{"id":124,"date":"2017-12-16T20:34:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-16T20:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/?page_id=124"},"modified":"2022-02-08T17:36:47","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:36:47","slug":"2014-transcripts-from-audiovideo-woj-sources","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"\/index.php\/2014-transcripts-from-audiovideo-woj-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 & 2014 transcripts from audio\/video WoJ sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below are the 2013 and 2014 fan generated transcripts I have available to archive:<\/h1>\n

2013 Geek Hard interview<\/a><\/h4>\n

Partial Transcript by TheCuriousFan<\/p>\n

We were talking about the series and the books and we’ve talked earlier about Grave Peril and there’s a reoccurring location, that takes place in the universe of Harry Dresden. And it was first brought up in Grave Peril uh, when Bianca uh, gives Harry a gift.<\/p>\n

Jim: Yes.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0Of his own personal tombstone and open grave.<\/p>\n

Jim: And an open grave waiting for him at Graceland Cemetary.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0That’s there to this day in the storyline.<\/p>\n

Jim: Yes.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0Harry’s tombstone says “Harry Dresden: He died-” uh, sorry, I got it all wrong now.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0He died doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

Jim: He died doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

Green: Um, so if it says “Harry Dresden: He died doing the right thing”, Jim Butcher?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Oh, Jim Butcher: He died doing the wright thing, with a w.<\/p>\n

*laughter*<\/p>\n

Jim: I’m going to pitch over with a keyboard one day, so you know, “he died doing the wright thing”.<\/p>\n

Green: You’d be happy with just that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Oh sure, why not? I’d put it there and it’ll be a joke and it’ll be funny. I don’t know, I suppose for the sake of the rest of my family it might have to say something more than that. Although, as far as my son is concerned he’d dig that. He’d be like “yeah, that’s dad”.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0That’s awesome. Because you always think about that, it was one of the things that was always happening in the story, he’s gone back to it so many times, he’s hung out in the grave, he’s called the Mothers, he’s done all that stuff and it was just sitting there, and that’s a looming thing to have over you in that character.<\/p>\n

Jim: On the other hand, though, that’s not really *unintelligible* for him at this point, it’s not really a thing of fear and trepidation at this point, it’s a place of power. It’s not a particularly pleasant kind of power but uh, that’s somewhere that he can go where he’ll have access to things that he wouldn’t have elsewhere. And Harry’s been dead, done that. Not as scary as everybody makes it out to be, you know, so he’s got a slightly different attitude about now. He’s not in a hurry to check out or anything but neither is he terrified of it. So having his own grave it’s like, well, “it’ll be nice to have a nice place someday”.<\/p>\n

*laughter*<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0It’s like a cottage house.<\/p>\n

Jim: Well we’re all going to check out some time, might as well have a nice place to retire, there it is.<\/p>\n

Green: With the Dresden Files, you know, you’re fourteen books in, you’ve got 6ish-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Yeah 6ish. Half a dozen or so.<\/p>\n

Green: -Plus the climactic trilogy we’ll call it. What can you tell us? Because you’ve got Skin Game is apparently the title of the next book.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: The title of the next book is Skin Game.<\/p>\n

Green: Skinwalkers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: At least one.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0Nice!<\/p>\n

Jim: And, yeah, in this one it turns out that Mab owes favours to people which she’s incurred over the centuries. And at this point one of the people Mab owes a favour shows up to collect so Mab loans him Harry for a bank job. So Harry is going to wind up helping Nicodemus Archleone knock over the vault of Hades, lord of the underworld. So we’re going to play Ocean’s Eleven for keeps, definitely for keepsies, only with Hades and the underworld. So Harry and crew are going to go up against one of the Greek gods and see if they can come out on top.<\/p>\n

Of course, he’s going to be there with Nicodemus, uh who’s not a nice guy.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0He’s going to\u00a0love<\/em>\u00a0that.<\/p>\n

Jim: Yeah, he’s gonna love that, and all of the crew that Nicodemus is recruiting are just a bunch of hideous bastards, I mean, for the most part.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0I thought they’d be so nice.<\/p>\n

