RUAS

How did you discover the Anitaverse? What was your first book, and what was your favorite? What brought you to this site?

I found the Anitaverse quite by accident –. I was at the library looking for a book by Pete Hamilton, and there was Cerulean Sins on the shelf. I liked the title, so I picked it up. Well, starting with that one left me with more questions than answers, so I started reading the rest of the series, completely out of order.

My favorite? Hard to say, I like them all, for different reasons, though Micah and Danse Macabre trail the pack. Blue Moon is right up there, though.

I got to Pomme de Sang because I ran out of books and someone suggested I look for ABVH fanfic. I was so naïve I didn’t even consider that people wrote fanfic-to me that meant Star Trek. Silly me!

I lurked on the site and read a lot for months before I was brave enough to post the first story I’d written since college, which was Double the Pleasure. So I’ve really only been writing for about a year and a half. I’ve read anything and everything for my entire life, and now it’s squishing back out onto the page.


What do you like least/most about the Anitaverse? What would be a good addition to the Anitaverse? How would you like to see the Anitaverse turn out? What one question would you ask LKH?

I love the characters, all of them, even Anita. By now, it’s hard to pick out canon vs. fanon reasons for enjoying some of them, but all of them have depth, although I think some of the writers here at PdS have given them more of that depth than LKH has. Each one has something special about them. I like a world that has the supernatural as something widespread, where your neighbor could reasonably be a werewolf, or you could dance with a vampire on Friday night.

What I don’t like is the transformation of Anita from someone I could relate to; a young woman with insecurities, talents, confusion about her sexuality vs. morals, and a couple of guns, to a Mary Sue who blames other people and the ardeur for what she does, and doesn’t meet basic responsibilities. I think LKH could still get Anita’s head out of her butt, and I truly hope she does.

I’m not sure what I’d add to the Anitaverse in general, though I could think of several directions I’d like to see it go. The ardeur needs to be controlled and not dominate the books as it has recently; a showdown between Council members in Europe and Jean Claude is brewing and should be quite interesting, and Anita is shaping up to be a direct competitor to Marmee Noir. I know a major character is doomed in the next book, and it’s freaked me out, and the book isn’t even out yet! So I couldn’t kill one of the characters, LKH is going to have to do it.

The question I’d ask LKH is: would she ever allow anthologies in her universe, the way Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey, and others do? It only promotes sales of the original author’s books, and it launches other talent. (Yeah, I’d submit work for something like that, in a heartbeat.)


What is it about Damian that attracted you to him and to writing about him? If Damian had been your original character, what additional characteristics would you have given him? What do you think is the greatest injustice done to him?

It has to pretty clear that Damian lies at the heart of my affections in the Anitaverse. He was one of the first characters I encountered, as he kept Anita from losing it there at the beginning of CS, which I thought was really cool, followed close on by her remark about how she didn’t find him appealing. So practically my first thought was ‘You don’t want him, girl? I do.’ Then the more I read, the more I liked him, especially in light of all the hideous things that befell him; Damian is magnificent in his sanity. He has survived horrors, and still functions.

It is a huge injustice to Damian that he is stuck with a new mistress who is as capricious as his old one, and while Anita won’t kill him out of malice or whim, she risks him out of carelessness. All the near death experiences Damian gets make me furious, which is why I had Richard bitch Anita out in Rock and a Hard Place. I keep trying to make her be more responsible to him. If I ever ran into Anita, as one question speculated, I’d tell her to knock off the near death crap. I’d probably say it sufficiently forcefully that she’d draw a gun on me.

I did give Damian the ability to see power in action; it appears to him like heat ripples. So far, he’s only needed it once, but I have lots of ideas… The other thing I’d do for him is to clarify a few things about his daywalking: it just seems unlikely that he could daywalk without being a master. There is precedent with Warrick on this; I think Morvoren has him too beaten down to find his strength.


Who is your second favorite character to write about?

