I know what you mean about not remembering the origins of ideas – just the other day I was reading through my ‘Ideas Journal’ and I discovered some ideas that I don’t remember having *g*.

I stayed up because I didn’t want to miss chatting with you, and because I probably wouldn’t have been able to get to sleep anyway (we’ve had quite a few thunderstorms in the UK lately).

Anyway, good luck at the airport!

Elliott

I was actually racking my brains to think of how I came up with the idea of the magic in the Mirage Makers. I wrote it well over 10 years ago, so my mind is now playing tricks…

Usually I have a single idea. What if -? Then that leads to something else and that means something else and bit by bit the whole system evolves. I always limit the magic. I try to make it internally consistent and not to powerful.

I once wrote a book – unpublished – which had a really fabulous magic system…Where the land was sort of like a chess board and certain players (characters who were mages) could only move magically in certain ways from certain places – like chess pieces are constrained by the rules of the game. Trouble was this: it ended up so complicated that it required too much explanation! It was a great idea, but almost impossible to write in a way which didn’t kill the narrative tension.

I don’t know why, I just love the different magic systems that authors use, and I love creating my own, trying to come up with unique ones. Believe me, I have more magic systems than I do storylines *g* although sometimes the magic system gives me a storyline to work with!

It was great chatting with you online – I also wish I could go to the real thing, but I will be in college at that time *sigh*

Elliott

What a pity about your book set in Malaysia. Surely if you tried to publish it now they would realise it wasn’t you? You could use another name altogether.

Are you scheduled for one of those ‘coffee hour’ groups in Denver to meet your adoring fans, or just the three panels and the reading?

I wrote another thriller after that – showed it to a member of my husband’s family (it was set in Malaysia) only to realise that she thought the central character and I were the same person – that the thoughts she had were mine. It was a terrible shock to me; I didn’t know people thought that way. And I realised I was in trouble with inlaws if I set my books in the real world around me.

So I wrote the other kind of book I was passionate about reading: fantasy. At least no one thinks I am Blaze Halfbreed!

And Gynie, I was not the least bit surprised that you weren’t awake at 4 a.m.

The question about magic is interresting, it’s true ^^

As glenda said we could keep on asking, here is a question again:

Why did you came to write some ‘Fantasy’ books rather than other ways to write things?

Interesting question about your different forms of magic. Not something which had occurred to me before.

By the way, the strike out thing, you don’t have to do it in HTML, I forgot this morning and it still worked OK.