Jim: Yeah, maybe he’ll grab a bunch of nice guys. And Dresden\u00a0knows<\/em>\u00a0that Nicodemus is going to screw him over, and he knows that Nicodemus knows that Dresden is going to screw\u00a0him<\/em>\u00a0over as soon as they can figure out how to make it happen. But at the same time they need each other to get in there. It’s going to be one of those contests to see who can out-clever who. Plus we’ve got all these other things to handle because Harry is going to have to be confronting the Carpenters about what happened to Molly.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0That’s not going to be a fun conversation.<\/p>\n

Jim: No it isn’t, and he’s got issues of his own, what with the thing in his head trying to kill him. So, it’s going to be a busy book, there’s a lot to do.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0It seems like that’s been happening a lot in the books recently, they’ve been getting busier.<\/p>\n

Jim: Yes, more problems. More magic, more problems.<\/p>\n

*laughter*<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0You should have him say that in the books some time. Well Jim, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to speak with us, it’s been awesome. I’m also looking forward to talking cats and the Cinder Spires.<\/p>\n

Jim: Excellent.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0I’m also looking forward to Skin game and the Ocean’s Eleven inhale. Because that sounds awesome. I love heists.<\/p>\n

Jim: Exactly this is going to be a slight departure from the normal Dresden to because this is gonna be a heist and those are always fun. But uh, we’ll see what happens.<\/p>\n

Green:<\/strong>\u00a0Excellent, well thanks again Jim I really appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Jim: Certainly, thanks for having me on.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Le9skX_7Y8U<\/a><\/p>\n

First piece of the transcript done. Personally, I feel that the bit about Harry’s grave being a place of power where Harry can do things he normally can’t is the most interesting bit.<\/p>\n

\n

2013 Cold Days Kansas City release party Q&A<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Transcript by TheCuriousFan and\u00a0KrelianZG<\/a><\/p>\n

Rasins: The first one has to do with Harry\u2019s amulet.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim:Okay, yes, Harry\u2019s amulet, right.<\/p>\n

Rasins: We saw it at the birthday party and never again\u2026.did it survive the circle on Demonreach?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim:Oh yes.<\/p>\n

Rasins: It wasn’t in his pocket\u00a0<\/strong>(this one’s pretty much impossible to hear but I\u00a0think<\/em>\u00a0this is the gist of it)<\/p>\n

Jim: I believe it was, it was with his gear right, he took it off and handed it to Michael and didn’t I specifically mention it?<\/p>\n

Rasins: No.<\/strong>\u00a0(something else was said but can’t understand but this should give you the gist of it)<\/p>\n

Jim: Okay yeah, no but it had to have gone with the coat, although although if that wasn\u2019t written, that was an oversight during the editing process, which was a little rushed. I think the post-production on that was, from start to finish, I think it was 15 days, so there was a lot of back and forth and a lot of me not sleeping during the process.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Rasins: The other question I had is *unintelligible* when a human takes on the mantle of a Fae, do they automatically become Fae? Do they lose their soul?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Ok, do they automatically become Fae, do they lose their soul? The answer to that question is \u201csort of\u201d. Um, it\u2019s automatic, but not necessarily instant. Mab herself was human once, and she eventually became the, uh, the fun-loving Mab that we all know. So, a lot of it has to do with who you are when you go into it, because most of the Fae were human once. A lot were born as half-bloods and decided to become Fae and sort of automatically got their mantle for free, but all the other fae who were there, including the Erl and several others, who were at one point humans\u2026.So, a lot of this is going to depend on who they\u00a0 might end up being, a lot of it depends on who they are going into it and what kind of will they have to maintain who they are. That\u2019s going to be a big deal. I\u2019m really looking forward to writing the next books so I can see what happens with Molly, \u2018cause I\u2019m really not sure yet, I have a vague idea of what\u2019s gonna happen, because basically she just got handed the largest, unruliest crowd of little brothers and sisters to deal with ever.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Jim: But on the other hand, she\u2019s kinda cool with that. She\u2019s used to that role. So anyway, we\u2019ll have to see what happens to her, but, uh, there\u2019s a lot of choice involved *unintelligible* as far as soul goes. Everybody always talks about souls as if it\u2019s something you can have a receipt for, that if you lose it, then it\u2019s just gone, and I don\u2019t think souls work that way, I think that there\u2019s too much attached to them, I think that there are too many things that consist of what your soul is, so I don\u2019t think this is kinda trying to figure \u201cdid you lose your soul?\u201d, because I think you can lose your soul without bothering to stop by any kind of supernatural beings whatsoever. You know, if you watch the news, you\u2019ll see people who do that all the time. But yeah, as far as The Dresden Files goes, as far as eternal damnation, etc., goes, no I don\u2019t think that\u2019s as much an issue for Molly as yet, it could sometime though. Whether Mab has some kind of spark of a soul left or not, that\u2019s one of those questions that would be very difficult to answer, and I\u2019m probably not smart enough to answer it. But uh, probably, when you’ve gone so far down the road, just pure power is madness, it\u2019s hard to hang on to your soul. And it depends on how people who have been handed all this extra stuff deal with it, and what that\u2019s going to do for them in the long run. And it\u2019s one of those long run kind of things, meaning you\u2019re going to be stuck like that for 2,000 years, you don\u2019t really have to go bad tomorrow, you have plenty of time yet to start growing mold on your conscience and so on.<\/p>\n

