Lynn Abbey
If all my dreams come true, I'll have a chance to write a straight-up historical... It won't be an easy task... My Latin's gotten very rusty over the years.
Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down.
Ideas are a writer's cheapest commodity. If I never had another idea, I still couldn't write my way through all the notions rattling around in my hindbrain this morning.
I've thought about writing in other genres, but my imagination just doesn't seem to lead me in other directions.
I've read short stories that are as dense as a 19th century novel and novels that really are short stories filled with a lot of helium.
I've got two degrees in medieval history.
I've done a lot of shared-worlds and work-for-hire. Ask me if I think it's always been good for my career and the unequivocal answer is No, but it's paid the bills when the bills.
I've developed a reputation as someone who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse when it comes to pulling a story out of a murky milieu, and that keeps my name in circulation.
I've always seen Thieves' World from two perspectives-as a business property and as a creative sandbox.
I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god-and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters. In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.
I'm not constrained by being a genre writer. Any story I can imagine, I can cast as a fantasy novel and probably get it published.
I'm no athlete and my piano lessons were going nowhere; I got good marks in school, but there were always kids who outshined me-until I wrote a short story.
I'm dense when it comes to discouragement.
I'm currently working on my third book about Emma Merrigan, curse hunter and university librarian.
I'm always trolling for trivia.
I'm a writer first and an editor second... or maybe third or even fourth. Successful editing requires a very specific set of skills, and I don't claim to have all of them at my command.
I write sets of books, but I've also written a lot of orphans.
I wish I knew how to imagine a short story, because I rather like the form, but they're too time-consuming for me to write on a regular basis.
I went to Oklahoma to recover from a shattering divorce and I couldn't have found a better, safer haven, but in time I realized that I needed to be closer to my parents, which entailed moving to Florida.
I was one of those rare and fortunate writers who did not go through an amateur period of creating unpublished/unpublishable fiction. I didn't actually start writing with professional intent until a golden opportunity fell into my lap.