life may be different, but human motivation is timeless.


nightrunner42 asks: What is your response to the overwhelmingly positive response to the homosexual aspects of the Nightrunner series? Was it ever your intent to be sending a message, or was that just a lucky accident?

I'm both happy and relieved. Happy that my characters were acceptable to the mainstream, where they can do much good, and relieved that I didn't get the somewhat expected barrage of mail from outraged gay male readers telling me that I got it all wrong, and how dare I write about them, since I'm not one of them.

Intent to send a message? Yes, in that I wrote a world the way I thought this one should work. But I didn't know if that would come through as a "message".

And how does it feel knowing that your work has helped so many young adults through a very difficult period of their lives?

It feels darn good. That's something I didn't really anticipate, aside from offering a hero with whom they could hopefully identify.


On a personal note, those books are among the only things that helped me get through my early years in high school. I was just coming to terms with my own homosexuality, and Nightrunner was one of the first times I saw a relationship like that in literature. Seeing how normal Seregil and Alec could be, how open, allowed me to be comfortable coming out of the closet to my (very religious) parents, and friends. They helped me get through a very deep depression, and I couldn't be more thankful for the gift you have given us with these books. Thank you! :-)

You're very welcome. I hope the coming out was not too traumatic. Among my niggling concerns is that my books would cause someone to come out to the wrong people and get hurt. I've never heard of that, but I hope it doesn't happen. Hugs to you!

I have in my hand the Advanced Reading Copy of Shadows Return! Looks sharp, too. :-)

jack_magic asks: Do you ever dream about your characters and/or world? Has this every inspired some key plot point?
I almost never dream about them, and I've never come up with anything useful in dreams. I do dream very vividly, and occassionally consciously, and there have been times when I've thought, "Wow, this would make a great plot!" but when I wake up it's all nonesense.

The one exception to this is that I used to have terrible nightmares, or just weird dreams that had significance. Several of them have made it into the books in slightly altered form as Seregil's dreams. Most notable, the glass orbs.

mysticjuicer asks: Out of all the steps that go into getting a book from an idea to a physical product sitting on a bookshelf somewhere, what's your favourite part, and which (if any) do you like least?
How did you get started writing? When did you know you could do this fulltime?

I hate first draft, and really love the rewrite phase. In the case of the first, I'm feeling my way along, squeezing everything out of my brain a word at a time. When I have a finished draft and the story is in place, then I go back through, usually with my editor's comments in hand, and add, tighten, find new inspirations for scenes or dialog. I just love that.

I got started "writing" as a kid who loved nothing better than to play "let's pretend" and tell stories in my head. I began creative writing in eighth grade, when an English teacher taught a section on that, and continued through high school, ending up in a high school creative writing class and Honors English. I went to college to be an English teacher but hated student teaching. Floated around trying to find myself, still writing, and got serious some time in the 80's. Along the way I found work as a copy writer for an ad agency, and then a freelance newpaper journalist.

I started working seriously on the fiction after my first son was born. I'd planned to go back to work, but ended up wanting to stay home and raise my kids myself, rather than in daycare. I freelanced, though, working for newspapers to keep my skills up, and was working on the first NR book. By the time they were both in school I'd sold Luck and my husband encouraged me to just keep going. The rest is history. I was lucky to have a "patron", though. I couldn't have done it financially if I was on my own. I could now, living modestly.

Posed by mm511 Thought it might be of interest. The following answers are simply my own take on my own work, nothing more.

I'm writing a paper on the classification of authors and novels as "gay": you know, the idea that Michael Cunningham or Alan Hollinghust is a gay author or that SPECIMEN DAYS or THE LINE OF BEAUTY is a gay novel.

I am curious to know whether you consider yourself a gay author. I'm leaving the term ambiguous -- "author who writes gay characters" or "author who is a homosexual" (I know you're not the latter) -- because the term is ambiguous. I'm also curious as to whether you consider your novels -- any of them, all of them, whatever -- gay novels.

I guess I don't think of myself as a "gay writer", so much as one who has gay characters and issues in her books. I don't think of my books as "gay," either, because I see that as an element, and an important one, in the greater context of the overall story, but not the sum total of what the story is about. I'm straight, and I have straight characters. Does that make me a "straight" writer? I'm a woman and have women characters. Does that make Tamir's story a "woman's book"? Starts to sound rather limiting, doesn't it? In my mind, I'm just a writer who writes books.

If you do not consider yourself a gay author or your books gay novels, do you take offense at the term?

Offense? No, none at all! If people who like my books consider them—or me— as such, and that means something to them, then I have no problem with that whatsoever.

Would you be upset if people DO think of you and your work in that way?

My initial and honest gut reaction is "Of course not!", but I realize that this applies mostly to those who like my books because of, or regardless of, such content. On the other hand, if some people thought that this aspect was the only, main thrust of the stories (heh!) and refused to buy them, or would only shelve them as such, or they could only be sold in "gay" bookstores (or straight bookstores, or women's bookstores, etc), I wouldn't be happy about that. I'm not happy that books that are intended outright to be "gay" are treated that way, either.

The fact is, we all discriminate in some way about what we read. I don't generally like "romance novels". If someone told me that "Jane Eyre" (a personal favorite) was a romance novel and that's all I knew about it, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. Tell me it's a gothic romance and suddenly I'm interested: it gets docketed in my brain as "potentially spooky, with an exotic historical setting, and maybe a ghost or two!"

