Because of these several impediments, as well as other technical difficulties, you will find typos and occasional replication of text. In our humble opinion, typos show that the logs are of *live* chats, not canned interviews, and minimal editing of these logs has taken place.

Lawrence Watt-Evans's Home Page

[Cybling] Welcome Lawrence Watt-Evans!
[LWE] Hi, folks. Assuming anyone's out there.
[Ryan] Howdy. Should I call you Lawrence, LWE, Watt-Evans....? :D
[Cybling] Good to have you here today.
[LWE] Lawrence or LWE,whichever.
[Cybling] LWE.. how has the con been treating you so far?
[LWE] Pretty good, mostly. They could use better signage.
[Cybling] This is very true.
[Cybling] Lots of lost people during this con.
[LWE] My panel that just ended went reasonably well.
[Cybling] That and the lines for the elevators, which I hear is common when you have 5,000 people in the hotel.
[Cybling] that's good!
[LWE] The elevator lines last night were amazing.
[Cybling] LWE, you've had thirty novels and over a hundred short stories, including the Hugo-winning "Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers."
[Cybling] Do you have a novel on the shelves right now that we should be looking for?
[LWE] Right ow, DRAGON WEATHER is out in hardcover.
[LWE] The paperback is due in December.
[Cybling] Excellent...and who's the publisher on that one?
[LWE] That's from Tor.
[LWE] These days I'm writing almost entirely for Tor.
[Cybling] Cool. Tor's here at the convention, I'm sure you'll be hobnobbing with them at their party later.
[LWE] I hope so.
[Cybling] LWE, I'm assuming that the panel you had that went well was The Physics of Fantasy
[LWE] Yes.
[Cybling] Fantasy has physics? I thought it was just concerned with magic?
[LWE] Well, it was a sort of vague panel...
[LWE] ...because magic DOES have physics, but it's highly variable.
[Cybling] highly variable. i was just under the impression that magic defied the usual laws of science.
[LWE] Not necessarily.
[LWE] Magic does whatever the author needs.,
[Cybling] This is interesting, but there are basic laws.
[LWE] No, there aren't.
[Cybling] No there aren't...sorry...just assumed there would be laws if you were discussing the Physics of it.
[LWE] Whatever the author says are the laws are the laws.
[LWE] So we were discussing how the author chooses` which laws to ordain.
[Cybling] Ahhhhhh! and then how he sticks to them through the novel or series?
[LWE] Yes, exactly.
[Cybling] Okay...yes that can be a problem with some Fantasy novels.
[Cybling] DRAGON WEATHER, is about the magical creatures Dragons...
[Cybling] I assume. Correct?
[LWE] Nope.
[LWE] It's about revenge.
* Cybling thwapps self.
[Cybling] Ah...now there's something else that has certain tendencies and few laws.
[Cybling] Can you tell us more about the book then 8^D
[LWE] It has dragons in it, but they're not really what it's about.
[Cybling] Okay.
[LWE] It's about a young man whose family was killed, and who has sworn to avenge their deaths and certain other wrongs.
[LWE] He finds out this isn't as simple as he'd hoped, either physically or morally.
[Cybling] There. that's better. Okay...do you have specific rules for your dragons...that follow them throughout your work
[Cybling] ?
[LWE] Oh, yes -- but the reader doesn't know what they are until near the ean.
[LWE] End, not ean.
[Cybling] Okay...so you don't just set down the rules, they are part of the prose.
[LWE] Of course.
[Cybling] LWE, today we've been talking with a lot of folks about how they got started writing and their advice to new writers...
[Cybling] About how old were you when you made your first sale, and how long did you have to work to get to that point?
[LWE] I started writing with the idea of maybe being published when I was eight...
[LWE] ...submitted my first story when Iwas`seventeen...
[LWE] ...sold my firstshort story at twenty...
[Nira] Is that to say that you don't like to define a structure which must be stuck to inside a story?
[LWE] ...and my first novel .attwentry-fou
[LWE] At twenty-four. Sorry.
[Cybling] Thanks. So you followed the basic route...stories to novels.
[LWE] No, I wouldn't say that at all.
[LWE] Oops. That was to Nira.
[LWE] I did go stories to novels, sort of...
[LWE] ...but discovered I was much better at novels.
[LWE] I didn't sell a second short story until after my second novel.
[Cybling] But you still write shorter fiction?
[LWE] Actually, at the moment I'm sort of taking a break, but I do write short stories sometimes.
[LWE] I've got one just out, in an anthology called FAR FRONTIERS.
[Cybling] Okay... I know that a lot of authors feel that there is as much emotional commitment to a Short as to a novel.
[Cybling] Far Frontiers is just out on the shelves now
[Cybling] ?
[LWE] I'm not sure it's hit the`shelves yet.
[Cybling] Okay...we'll look for it on Amazon.
[LWE] Um... I'd wanted to say more about Nira's`question, but did Nira leave?
[Ryan] He should be back shortly.
[Horus] yeah
[LWE] Okay.
[Cybling] Doesn't mean she can't read the log better.
[Cybling] Later that is.
[Ryan] He. :P
[LWE] I generally DO define a structure, work out background, outline the story...
[Cybling] Sorry.
[LWE] ...I just don't show that to the reader.
* Cybling thwaps self again.
[Cybling] thank you LWE
[Cybling] LWE, are you currently working on a new novel, or is there on in the publishing pipeline?
[LWE] Both.
[LWE] In the pipeline: NIGHT OF MADNESS...
[LWE] ...Tor, hardcover, November. Seventh in the Ethshar`series, but you don't need to have read the others.
[LWE] And in progress is THE DRAGON SOCIETY...
[Cybling] that's a relief, thanks LWE, but I'll be we'll want the first six after reading it.
[LWE] ...the sequel to DRAGON WEATHER.
[Cybling] Excellent!
[Cybling] All from TOR.
[LWE] Yup.
[LWE] The EIGHTH Ethshar novel's under contract, but not very faralong.
[Cybling] Lawrence, I can see that the tiny flat keyboard is starting to wear on your hands....
[Cybling] Perhaps we can schedule something with you in the near future.
[Cybling] I want to thank you for taking time out from your con activities to join us online.
* Cybling applauds
[Ryan] Thanks for coming, LWE.
[LWE] You're quite welcome.
[Cybling] And good luck in those elevator lines!
[Ryan] Hello Damien.
[LWE] Hey,at least they're lines `and not mobs.
[DamienOmen] hi
[DamienOmen] im new
[LWE] G'bye, folks!