I focus a lot on the relationship between Damian and Nathaniel, because of the huge differences between them, and the fact that they are stuck with one another. Both have had horrific pasts, and have reacted to the horror so differently. What Nathaniel likes now is what Damian has had far too much of, which has to unsettle the vampire. Yet Nathaniel is placed as the one most likely to reach out in friendship and more to Damian, however much or little Damian can accept that. I can get into Nathaniel’s mind to a degree, although I am as baffled as Damian by some aspects of him.

The other character I like to write is Micah, as an observer of the relationship between the two of them. He is a peacemaker, a diplomat, and a powerful force in his own right; as Storyseeker called him – a truly leopardy leopard. And if I coat him in chocolate now and then, so much the better!


Inspiration – combined thoughts

Real life incidents do inspire me. Christmas on the Fringe was the direct result of working at a clinic serving many homeless clients on a day of a blizzard. The story was rather bleak and angsty, but I dreamed it all night, and had to write it down.

I often start with a question, which leads to all sorts of insanity. What if vampires chewed bubble gum? Why did Jean-Claude ransom Damian from Morvoren? What happens if a scenario that LKH set up but didn’t pursue plays out in the most logical way? What if? How did they get to here? What happens next? I ask a thousand questions. My motto is “When in doubt, ask more questions.” It works professionally, and it works for my writing.

Sometimes I apply that to a mental image. I’ve had an image start a story, which required another thousand questions. After the Dancing sprouted from the image of Damian sitting in the moonlight on the kitchen floor, feeding steaks to leopard-form Nathaniel. What were animals do in animal form is fascinating to me – how much do they think? How much is animal reaction? How do they spend the time? I’ll be pursuing this more in the future, once I’m out of the eighteenth century for a while.

I’ve been asked elsewhere if I am a historian of some sort, but I’m not, just an interested amateur and an avid reader. Certain periods in certain countries have captured my imagination, and I need to read and learn about it. Naval warfare of the Napoleonic era fascinates me, Russian history of the late seventeenth and into the eighteenth century, English history of any era, all of these things populate my bookshelves, and new things may turn up as a ‘need to know’ subject at any moment. A biography of Marie Antoinette was a Channukah present, so goodness knows what will come of that. So much of what has happened in history is so whacked out, that I ask myself: did a vampire have anything to with that?

Which leads to research…

OMG, research. I am a fiend for research. If I’m going to do historicals, I have to do them accurately as possible, out of self respect. It drives me NUTS to have something out of period, or to get to a place or subject that I can’t fit into its proper time/location. Sometimes I’ll be perking along, typing merrily and then boom! Some horrible question pops up, like: how do you get from point A to point B in eighteenth century St. Petersburg? Thank G-D for the Internet and for cable modems. I can usually find the answer in a few minutes for little things, but I’ve been driven to libraries in other towns in search of information that I cannot live without, at least at that moment. I need to contact my alma mater to find out if alumni can get JSTOR access the way students can, because so much material I want to look at is restricted, academic journals and such on line.

I’ll read an entire book to get the background on a couple of throwaway lines.

The current project, 1751, needed a lot of research, because I am just not happy if I want to describe something or someplace and I know it’s wrong, or totally imaginary. I’m using a lot of real people, historical figures, so I feel as compelled to have them behave in character just as much as I feel that way for ABVH canon characters. (Some one wanted to know if there is a sequel planned for 1749 – so yes, this is it. I will start posting soon.) The information I’ve come across is simply fascinating in its own right, so my life is richer thereby, and I hope the fiction is richer for it as well.


How broad or refined is your outline for a story? Do you change midstream as a story is panning out and other characters or plots suggest themselves? Do you finish the story before starting to publish it?

For short pieces, I have a reasonably good idea what is supposed to happen before one word hits the page. For longer pieces, I’ve done it free form, as ideas cropped up, and it works better to have a moderately detailed outline. 1749 was an idea that grew and grew, and that it worked out well was good luck and not good planning. There were entire scenes that were completely necessary that didn’t get in until the very last minute before posting.

