LKH's Seattle Q&A for A Shiver of Light

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Many apologies for not posting this sooner, Lashers:

If the embed doesn't work, the link is HERE. For those who don't want to sit through 90mins of LKH talking or have issues with the audio, mod has done a thorough transcription: DOC and RTF format. It's too long to post to the comm in its entirety but we wanted it to be available.

Highlights of the video include:

● seven minute sexist monologue intro
● 4/24 questions relate to Merry Gentry and one doesn't count because it's a spoiler.
● LKH's opinions on body positivity, polyamory, pregnancy, therapy, Guy Zen, the French, Crocs footwear, and softcore porn. This is in addition to answering questions about the books/characters, writing, research, inspiration, and rejection.

Book/character discussions:
● LKH has notes on Anita going home to her family for Thanksgiving.
● She has no favourite book that she's written, she prefers character arcs and development.
● She has notes for a book about Nathaniel, his traumatic childhood, and giving that some resolution.
● Olaf will probably die. Also LKH does not think Olaf/Anita shipping is cool.
● Apparently Asher has always been a bag of dicks and LKH has no plan on Anita "fixing" his scars. Also he's not ambitious enough to try for a Council position.
● Bernardo Spotted-Horse and Peter will return if/when LKH writes about Edward's wedding.
● Belle Morte may come to America but struggle to adapt there.
● Anita will not willingly get pregnant. If Nathaniel could do it, LKH would go with that.
● There are plans for more books set in Merry's universe; two ideas include stories about Barinthus and Rhys. Merry is "content" so LKH isn't sure where to go with her story.
● The preternatural branch of the US Marshal Service may become its own entity. It has too much power and may go horribly wrong.
● LKH struggles to find myths in order to include more reptillian shapeshifters.

Comments

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I like how she talks about Trinity just to work in that her teenage daughter is jealous of her ass.

Edward can’t be from New Mexico because she’s never been there? Look, LKH, I think you’re taking “write what you know” a little TOO literally

Oh please just stop calling Nathaniel a “kitty” of any type, please, ugh

How does lots of women with one man not make “biological sense”?

What the fuck does she MEAN it was “not my choice” for Olaf to be a werelion? YOU ARE WRITING THESE BOOKS. Like maybe she meant “I didn’t really want for that to happen but then I found that the way I’d written things it made the most sense” but even that doesn’t hold water because it was made clear early on in the series, wasn’t it, that feline therianthropy is WAY harder to catch and you could be practically MAULED and still not get infected? Versus the mere scratch it takes from, say, a wererat? There is no reason Olaf had to become a werelion, LKH, stop lying

She may not want Anita and Olaf to hook up and I’m with her on that, but I guarantee you she DOES like the idea of him being hopelessly and disgustingly infatuated with her, especially in victim-blaming ways that emphasize how Not Like Other Girls Anita is

“I don’t think a male’s been set up with any kind of power related to it” I do not understand this as an answer at all

You may think Asher’s beautiful, but you’ve just said he doesn’t, so doesn’t it make MORE sense for him as a character to choose to try something like that, even if it could fail? She seriously just can’t handle the idea of her toys changing in any way.

Really fed up with her calling Belle Morte and other villains (usually female, ho w about that) “crazy” when what she means is “evil”.

Maybe the reason people would “get upset” at describing a woman as “well-hung” is because the only way that can be interpreted is as someone drawing really rude attention to the genitals of a transgender woman, which is a common way to emphasize the idea they’re not really women. I guess maybe what she means is that you can describe a guy more sexually and get away with that, but I think that’s because people routinely boil women, real and fictional, down to their looks, and it’s not done with dudes as much so when it happens it’s not part of a shitty objectifying pattern like it is with women and thus it’s not going to be as offensive. Sorry to spoil your white-knighting for THE PRECIOUS MENZ again, LKH. Also, in this case in particular, YOU are the one who made “big dick” one of his main character traits and draw attention to it in every book he’s in, so yeah.

“The men are stubbornly not bisexual enough” I love how she goes from sobbing about the poor men being talked about sexually to complaining about them not altering their sexualities to suit her and Anita.

I thought it was merely annoying how she kept saying “we” to mean “I” but when it got to asking her if she liked Frost or Doyle better and she said that “we can’t pick” because “I’m polyamorous” I realized it was so much more than that, holy shit

So she literally just admitted she wanted JC to be Spanish but made him French because Anne Rice had French vampires, lol

Oh, so that’s her idea of therapy.

It’s kind of funny how she says not to get your ideas of sex from porn but a lot of commenters have noted in my sporks that she seems to have done just that.

I don’t really see why she thinks there need to be legends of were-reptiles IRL to justify having more were-reptiles in the Anitaverse

[dwg.livejournal.com]

What I got most about the Asher question is that she doesn't want to fix him because it means that he'd have to develop as a character. If the scars remain, then his sticking point of angst remains and we can recycle the same drama forever. If he's content with his appearance, content as a character, WHAT DOES SHE DO THEN.

Also I find it weird that *she finds him beautiful so it's okay. If this was a real person, it's be so very, very skeevy.

Couple this with how the entire Q&A just makes it seem that LKH has no idea that as a writer of fiction, this means she's allowed to make things up.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

What I got most about the Asher question is that she doesn't want to fix him because it means that he'd have to develop as a character. If the scars remain, then his sticking point of angst remains and we can recycle the same drama forever.
That is EXACTLY how I read it

If this was a real person, it's be so very, very skeevy.
And since she constantly says they ARE real to her....

LKH has no idea that as a writer of fiction, this means she's allowed to make things up.
Right? It's not like the wererats or the ardeur have any place in folklore that I know of (I mean, I realize she gets the idea of ardeur from the idea that incubi/succubi feed on sex, but the seed of an idea isn't the same thing as "has to be there in full as a pre-existing legend or it just isn't allowed to exist in fiction") so why is she suddenly taking that approach? I think she just doesn't want to write about were-reptiles cuz she doesn't find them sexy.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Well, since she's said that there are more werewolves in the universe because she's found more myths about people turning into wolves...it's not all that surprising. Yet at the same time she's got this whole secret society of tiger clans?

I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around A Shiver of Light -- fairies! You can literally do anything you want with them! It's not like you're entirely beholden to folklore. But fairies in a world where they've been out in the open for at least a couple of hundred years, yet modern medical science knows exactly jackshit. And immortal warriors of legend totally hit the gym. Not even to practice sparring (though you'd think they'd have their own fighting styles given they're from a whole other society), just lift weights and running. Also they use human firearms. Where are the fae weaponsmiths. Where are the enchanted McGuffins, like a bow that always aims true or darts that carry enchantments. I don't know if LKH has never considered these things before or what. Mostly it just creates so much wasted potential that frustrates me to no end.

[wanderingworlds.livejournal.com]

i just imagined "well-hung" in terms of women as referring to abnormally large labia (both) and a giant clitoris. Because... feminine equivalent of dick and balls.

And now I'm going to quietly wash my brain out of that mental image.