Jim: Who else? Over here on the left.<\/p>\n

Audience member: So when Harry is battling the Outsider at the end, he yells out his name, is that all going on in his head or does everybody hear what his full Name is?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Ok, so when Harry is battling Sharkface in the end, is that all in his head, or did everybody there hear? And the answer to that is yes. It\u2019s all going on in his head, and everybody there heard. Which, if you\u2019ll remember the closing to book 1, because book 1 was written from the perspective of a guy who has already finished his story, um, all the books are really, they’re him looking back, you get to the end book 1, and Harry says \u201cMy name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, but conjure by it at your own risk\u201d which, you know, there\u2019s a reason for that. Figured I\u2019d just throw that in there. Really, Harry\u2019s one of those guys whose name is more dangerous to other people than it is to him, in a lot of ways, a lot of people would be vulnerable by doing that, he\u2019s not. We\u2019ll get to see that in the future.<\/p>\n

Jim: But anyway, right here *gestures*.<\/p>\n

*Question unintelligible*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, um, I didn\u2019t come up with that.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

I just know that from somewhere else, but thank you.<\/p>\n

*Question unintelligible*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Um, I went out and went to the metaphysical section of the bookstore, and started picking up books. A lot of people who incorporate magic into their material look to religion. Basically, I went through a whole lot of reading, I took the bits that I liked and left the rest, sort of like your salad bar.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Ok, those people that laughed, you\u2019re extreme geeks and you\u2019re, uh, giving out your age a little, if you recognize that reference.\u00a0 Um, but that was basically it, I went out and I looked at things, and what people who have really thought about this a lot think, and I said OK, let\u2019s apply some principles to it, and let\u2019s make sure that magic is something that actually has rules, to where people will be able to read it and go \u201cOh wait a minute, if I\u2019d been paying attention, I\u2019d have picked up these pieces from earlier on and recognize that yeah, something is going to happen further down the line.\u201d I\u2019ve actually had people have come up to me and say \u201cIs this what\u2019s going to happen in the future because of these three elements that have came before?\u201d and I\u2019m like, \u201cShhh, shhh, c\u2019mon man, I\u2019ve got to make a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

But yeah, there are ones out there who have put it together. A lot of things that are happening, are based\u00a0 on the rules of magic that have happened before, and that makes me feel a little proud that at least I\u2019ve done it in some intelligent fashion. Or maybe that I play too much D&D. I want to have a comprehensiveness that makes sense. Yeah, this was from the old D&D, which was, you know, the opposite of \u201cmakes sense\u201d. It was kind of the definition of arcane. Where do we find information on assassins? Is that in the Players Handbook? Hells no it\u2019s not in the Players Handbook, it\u2019s in the Dungeon Master\u2019s Guide. Oh, right, ok, I\u2019ll find it there.<\/p>\n

