This is your chance to talk to me.  Just click on the ‘email me’ button, ask your questions, make your comments, etc. I’ll try to answer as many as I can. The ones I think might be of the most interest to people will get posted here, along with my answers of comments. Your email address will be kept private (this is a personal email to me) and, if quoted, only your first name will be used.

I’d like to express a special thanks to everyone who showed up at readings and book-signings, expressed interest, asked great questions (I wish I could remember all of them), and bought books!

Q: Are you a vampire? Are you sure you aren’t really a vampire? (Joe)

A: I think Joe was joking. I usually answer, “Everybody knows there’s no such thing as vampires.”

Q: How long does it take to write a novel? (Lori)

A: Tough one – six months or so. Allowing for interruptions, it can take a year. Then there’s rewriting. I wrote ...Always a Samurai in three and a half months, uninterrupted. But that doesn’t include rewriting. I spent three years rewriting The Warlord’s Blade four times.

Q: How many vampires do you know? (Peter)

A: I loved this one. My answer started with one of those Spock looks with the raised eyebrow. The questioner followed up with a rapid, “When you talk about it, you make me feel as if they really exist and you know a few.” Well, I must be doing something right. I’m a former biology teacher. It was only natural that I try to make the concept plausible. Still waiting for an answer? Let’s see: There’s Tony, Jonathan, and Radu. Then there’s Soutzos, Chernov, Petrenko, Vollinkoff, Chekinovich, and Bondarenko ... no, they’re dead... Stanislaus, Victor, Vlad, Elisabeta, and Gabriela... no, they’re dead, too. I never knew who those other two with Stanislaus were. Maybe we’ll find out in Immortal Samurai.

Q: Who is Nigel really? (Dave)

A: Nigel is an amalgam of three people I knew. When I was teaching, I had a friend from London, a cockney named Howard. Nigel’s speech is based on him. Two of my students, a small, red-headed black kid named Dylan, and a precocious young blonde boy named Jack, filled in the rest. They were probably the spunkiest, most optimistic people I ever met, and I still have fond memories of both. Most of the others are inventions. Sean is loosely based on my son Sean, Carrie is kind of based on my wife Carol. Bill and my brother share a career but not too much else. I got into an image of Bill as a bit of a smart-ass and just left it there. Some of the banter between Bill and Mike as kids is fairly authentic. I stole Sam Larkin shamelessly from Robert Culp’s Kelly Robinson on I Spy (a 60’s TV show). Everybody else is pretty much contrived as needed to provide colour or motivation, like Michael’s ex. In the Calebra Series, all are totally out of my imagination. However, a good friend insists that all my heroes are some aspect of me. Hey, that’s why they call it fantasy.

It has come to my attention that there are some errors in Once A SAMURAI...    In the change of publishers, my new friends at VirtualBookWorm got the original file, not the one I had edited with my previous publisher. Oops! Corrections have been made, and are now reflected in books being printed.

Q: Do you make an outline or write from the hip? (Ted)

A: I try to work from an outline but it often gets ignored. The true magic of writing happens when you find yourself in the zone – the story takes on a life of its own. You reach a place where you planned for a character to say and do something, and suddenly a different character is doing it, and the first character is doing something different, and, to your amazement, it just makes better sense. After a while your characters become real people in your head, the situation (no matter how deep into fantasy) becomes very real while you’re writing it.

Q: How do you write fantasy? Do you just make it up? How do you keep it believable? (Ed)

A: Rules. In the Calebra Series, wizards’ magic is based on a mineral, landia, that enables people to control matter. After deposits of it are discovered, they find that mortals can use landia stones to manipulate matter, as long as they understand the science of what they’re doing. Wizards have a gene that enable their bodies to accumulate landia in their tissues – the more they have, the more powerful the wizard. In the Samurai Vampire-Killer Series, the nature of vampires is explained on a biological level, including their physiology, biochemistry, and how they’re brought over. Much of it is figured out over time by Michael (CSIS Agent: Samurai), who was once a biology teacher. The more understandable the fantasy aspects are, the more believable. Just beware of burying the reader in too many technical facts.

Q: Why did you have to kill off your dog? That’s the only part I didn’t like; I loved the rest. (Edna)

A: Sorry about that but, actually, I didn’t kill off my dog, I killed off Michaels – a technical hair-splitter, I realize. When I was outlining that part of the story, my Corgi, Sam, was missing – he’d been stolen and was missing for four weeks. During that time we got Kato, my Siamese. When Sam came walking home, scarred from a catching noose and eight pounds lighter, I considered changing that part of the story, but then considered how much it added to Michael’s motivation, I wanted him really pissed off, almost to the point of being irrational, at that point. Sadly, in the fall of 2009, Samwise Gamgee had to be put to rest. He had chronic breathing difficulties, arthritis, and cataracts, and was really struggling to get around. Even Kato, our bluepoint Siamese, misses him.

Q: Why am I on my book covers? I think it looks self-indulgent. (Joe)

A: Reality check: For dynamite cover art, hire a painter. He hires a model. $2000-$5000 later, you have a dynamite cover. Alternative: Play dress up, set the camera’s self-timer, get several shots, pick best, then spend 2 days bringing it all together with PhotoShop. I'm not self-indulgent, just on a budget. I also end up with exactly the cover I want, not an unexplainable picture of an eagle feather or (ugh) some blonde dude with a crewcut in a karate gi, wielding a samurai sword. (A short-lived  publisher wanted to charge me $600 for that cover!)