Back in my VISION days, I had the honour of interviewing multiple award-winning fantasy author Lois McMaster Bujold.
VISION is a Brisbane-based group for writers of Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy and was founded by children’s author and fantasy writer, Rowena Cory Daniells. Check it out at www.visionwriters.org
Aspiring overseas writers are most welcome to join the VISION e-list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vision-writers/
This article, my first, was a surprise challenge and was published in the VISION Newsletter in April 1998.
‘Hi, this is Rowena. Lois McMaster Bujold will be in Brisbane next Thursday night and we’re trying to organize a get-together for her at Adrianne’s place. She writes space opera. Please let me know as soon as possible if you can come …’
The message on the answering machine sounded intriguing. I returned our illustrious leader’s call and accepted without hesitation, but was ashamed to admit I’d never heard of the woman, let alone read any of her books. Then again, I hadn’t read much of anything lately. I’d cold-turkeyed off my five-novel-per-week habit several years ago, thanks to eye problems and the demands of motherhood.
As a fledgling fantasy writer, I knew I was woefully out of touch. Still, what better way to remedy the situation than to meet a genuine author? I was eager to learn more about her, so I did some research. Here’s what I discovered.
Lois McMaster Bujold was born in 1949 and attended Ohio State University, but didn’t graduate. She describes her education as reading 5 books per week for 10 years (now, that sounded vaguely familiar), reading enormous amounts of science fiction as a teenager, and listening to her father, an engineer. She is divorced, with a son and a daughter.
She started writing in 1982 and sold her first story to Twilight Zone in 1985. Baen bought her first three books, publishing them in 1986. Her central character, Miles Vorkosigan, is a puny aristocrat who prefers to use wit rather than military might when it comes to solving problems.
Bujold won Hugo Awards for her novels, The Vor Game, Barrayar, Mirror Dance and Mountains of Mourning; and six of her books (including Brothers in Arms and Labyrinth) are on Locus’ recommended reading list. She also won Locus Awards for Barrayar and Mirror Dance. In addition to winning Nebula Awards for Falling Free and Mountains of Mourning, she was also nominated for the John W Campbell Award in 1987.
Awesome! It promised to be a most interesting meeting indeed.
A week later, I arrived at Adrianne’s home and knocked on her door. It was a cold, miserable April evening and the rain was beating a listless tattoo on the roof of her carport.
‘Am I early?’ I called cheerily, trying not to trip over her cat. The digital clock in my car was 6 hours 20 minutes slow. No-one seemed to know how to fix it. I prayed my mental arithmetic was correct.
‘A little,’ Adrianne replied. ‘But that’s okay. Come on in. We’re just finishing dinner.’
Unlocking the screen door, she ushered me in, sat me down at the dinner table and offered me cheesecake. I hunched over in my chair in an attempt to present the smallest possible target to the world. After a brief lull, the dinner conversation continued.
‘Don’t you just love American conventions?’ asked a vivacious woman with short, brown hair. ‘They schedule about twelve really interesting events simultaneously and you wish you could see them all. There’s so much to do …’
As inconspicuously as possible, I began to inch my chair toward the living room. I’d almost escaped when a young man (later identified as Ron from Pulp Fiction) said, ‘Don’t be shy. Come, sit closer.’ I smiled weakly and obeyed.
Five minutes later, Chris and Sally arrived and, with much clinking of plates and cutlery, we adjourned to the living room before I could embarrass myself any further. Selecting a comfy chair between Sally and the vivacious, brown-haired woman, I sipped my coffee and whined to them about the weather. The woman turned to me and smiled.
‘Cold? You gotta be kidding. Back in Minnesota, we used to drive on the lakes. They were frozen at the time, of course.’
Suddenly, realization dawned. I was talking to Lois McMaster Bujold! For someone so successfully, she seemed remarkably friendly and down-to-earth.
By 7.30pm, twenty-one V.I.S.I.O.N members, two visiting SF fans, three of Adrianne’s students and a large, fluffy feline had assembled to welcome our guest of honour to Australia. Bujold put us all at ease by asking us to introduce ourselves and give a brief outline of our writing interests before launching into an informal Q & A session. The questions came thick and fast. I whipped out my notebook and jotted down some of Bujold’s pearls of wisdom …
Bad news comes by mail – good news with a phone call.
When you finish one book, move onto the next ASAP.
Contracts aren’t permanent. You can always fix your mistakes next time round.
Never write back to a reviewer. It’s unprofessional.
Writer’s block is your friend. Your back-brain is telling you you’re going in the wrong direction.
After about an hour, we paused for refreshment and mingled. I nearly choked on my coffee when both Adrianne and Rowena approached me to do this article on Bujold for the V.I.S.I.O.N Newsletter. They’d seen me taking notes. I agreed (with a certain amount of trepidation) and returned to my scribbling with renewed zeal for I was now a roving reporter.
Midway through the proceedings, Bujold delivered an eloquent speech (‘When World Views Collide’) that explored the way people really read.