Jim: Okay, what else, um right here *gestures*.<\/p>\n

Jim: And uh, yeah, and I was like uh, that was fun cuz we got to put that up for sale (something about city signing) totally sidewise, and just the fact that there were enough people out there who immediately got that, and it was like, \u201coh, yeah, these are my people, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Jim: Uh, okay, I’m feeling too formal here, Um, so, we\u2019ll do, like, questions and answers with someone.\u00a0 Um, before we have any questions at all, I will say that I do not write cliffhangers.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Jim: And I don’t care what anybody says, cliffhangers happen when er, when you’re in the middle of the story and they stop you until next week. And at the end of all my books I like to make sure that that story is done and there’s going to be another story on account of I want to keep paying for my house.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Jim: So it’s cool, It’s not like you’re never going to find out, you know, but yeah, there’s a technical distinction of what a cliffhanger is, a cliffhanger is you don’t know the outcome of a story until you get to the next part. And I don’t, every story that you have there gets finished by the time you get to the end. And then they shot it in the end, that’s fair.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Jim: Okay, that being said, if you’re willing to do some questions and answers we could do that now, cause that’d be fun. I never really have anything particular to say so I’ll just answer questions and make things easy. Although, for this to work someone has to ask a question. Okay thank you sir, great, thank you.<\/p>\n

Rasins: First I wanted to say, um, I very much enjoy your work, thank you very much.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: You\u2019re welcome. Thank you for your money.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Rasins: The Weirdlings wanted to say thank you, and we’re very happy that you’re well now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Oh, thank you very much, yeah wellish anyway, there’s considerably less of me but yes.<\/p>\n

Rasins: I’ve got a couple of questions, the first one has to do with Harry\u2019s amulet.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Okay, yes, Harry\u2019s amulet, right.<\/p>\n

Rasins: We saw it at the birthday party and never again\u2026.did it survive the circle on Demonreach?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim:Oh yes.<\/p>\n

Rasins: Was it taken off and in his pocket?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: I believe it was, it was with his gear right, he took it off and handed it to Michael and didn’t I specifically mention it?<\/p>\n

Rasins: You mentioned that he took his coat off but not the amulet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Okay yeah, no but it had to have gone with the coat, although although if that wasn’t written, that was an oversight during the editing process, which was a little rushed. I think the post-production on that was, from start to finish, I think it was 15 days, so there was a lot of back and forth and a lot of me not sleeping during the process.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Rasins: The other question I had is *clears throat*, I’m trying to phrase this to not give too much away, when a human takes on the mantle of a Fae, do they automatically become Fae? Do they lose their soul?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Ok, do they automatically become Fae, do they lose their soul? The answer to that question is \u201csort of\u201d. Um, it\u2019s automatic, but not necessarily instant. Mab herself was human once, and she eventually became the, uh, the fun-loving Mab that we all know. So, a lot of it has to do with who you are when you go into it, because most of the Fae were human once. A lot were born as half-bloods and decided to become Fae and sort of automatically got their mantle for free, but all the other fae who were there, including the Erlking and several others, who were at one point humans\u2026.So, a lot of this is going to depend on who they might end up being, a lot of it depends on who they are going into it and what kind of will they have to maintain who they are. That\u2019s going to be a big deal. I\u2019m really looking forward to writing the next books so I can see what happens with Molly, \u2018cause I\u2019m really not sure yet, I have a vague idea of what\u2019s gonna happen, because basically she just got handed the largest, unruliest crowd of little brothers and sisters to deal with ever.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Jim: But on the other hand, she\u2019s kinda cool with that. She\u2019s used to that role. So anyway, we\u2019ll have to see what happens to her, but, uh, there\u2019s a lot of choice involved *unintelligible* as far as soul goes. Everybody always talks about souls as if it\u2019s something you can have a receipt for, that if you lose it, then it\u2019s just gone, and I don\u2019t think souls work that way, I think that there\u2019s too much attached to them, I think that there are too many things that consist of what your soul is, so I don\u2019t think this is kinda trying to figure \u201cdid you lose your soul?\u201d, because I think you can lose your soul without bothering to stop by any kind of supernatural beings whatsoever. You know, if you watch the news, you\u2019ll see people who do that all the time. But yeah, as far as The Dresden Files goes, as far as eternal damnation, etc., goes, no I don\u2019t think that\u2019s as much an issue for Molly as yet, it could sometime though. Whether Mab has some kind of spark of a soul left or not, that\u2019s one of those questions that would be very difficult to answer, and I\u2019m probably not smart enough to answer it. But uh, probably, when you’ve gone so far down the road to pure power as Mab has, it\u2019s hard to hang on to your soul. And it depends on how people who have been handed all this extra stuff deal with it, and what that\u2019s going to do for them in the long run. And it\u2019s one of those long run kind of things, meaning you\u2019re going to be stuck like that for 2,000 years, you don\u2019t really have to go bad tomorrow, you have plenty of time yet to start growing mold on your conscience and so on.<\/p>\n

