Lynn Abbey
I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.
I love writing Thieves' World, but I feel a responsibility, too, to the other authors. I've lost many nights' sleep worrying if I've made the sandbox too large, too small.
I have some history books that I come back to when I'm trying to debug my worlds.
I have a problematic relationship with magic: when push comes to shove, I don't believe in it.
I guess it's good to be known for something.
I don't strive for perfect continuity, which is good, because I'd never achieve it.
I don't so much think of myself a fantasy writer as a writer of histories of places that don't exist. I'd like to write the histories of places and people that have existed, but I've never been satisfied with the completeness of my research.
I don't have any signed contracts right now, but my agent's out there shaking the bushes vigorously.
I do keep a small file of samples from not-yet-invited authors. The cold, cruel fact is that I wouldn't be doing any of them a favor if I asked for a story.
I do have a small collection of traditional SF ideas which I've never been able to sell. I'm known as a fantasy writer and neither my agent nor my editors want to risk my brand by jumping genre.
I construct timelines for each story and a master timeline for sequencing the stories in the volume.
I can usually tell the difference between a short story idea and a novel-length one when someone describes the idea to me.
I always make sure I have an escape clause that allows me to pull my name off a project if I have to abandon it.
Getting the new anthologies up and running has had its share of unexpected pitfalls. I hope I'm not being naive or unduly optimistic when I think that, time-wise, the worst is over.
Gamers, especially the game masters, who are the primary audience for any game box, want precision because that's what the players want.
Friends who are not writers try to be sympathetic and understanding of a writer's mood, but, truly, it takes one to know one.
For me, writing a short story is much, much harder than writing a novel.
For me, the rise and fall of the 1980s incarnation of TW was deeply personal and intertwined with the rise and fall of my marriage to co-editor, Robert Asprin.
For a good fiction writer-and that includes writers of SF and Fantasy-there is simply no such thing as useless research. I never pass up an opportunity to learn how something is made or used.
Flaws of style and sequence would fairly leap off the page and the means to correct them would, too.