1751 had a timeline and outline, because certain things had to happen at certain times, and it would have been completely unmanageable without it. Time will tell about the story itself, but the writing needed the discipline of a thought-out structure.

That said, even within an outline the characters have surprised me; I know where they need to go, but the way they choose to get there hasn’t always been the way I thought they’d go. Subplots have crept in, just because something has amused me. Heck, entire chapters have inserted themselves into an outline.

I finish the entire first draft of a piece before I post a word. Or at least, I think it’s the entire first draft: 1749 had fin typed three times before it ended, and there’s something still a little odd about the ending. I have to let the piece marinate for a while, think about it some more, and then do a last polish even after my beta has okayed it for posting. It scares me that a big piece will work out that the end I want needs a big change in the middle, and it will be already posted and out there for posterity. So I know what’s going on at the end (theoretically) before I post.

I’ve never abandoned a story once I’ve started the actual writing, though I do have one that’s stalled on a plot point.


How valuable is your beta, beyond simple grammatical corrections, in propelling a story?

At the risk of causing blushes, let me say that my beta is a pearl beyond price. I didn’t have a beta until fairly recently, and learning to work with her was not simple for a control freak such as I. But Queen of Nightmares is a wonderful sounding board for plot points, research help, and a friendly shoulder when the muse is balky. I’ve learned to bounce ideas off her before committing them to paper, which has reduced the number of tossed scenes considerably. Once we’ve chatted for fifteen minutes, three thousand words can hit the page in quite short order.


What is you favorite time to write? How much time a day would you put into writing when in the middle of the story? What distracts you from writing?
I will write whenever I can, if the kids are in school, at night when I’m watching a movie with the Marital Unit (I can’t watch without a secondary sensory input), whenever. My family has objected to the amount of time I’ll spend, and they, um, do have a point. The big project under construction has taken a great deal of time. More stuff probably should distract me from writing, because I’ll write when I should be doing other things.


What drabble topic has been your favorite? If you could appear in any of your stories as a character (OC or canon), who would it be?

The dental drabbles were a particular favorite. The dentist, Dr. Stone, will be making reappearance eventually; I will have to beware of keeping the Mary Sue aspects down, because I identify with her a lot. However, I am not brave enough to put my hands in Valentina’s mouth.


If one of your characters could write you a letter, who would it be, OC or canon?

The letter would come from the Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeevna, who is an upcoming OC in my hands, but is a real historical figure. She’d have some pointed questions for me.


What is your favorite story (of your own)?

The one I’m working on at the time, usually. But I am partial to After the Dancing, because Nathaniel is so much fun in leopard form.


If you were to write something outside of the Anitaverse, what would it be? Will you try to write original fiction one day? If so, what are your expectations? Will you try to get published, or will it remain a relaxing hobby and a way to unleash your creativity?

This is a tough one, because the last big piece was actually pretty hard on my family; they wished for more of my attention. I do have some thoughts, nothing concrete, and definitely in the ‘needs more research’ stage, on a historical work. All the research done for Damian’s early years left me with other ideas in that period. I’d love to get it published, but that is a dream for the far future! The Marital Unit does inquire now and then if I’ll get published; he’d like to see economic activity associated with all this time spent. In the meantime, I’ll keep writing, because a certain vampire and a certain wereleopard keep making ideas perk through my brain.


Why did you did dread this interview so much?

The squawking was more in fun than real dread, since Celeste was poking me, I poked back. I was astonished to be picked on, since at the time I had a very small body of work. A lot of more established authors seemed like better candidates.


How did you come up with your pen name?

That’s my heart on my sleeve, in bad Anglicized Gaelic. ‘Ruas’ is short for “Cailin An Fhir Rua”, meaning ‘the red haired man’s girl’. I don’t know the Gaelic for “vampire”.


Posted: January 4, 2007