Jim: Who else? Over here on the left.<\/p>\n

Audience member: So when Harry is battling the Outsider at the end, he yells out his name, is that all going on in his head or does everybody hear what his full Name is?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Ok, so when Harry is battling Sharkface in the end, is that all in his head, or did everybody there hear? And the answer to that is yes. It\u2019s all going on in his head, and everybody there heard. Which, if you\u2019ll remember the closing to book 1, because book 1 was written from the perspective of a guy who has already finished his story, um, all the books are really, they’re him looking back, you get to the end book 1, and Harry says \u201cMy name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, but conjure by it at your own risk\u201d which, you know, there\u2019s a reason for that. Figured I\u2019d just throw that in there. Really, Harry\u2019s one of those guys whose name is more dangerous to other people than it is to him, in a lot of ways, a lot of people would be vulnerable by doing that, he\u2019s not. We\u2019ll get to see that in the future.<\/p>\n

Jim: But anyway, right here *gestures*.<\/p>\n

*Question unintelligible*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, um, I didn’t come up with that.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

I stole that from somewhere else, but thank you.<\/p>\n

**Question unintelligible but I heard “manuals” and “how did you envision it all”**<\/strong><\/p>\n

Um, I went out and went to the metaphysical section of the bookstore, and started picking up books. A lot of people who incorporate magic into their material look to religion. Basically, I went through a whole lot of reading, I took the bits that I liked and left the rest, sort of like your salad bar.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

Ok, those people that laughed, you\u2019re extreme geeks and you\u2019re, uh, giving out your age a little, if you recognize that reference.\u00a0 Um, but that was basically it, I went out and I looked at things, and what people who have really thought about this a lot think, and I said OK, let\u2019s apply some principles to it, and let\u2019s make sure that magic is something that actually has rules, to where people will be able to read it and go \u201cOh wait a minute, if I\u2019d been paying attention, I\u2019d have picked up these pieces from earlier on and recognize that yeah, something is going to happen further down the line.\u201d I\u2019ve actually had people have come up to me and say \u201cIs this what\u2019s going to happen in the future because of these three elements that have came before?\u201d and I\u2019m like, \u201cShhh, shhh, c\u2019mon man, I\u2019ve got to make a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

But yeah, there are ones out there who have put it together. A lot of things that are happening, are based\u00a0 on the rules of magic that have happened before, and that makes me feel a little proud that at least I’ve done it in some intelligible fashion. Or maybe that I play too much D&D. I want to have a comprehensive system that makes sense. Yeah, this was from the old D&D, which was, you know, the opposite of \u201cmakes sense\u201d, it was kind of the definition of arcane. Where do we find information on assassins? Is that in the Players Handbook? No it\u2019s not in the Players Handbook, it\u2019s in the Dungeon Master\u2019s Guide. Oh, right, ok, I\u2019ll find it there.<\/p>\n

On the left.<\/p>\n

Audience member: Along those lines then, I believe I’m capable of saying that I know what you’re talking about. I think I heard you say on a podcast that you were running a steampunk campaign and that it might end up being a book at some point?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Uh yeah, I said on a podcast that I was running a steampunk campaign that that might end up being a book and that\u2019s not entirely true. I\u2019m not running the campaign anymore, and it is a book. It\u2019s about 70% written because once I started-. I really think writing a campaign for people is one of the great things you can do as a writer, because it doesn’t matter how well you plan it, they\u2019ll screw things up for you.<\/p>\n

*audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Players do that, you know, it’s like no I started writing this story for this *unintelligible* game, and I had this huge intricate plot that\u00a0*video failure*<\/strong>\u00a0ceremony that he was planning in the beginning to try to redeem his honor, and it was like \u201cNo, the gaijin was not supposed to stand in the pit and hurl pigs through the Savaku ceremony and ruin it. !\u201d. And makes everything have to start all over for another year, and I have to put all this extra world in and I’m sort of\u2026.I feel like I\u2019m a workman, frantically laying plants out in front of these people who are just wandering along. It\u2019s a very good creative exercise, it really kinda forces you to stop and think, \u201cOK, wait, so I’ve got to build this whole thing so it makes sense, how do I do that, and how do I take what I know about how the actual world works and make this fantasy world work that way? Which I love to do, and which drives me crazy, it’s one of those things.<\/p>\n

So right now, the game I\u2019m running is, I\u2019m running it for my son and his friends, and the next generation people can\u2019t do it right. So I\u2019m kinda running that in my head, as a fantasy world, that\u2019s going to be an epic fantasy one day. Truly epic. If I ever sit down and write it, I\u2019ll try and be all George Martin about it.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

We agree?<\/p>\n

Yeah, exactly, just like George.<\/p>\n

By the way, I heard yesterday that the story for Dangerous Women anthology finally went in, so there\u2019s a Dresden Files story in that, it\u2019s a Molly-centered story, called Bombshells, it happens between Ghost Story and Cold Days, and it\u2019s about how she gets her apartment. But anyway, it was supposed to come out before Cold days came out, it was supposed to be a warm-up, and I didn\u2019t know that George Martin was going to be in the anthology, so\u2026<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be out in a few more months now that it finally got done.<\/p>\n

Audience member: What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, steampunk series, right now it\u2019s called The Cinder Spires, the first book is called The Aeronauts Windlass, for the time being, because, well, I like aeronauts and windlasses. It\u2019s got airships and goggles, and it\u2019s got talking cats who are perfect little monsters\u2026 Every time I write a point-of-view chapter from the point of view of one of these cats, I\u2019m like, \u201cOh my god, someone needs to just field-goal kick this guy, just out through the wall\u201d, because they are just so perfectly sure that they\u2019re in control of everything that\u2019s happening around them, and that all is proceeding according to their plans, if these humans would just stop messing it up. It\u2019s a lot of fun as a writer. And they actually end up being much like the Mafia in our society, because, you know, they can talk, and they can use matches, you know.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

They can enforce their demands. \u201cI noticed that you have no rodents in your warehouse. Perhaps you\u2019d like to keep it that you have no rodents in your warehouse? Perhaps, there will be cream left outside for my associates and I\u2026\u201d. They’re that kind of attitude, only you know, they’re far more arrogant.<\/p>\n

**Unintelligible question, regarding the next DF novel**<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ok, the next novel in the Dresden Files is called Skin Game, it\u2019s a heist. Mab goes to Harry and says, \u201cYou have to help this guy steal something\u201d. And the person they\u2019re ripping it off from is the lord of the underworld, Hades, who has repurposed Daedalus\u2019 labyrinth as his, kind of as his personal safe. So Harry and Nicodemus are off to rip off the lord of hell. We\u2019ll see how that goes.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019m sure it’ll be fun. It\u2019s going to be one of those things where everybody knows everybody else is getting ready to screw one another, and they\u2019re just trying to figure out how to get it done first and best. We\u2019ll also be recycling some characters we\u2019ve seen before. You know, um, they\u2019re going to be doing a break-in, so Harry\u2019s going to have to go look up the last of the Churchmice and get her on the team, there\u2019s going to be several other characters like that. And we want Michael off the bench on this one.<\/p>\n

Anyways, so yeah, yeah, you can Tweet about that, mull it over for a while.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

Because if it was me, I would.<\/p>\n

Audience Member:\u00a0 I was originally from Chicago so I was always curious as why you set it in Chicago.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why set it in Chicago? When I started writing the Dresden Files, there wasn’t a Google. \u2018Cause that was in, \u201993, when I started writing. And really Search engines had not gotten big at that time. I mean, you could go to one, but you could never find anything, because it just wasn’t hooked up to enough stuff yet. I set it in Chicago because my writing teacher told me I couldn’t set it in Kansas City. Originally it was set in Kansas City, and my writing teacher said, \u201cNo, no, you can\u2019t do that, you\u2019re already walking close enough to Laurell Hamilton’s shoes that you don\u2019t need to be writing a book set in Missouri. Pick another city.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a globe on her desk, and there were 4 American cities. And I didn\u2019t want to do New York because, you know, the superheroes all had that, and the editors all live there and fact-check you.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

