[owleye]

Q would u like to live in ur book with the bards?

[alison]

How do you come up with all the names for the different places and people? did you get them from somewhere else? or did they just pop into your head?

Hi arcangelle - this is actually quite a common question for fantasy authors. I have several ways of making up names. Some I just make up, trying to make them sound euphonious (musical) or "right". I try to make them fit the language they come from. Enkir, Nerili, Lanorial, Lirigon/Lirion, Turbansk and Baladh are names like that. With others I take names from the real world and give them a bit of spin - Maerad's name comes from an Irish poet friend of mine called Mairead, Cadvan from a Welsh saint named Cadfan, Saliman is a version of Sulieman or Solomon. Nelac's name is actually an anagram of a favourite poet of mine, Celan.

Hi Brockie

Q: In the Gift Cadvan comments on a darkness growing in Maerad, does this have to do with:
her denying her feelings for Cadvan (hopefully luuuurve)
her feeling the burden of her 'destiny'
always having people distrust or fear her
constant danger and travelling
all of the above
or something else?

A: All of the above - also feeding into it are Cadvan's mixed feelings about her Elemental powers, which he doesn't understand and (not irrationally) fears. Bards, remember, are very suspicious of the Elidhu, whom they regard as amoral and unreliable. This is why Cadvan is somewhat unfair to her.


Would u like to live in ur book with the bards?

Hi Owleye - in certain bits of it, certainly. A few weeks in Innail right now would do me a power of good! :D

[whitesilkbreeze]

I don't believe in writer's block. Sometimes things aren't reading to be written - no one can write seven days a week. Writing is also surprisingly often about tricking yourself into it. When I can't write something, I drive my family and friends mad complaining... Or go on the message boards... :)

Hurrah! Someone who doesn't believe in writer's block! *hugs* I think you are a rare specimen. :o Or put that down to my lack of experience with people in general.

1. When you first started writing the Gift, were you planning to write a quartet?

[Tari]

Hurrah! Someone who doesn't believe in writer's block! *hugs* I
she aint the only one. i remember the first author i ever met, Gary Crew and the first thing he told me was there is no such thing as Wrters Block and i believe it.

anywayz. i know it explains it somewhere, in the Gift, (i think but dont count on it) where Maerad asks about the Landrost. now i'm stil a little confused. What/Who is the Landrost? What part does he/it play in the scope of things?

~ Tari

[yodee]

When a school has been 'sacked' can it then be rebuilt?
AND
I didn't really understand Mirka that much though I think she' s a great character, why is she away from her home and family? Does she know that a relative of hers exisits?

[owleye]

Q: will the school of pellinor be re- built?

[Aras]

thats a interesting question... nevah thought about that one. :confused:

but maerad and hem r the only two left and they hardly remember it - how could they restore it? *shrugs*

[alison]

Hi whitesilkbreeze - no, writer's block doesn't take into account the rhythms of your mind. Sometimes parts of you have to lie fallow, to permit things to germinate - one reason why I do a number of different things at once.

1. When you first started writing the Gift, were you planning to write a quartet?

It was going to be a trilogy. That is, until I worked out that Book 2 would be 900 pages long. So I split the story (which was better anyway, I think) and it turned into The Riddle and The Crow.

What/Who is the Landrost? What part does he/it play in the scope of things?

Hi Tari - the Landrost is a minor baddie. Actually a mountain Elidhu, like the Winterking but not nearly as powerful, who has been corrupted and enslaved by Sharma, and has been mostly too far away for Bards to bother about much.

Hi Yodee -

When a school has been 'sacked' can it then be rebuilt?

It could of course be rebuilt - both Jerr-Niken and Pellinor were burned to the ground, so it's a lot of work. Basically starting again.

Owleye, I'm not sure if Pellinor will be rebuilt - it's very far north and now that area is basically unpopulated. Perhaps, if people wanted to live there.

I didn't really understand Mirka that much though I think she' s a great character, why is she away from her home and family? Does she know that a relative of hers exisits?

Mirka was fun to write. She's quite mad and very old, and has withdrawn from everything after the terrible shock of her family being slaughtered. She might half know that some are still alive, but I suspect that even knowing that might be too painful for her - in a funny way, she's quite content living as she does, fishing by her little hut with her dog.

[Gemini]

Question about Cai. Is it pronounced "k-AI" or is it like the ancient verison of Kay, being of course Cai and pronounced "Kay" :D?

[alison]

Question about Cai. Is it pronounced "k-AI" or is it like the ancient verison of Kay, being of course Cai and pronounced "Kay"

Hi Gemini - you've picked it ;) - it's the Arthurian/Welsh Cai and so pronounced "Kay".