Written by <a href="/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=784:nyssa&catid=167:staff&Itemid=318"><span class="small">Nyssa</span></a>
How does it feel to have The Painted Man out conquering the book world?
Amazing and a little surreal. It seems like yesterday I was begging for someone/anyone to read my manuscript, and not long before that when I was sitting alone at my computer at 3am on a work night, thinking no one was ever going to be interested in this book I was so determined to finish. Seeing the book in stores for the first time this month (and on the other side of the ocean from my home, no less!) was an indescribable feeling of ecstasy. It’s wonderful when a labor of love loves you back.
What was the initial idea that lead you to create the Painted Man?
It was more a collection of ideas than any one thing. After September 11th, I wanted to write a book about fear and what it does to people, and ever since reading Terry Brooks’ Elfstones of Shannara, I had wanted to write a book about demons. I decided to combine the two and make one a metaphor for the other.
As for the Painted Man himself, I wanted to get inside the psychology of the hero, and show how the path to power can come at a heavy cost of sacrifice and scars. I also want to explore the concept of symbol magic, so again I combined the two, making one a metaphor for the other. The Painted Man’s tattoos are a representation of the emotional scars that drove him to become what he is.
What research did you do for the book?
Research? Hah! I started writing fantasy so I could make everything up! Seriously, I drew upon 10 years in medical publishing to make the Herb Gatherer portions of the book seem convincing, and did a considerable amount of research into the tattooing process (up to and including getting one of my own).
I also draw heavily on google and Wikipedia for specific bits of information, like how paper is made by hand, or for details about desert cultures. I shudder at the thought of what doing general research like that must have been like before the internet made it all so simple. It gives me new respect for the generations of authors who did it the hard way.
What do you use to keep your support materials (i.e notes, background material, etc) together?
All my notes are electronic. I keep them in a gigantic MSWord document called “Demons of the Core Appendices”, which includes a glossary of every person, place or thing I have created for the world, not to mention my maps, character studies, mythology, Krasian dictionary, and the like. Everything from the economics of Fort Miln to how Duke Rhinebeck of Angiers’ grandfather came to power to what the deal with the corelings really is. It is all hyperlinked to a table of contents at the beginning so I can skip around the file with speed and agility. I maintain the file religiously, because I know it’s the glue that holds this world together.
Buried in a drawer somewhere is the old binder I used to use before I got hip to the electronic age. Who knows? Maybe it will be worth something some day…
How many books did you send in before you got published?
Well, the term “send in” is relative. I’ve written about 5 books, but only allowed 2.5 of them out into the cruel, cruel world: The first draft of The Painted Man, which my agent called “deeply disappointing”; a high fantasy I wrote called Snowcrest, which garnered some interest, but never took off for numerous reasons; and the second draft of The Painted Man, which is soon to be an international best… well, an international seller, anyway. Ten markets and nine languages so far!
How do you manage your plots, whether you write it all out before hand or go on the fly?
I am a meticulous plotter, and lay out everything the characters are going to do long before I write any prose. I make detailed bulleted lists showing everything that happens in every scene, what the characters’ motivations and feelings are, bits of dialogue, etc. I used to write in the kind of ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ style that some authors swear by, but while it can be a thrilling ride, that style, for me, at least, runs a real risk of taking the story off track, disrupting the proper flow of the story arc and frequently losing tension.
This is not to say that I don’t sometimes get inspired while writing prose and have the story run down an unexpected path. It happens rather a lot, especially with Leesha sections, which have a tendency to grow uncontrollably, but it’s more a luxury I occasionally allow myself rather than an accepted practice. A lot of times, the resulting scene is one I like a great deal, but which ultimately gets cut from the final draft because it doesn’t fit the pacing I laid out, or is not integral to the story.
I am working on creating a “deleted scenes” page on my website to show some of these moments, many of which I am rather fond of.
How do you write your darker scenes (like coreling attacks)?
Action scenes have never been a problem for me. I grew up watching martial arts movies and reading authors like RA Salvatore, who makes action an art form. If I know who lives and who dies going in, action scenes are by far the easiest things for me to write.
The scenes that are hardest for me are what I call “tempering” scenes. Tempering is all the horrible things you need to do to your characters in order to make them strong enough, driven enough, and focused enough to withstand the trials you have in store for them.
I believe that tempering is absolutely necessary to character development, but it’s still difficult to take characters you have lovingly created and have them beaten, or raped, scarred, or crippled. It hurts me almost as much as it does them to not only hurt them, but to turn my back and leave them to cry in the dust. But I know a storm is coming, and those characters need to be strong when it arrives. When I get through with them, I know the ones that survive the trials will come out the other end as people that can’t just be pushed around.
Still, I admit that when a tempering scene is coming up, I suddenly start finding other things to do. Writing e-mails, rearranging books on my shelves, fixing things around the house I have always been content to leave broken. Anything to avoid the dirty work. But if you want a job done right, you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself.
What experience or training do you think helped prepare you for writing? 
Honestly? Playing Dungeons & Dragons and reading a lot. There are some important craft aspects of writing that I learned later in life, but the core of it comes from those two things.
Reading taught me what I liked and what I didn’t, and being a Dungeon Master taught me to be a creative storyteller and how to enthrall an audience. It also taught me the value of planning stories in advance. Beyond that, the best training in the world is people watching. It’s characters, people, that drive any good story, and the best authors understand how a great variety of people think and what their perspectives and motivations are
What are your quirks or rituals for writing?
If I am home, I usually spend a good two hours surfing the internet and checking e-mail before I even think about writing. Then I go back and re-read what I read the previous day to get myself back in the zone, and spring off from there.
Frankly, though, I get my best work done on the subway, writing on my phone. It has a full (if tiny) keyboard, and runs MSWord, so I can sync the files with my computer. I wrote over half The Painted Man that way. There are no distractions on the subway, and I find that makes me a lot more focused. I also write in the park at lot, sometimes even while walking. In Brooklyn, that’s a good way to get yourself mugged or hit by a car, but I take my chances.
For writing, do you get dressed and work at it as a job with strict hours, or do you end up nuzzled up to a deadline while wearing three-day old pajamas to get things done?
Well, I make a point to shower every day, but I guess I drift towards the latter. Since I began writing full time last year, I have tried very hard to get myself on some sort of schedule, but my body and mind seem to do their best work at 2am while guzzling coffee and listening to my whole iPod library on shuffle. Now that there’s an infant in the house, it’s even more erratic. The muse comes when she comes, and I’ve just got to be ready to welcome her when she does.
Give it up -How many people would you kill to cover up your oldest writings?
A better question is, how many have I killed already? I’m not telling, on the grounds it may incriminate me.
Any hints about upcoming sequels? *wink wink nudge nudge*
Book two will be called The Desert Spear, and will describe the lives of the Krasians Jardir and Abban from childhood to present day, and will also focus on Renna Tanner, the girl Arlen was betrothed to in Tibbet’s Brook. There will also be plenty of scenes with Arlen, Leesha, and Rojer, as well as the introduction of some new castes of demon. It is plotted to completion in great detail, and about 70% of the prose is written. I hope to turn it in to the publishers by year’s end.
Book three is tentatively titled The Daylight War, and will see the scattered pockets of humanity turn upon one another, even as they face annihilation from the demon hordes. If things go well, I hope to have about two books after that, but we’ll see.
Read reviews of The Painted Man here
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