I didn’t want to do DC because if you write anything in DC, you have to write politics into it and you lose half the audience that way. I didn’t want to do anything in Los Angeles, because, it\u2019s Los Angeles, and I didn\u2019t want to go out there. There\u2019s already movies and TV all about Los Angeles, **unintelligible**. And that left Chicago. So I said, \u201cHow about Chicago?\u201d And she said, \u201cthat\u2019s fine, that\u2019s perfect, it\u2019s not Kansas City.\u201d And so I set it in Chicago, and it turned out to be a fortuitous choice in terms of how many nifty things can happen there, and how much history is there. Not that their history is particularly more or better than what\u2019s around here, but it is interesting. And, I started slowly cultivating a database of people who lived there, who I could say, \u201cHey, what does the East wall of Graceland Cemetary look like?\u201d \u201cOh, they\u2019re refurbishing it right now, actually, it looks like this:”<\/p>\n

And of course now, I’ve got my Google Maps, and I can zoom in on the building and say, \u201cWell, someone is going to be in front of this building, and wanted to be seen, or wanted not to be seen going in, he\u2019d have to take out this streetlight right here, this street light would have to be out if no one was to see him going in.\u201d<\/p>\n

And actually, a cop would come up to me and say, \u201cWho did you talk to to get that done? Because we had some one break into that building\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m sorry, I wish I could tell you, I think I just have **unintelligible** instincts, because I just looked it up on Google Maps\u201d.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s like \u201cWow, yeah, yeah, we\u2019ll let you know when he comes down here.\u201d<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

I think he was joking, any person in Chicago. Right here *gestures*<\/p>\n

*unintelligible question but you should be able to work out what it was*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, am I going to explore where the mantles came from? Um, we\u2019ll have to as we go on, in terms of, to a certain degree, some of them have always been there. If we’re talking about mantles in There\u2019s all kinds of them. It\u2019s not just Faerie, they\u2019re all over the place. There are still mantles hanging around from Greek times. Greco-Roman mythology, **unintelligible** mythology. The gods are also around, in one form or another, most of them are around. Some of them got themselves killed. Because lets face it, some of those guys were idiots.<\/p>\n

And I mean, you go back there and read, and it\u2019s like, how could you possibly have survived that? The answer in the Dresden Files is that they didn’t. They *unintelligible* up til they died. Sorry, Hercules, you can only go slamming your head into walls for so long. And if your mantle passed on to The Hulk, it sort of exists in people\u2019s minds and imaginations now.<\/p>\n

*question about Pratchett reference*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reference to Pratchett? I mean, how could you not reference Pratchett? I mean, especially if you\u2019re just going to steal such an awesome quote? I mean, it\u2019s a great quote. He\u2019s got lots of them, but that one is particularly fine. You gotta give credit to the guy that came up with it. Pratchett is one of those guys who\u2019s just genuinely a genius. **unintelligible** It very strongly influenced the Dresden Files. **Unintelligible reference to one of Pratchett\u2019s works** It\u2019s really really interesting, it\u2019s a really great point. Because Pratchett is, himself, one of those guys that **unintelligible**
\nHe makes a very great point about why we have these things that we tell children to believe in, and he says, well, that\u2019s so they can believe the bigger lies later, that are more important, things like love, justice, honor\u2026. Those are the things you cannot measure and quantify. You can break down the universe into the smallest particles you like and you\u2019ll never find the particle of truth. That\u2019s something you have to learn, that\u2019s something you have to create, and it\u2019s important for kids to learn. It\u2019s important to learn to believe in some things that don\u2019t exist, so that the real important things that don\u2019t exists later have someone around to support them. That was incredibly insightful\u2026.his writing is just full of stuff like that. I mean, I don\u2019t agree with a lot of the things he says and believes, but you gotta pay attention to what he says, he\u2019s extremely wise in a lot of ways about the nature of life. You should definitely\u2026.he\u2019s hilarious, he\u2019s freaking hilarious.<\/p>\n