‘Each time someone reads a book, two world views collide. For example, if a cynical, angry reader reads a cynical, angry book, he will feel comfortable … No two people reading the same text will experience it in the same way or at two different points in their lives. When you were twelve, it was impossible to read something that didn’t expand the mind … Reading is very subjective. People read books for different reasons. Some people need to get away from life … Writers become spoiled readers. They start proofreading everything … They look at transitions and are conscious of structure and weak dialogue … Theme is what a book is really about.’
After the speech, Bujold fielded another barrage of questions with her usual warmth and wit.
Who are your favourite authors?
‘Terry Pratchett. I’d pay to see him any day. Also Heinlein, Tolkien, Asimov, Cord Wainer-Smith, Dorothy Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle and Poul Anderson. I actually went to dinner with him once.’
Do you have an agent?
‘Yes, Eleanor Wood. She was Heinlein’s agent.’
How much to you write each day?
‘Hard to say. My professional production schedule is two chapters per month. Normally I try to write about 1500 words per day – 500 if I’m working through a sticky bit. I write in ‘chunks’ or sections and amass notes for several months before starting a novel.’
How accurate does the scientific information have to be?
‘If used in the foreground, it has to be correct science. If it’s not central to the story, you have to make sure it’s not noticeably wrong. I try to keep up to date with modern technology by reading Scientific American. It also helps having a background in biology and being able to draw on my Dad’s experience as an engineer. I used to work as a drug administration technician in a hospital. Elizabeth Moon was an emergency medical technician and she appreciates the fact that I do my medicine right. Still, you get the occasional problem. An exercise physiologist contacted me and complained about my use of the phrase, ‘lactic acid buildup’. She said the term was obsolete.’
What about co-writing?
‘There are as many different techniques as there are writers. There’s no right or wrong way.’
Have the Baen people approached you about franchising?
‘Yes, after my first Hugo Award. But no, I wouldn’t like to do it. It’s too opposite to the way I work. I like to have the power to make my own settings.’
When writing the seventh or eighth book in a series, how do you bring readers up to speed?
‘I must admit it’s getting more difficult. The problem is how to get in enough back-story. You can either tell it from a different viewpoint or get a different character to tell it with a different attitude. For example, you could have a couple of characters talking about something that happened previously and flip the viewpoints around. In doing this, each book enriches the other and eventually, the whole series begins to cross-fertilise.’
Do you have to re-read so you don’t forget things?
‘Yes.’
Have you thought of writing a prequel?
‘Actually, I’ve written two. With prequels, the ending is constrained. That makes them harder to write. You can overcome this problem by setting the story in a place you’ve never been before. Or, you can use new characters. No-one knows if they’re going to live or die.’
What are your favourite novels?
‘Out of the ones I’ve written?’
Yes
‘’Mirror Dance’ and ‘Memory’.’
Do you have anything you wish had never been printed?
‘No. I just think to myself, ‘that’s the best she could do at the time.’ I can live with that.’
Tension is one of your calling cards. Can you comment on this?
‘I try to keep Miles continually challenged. He’s a very self-conscious hero. Not your usual tall, dark and handsome stereotype. There’s something a bit subversive about him. I like to have my characters emotionally involved. But, different readers have different tolerance levels for tension. You can’t cater for the idiosyncratic. To create the new, you have to annihilate the old and force change onto the reader.’
In what countries are your books selling?
‘Australia, Britain, USA, Canada, Japan, Russia, Poland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain. Fourteen foreign languages in all. I was pirated in Bulgaria and they stole some novellas in Greece. My books have also been translated into Hebrew, Lithuanian and Croatian.’
Do you work with the translators?
‘No, not normally. But it’s interesting to see what survives translation.’
Have you thought of adapting your work to a TV series or movie?
‘I was actually presented with a script for ‘Warrior’s Apprentice’. It was horrible. The characters had my names, but that was where the similarity ended. The story was entirely different, too. Let me give you a word of advice. Before signing a contract, make sure you pay special attention to the clause, ‘moral rights’. It means ‘the right for a work to be accurately presented.’
Would you consider writing the script to a movie?
‘No, it’s a different discipline. Scripting is the career of the future, but I think I’ll stick to novels. I’m lucky enough to be financially comfortable. My need for money is limited only by my teenagers’ ability to spend it.’
As laughter flooded the room, Adrianne called the session to a close and presented Bujold with a thank-you give: an Australiana bookmarker and a box of chocolates which the author generously shared around the room. After refreshments and some more mingling, I purchased a copy of Barrayar, which Bujold graciously autographed, and headed for home.
Two world views collided most favourably later that night as I snuggled up beneath my doona and devoured my new book into the wee hours of the morning. I was well and truly hooked. The only sound I could hear was the voice of legendary Betan jump-ship commander, Cordelia Naismith-Vorkosigan (Miles’ Mum), echoing in the soundstage of my mind.
Funnily enough, she sounded just like Lois McMaster Bujold.
Any other fantasy/sci-fi writers out there?