I don't gravitate to westerns, either, and am not a fan of Zane Grey. If someone had presented me with "Lonesome Dove" in that light, I'd have passed. But it was well marketed as a sweeping, epic story with a vivid cast against a magnificent backdrop of well-researched western history and I was hooked, and found another solid favorite.

It's the same as dismissing the entire, traditional Literary Canon as a bunch of boring books written by Dead White Guys. Or the work of Toni Morrison as "books for just black people." Heck, there are plenty of people who won't touch my books with a ten-foot library ladder because they're "just fantasy."

Does all this make any sense?

If NIGHTRUNNER were to receive the subject heading Gay Men -- Fiction in a library catalog, would you find it?

Find it? Not sure what you mean. I'd do a title search. Probably not what you meant.

How about THE BONE DOLL'S TWIN receiving Transgender people -- Fiction?

I don't think it would be accurate if they were given only those headings. I consider them first and foremost fantasy novels. As a subheading, though? No problem. They're reader-tagged that way on Amazon.com already.

I've probably belabored this enough, but I'm not much for pigeon holes. Would it be fair to reduce the work of writers like Jim Grimsley, Truman Capote, E.M Forster, Noel Coward, W. Somerset Maugham, or Daphne DuMaurier to one narrow label? Shakespeare was probably at least bi. Is that the sum total of his work? No. Is it a piece of the puzzle of who those writers are and where they were writing from? Absolutely.

All that being said, I do want my books docketed in such a way that gay readers in search of a good read can find them by more than word of mouth, especially those younger readers looking for a positive main character, who I hear from every now and then.

Here's a question for any queer readers: Do you enjoy finding queer content in a mainstream book written by a straight writer? Would you have picked up my books without knowing that? Did you pick them up without knowing that, just thinking they sounded like good stories?

I don't know if I've expressed this very well and hope I haven't given offense. Please ask for any clarifications needed!

j00jOne of the things that struck me about the Nightrunner series is the (mostly) very egalitarian, open-minded attitude towards sexuality found in Rhiminee. Do you have a sense of how that developed within the universe of the books?

(yes, I was an anthropology major...)

Short answer: It's the way I think the world should work. Longer writer answer: In addtion to trying to play with the standard fantasy tropes, I think there are a lot of examples of how more open sexual morays (sp? rules, not eels) develop in highly developed, wealthy cultures with a wide ranging trade, which brings in outside ideas to challenge provincialism. Of course, it's often followed by collapse and invasion, but let's not go there.


mihakkenI'd love to know if you created the characters, or if they kind of wrote themselves and took you along for the ride.

I create the characters, but my subconscious has a great hand in the process. Unexpected things tend to happen on the page. But once I get to know the character, figuring out what they'd do or say, or how they would react to a given situation comes to me quite easily. The trick is to hit them with things that will make them react the way I want them to.

Also, if you have ever found it difficult to write books that can stand on their own [though I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to read ALL of them XD].

I don't think I've written any book that stands completely on its own. Each one leads to another, which is intentional, since I write series. The challenge for me will be to come up with an idea that doesn't turn into a series! I am surprised when people write to tell me that started with a middle or end book and still enjoyed it. So maybe they stand on their own more than I expect.

talithakalagoI'd like to know about writing the first book--before you found a publisher. And the shortly thereafter--the months following the release.

I spent a lot of years learning to write as I worked on what became the first two books— close to ten. It began as "just for fun", then people started reading it and enjoying it, so I pressed on and got more and more obsessed—er, determined. I took the honking big manuscript I was working on to a writing workshop taught by a favorite novelist of mine, Cathie Pelletier (also known as K.C. McKinnon) who was very encouraging. Armed with this, I forged on and eventually had a finished manuscript.

Then I had to teach myself how to sell a book. (see: "The Complete Nobody's Guide to Query Letters" http://www.sfwa.org/writing/query.htm) That took a while, too, but I learned how to prepare a submission packet and started sending them out. And getting rejections, the most useful of which was from an agent who liked the story, but pointed out that the manuscript, at 200,000 words, was too long to sell, especially as a first novel. She suggested I split it and add a new story arc to fill out the end of the first book. So I did. And sent that query out, and got some more rejections, then finally got an enthusiastic response from a woman who has been my agent ever since. It took her less than four months to sell it to Bantam. And there was much rejoicing! And then I went through my first revision cycle, and felt like a Real Writer at last. And then the book came out and there was more rejoicing.

I'd like to know how being published affected your life.

Heh. To paraphrase an old Zen saying: "Before you get published, chop wood, carry water. After getting published, chop wood, carry water." It changes your life less than you expect. No instant world fame. No instant wealth. Years away from establishing a lasting reputation. And now you have to do it all again. Not a career for the faint of heart or short of attention span.


buffysquirrelMight be useful for new readers to know which book(s) you'd suggest they start with :). Me, I started with Bone Doll's Twin--I think that was a good one to start with! lol

You can start with the first book of either series. For those who read Nightrunner first, it's fun to go back and see the roots of history. For those who start with Tamir, you get to find out what the hell that stupid bowl thingy was about. One series informs the other interchangeably.