Audience Member: Is Kringle Fae?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is Kringle Fae? His mantle, yes, is part of the Winter Court. Which does not necessarily mean that he himself is Fae as much as the fact that his mantle is. While he\u2019s there, he\u2019s got to pay deference to Mab. If Mab throws him a command, he has to obey it. Mab\u2019s too smart to throw him many commands, it\u2019s much smarter to just let him do his thing. Because it\u2019s this mysterious Christmas-y stuff anyway, cheer and goodwill, whatever. She supposes it\u2019s good to have somebody like that for PR. That at times could be useful. It\u2019s like, oh, so, Winter Court, cold season of death, evil, but then it\u2019s like,\u00a0 yeah, Christmas! Oh, wow, yeah, you\u2019re right. It\u2019s like the schools sponsored by the tobacco company. **unintelligible** It\u2019s something of the same thing. And besides which, if she doesn\u2019t give him a bunch of orders and stuff, then basically, when she does go to him and say, \u201cI need to know something\u201d, that really, what can you do, this is our game of give-and-take. So, in a way, it\u2019s not really a subservient relationship, Mab\u2019s too smart for it to be that.<\/p>\n

Audience Member: You said the Winter, rather, Knights\u2019 mantles change fairly often? How often do the Ladies\u2019, Queens\u2019 and Mothers\u2019 mantles change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Uh, the Ladies, Queens and Mothers, their mantles change very, very, very rarely in general. I mean, Mab\u2019s been there for better than 1,000 years. And Maeve\u2019s been there\u2026.there was a Winter Lady before Maeve, uh, in Mab\u2019s time. And she didn\u2019t fare so well the last time a Starborn was running around. And so Mab had Maeve, um, but in any case, I leave things here, don\u2019t miss \u2018em. I love to drop teases and hints and walk away smiling, but anyway. They don\u2019t change very often at all. The Knights\u2019 mantles change, like, constantly. Most Knights are Knights who pick up a sword for a night. And then they\u2019re done. It\u2019s just some random Joe, who happens to be a decent guy, and it\u2019s like, \u201cLook, magical sword, horrible danger! Do something!\u201d. A lot of those guys don’t go very far (I think that’s what was said) Just because you\u2019re a great guy doesn’t mean you\u2019re smart enough to survive an encounter with demons, for example. And we\u2019ll see a bit more of that in the next book, too.<\/p>\n

**Unintelligible, was about future of the Swords**<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, we\u2019ll get a new wielder for at least one of the swords by the end of this next book. So, there ya go.<\/p>\n

**Unintelligible question, multiple parts to it**<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ok, first of all, are we going to see more background stuff from Merlin and King Arthur and so on. And the answer to that is yeah, obviously. I can\u2019t stop now. I mean, I\u2019m compulsive enough that I\u2019d need to get this done even if there wasn\u2019t anyone buying, at this point.<\/p>\n

And for the question, where do I get my inspiration from? Anything that makes me really happy, anything that makes me really sad, anything that makes me scared or makes me cry\u2026.stuff that has really powerful effect on you, that\u2019s where inspiration comes from, you gotta draw from there. So, it\u2019s all over the place. Um, usually I\u2019ll find, come across something, while in the middle of watching something fairly recent, and I\u2019ll go, \u201cOh, this is really interesting!\u201d You know, I\u2019ll do all these references to the Camelot stuff, some of the things they\u2019re doing on Babylon 5 Crusade, which died an early death, tragically. I can\u2019t believe that. SyFy channel could\u2019ve picked up Crusade, instead, they got Lexx. Okay, if there are fans of Lexx out there, I\u2019m sorry, but Crusade had one of the coolest wizard figures that\u2019s been around in TV, short of Dr. Who, one of the coolest wizards in TV. And Dr. Who\u2019s a wizard, don\u2019t let anyone tell you differently. Ok, he\u2019s got a sonic screwdriver instead of a wand, that\u2019s the only difference.<\/p>\n

Anyway, so if I find anything I find intriguing there, then I\u2019ll start digging into where it came from. And, so, I\u2019ll run across the Taliesin books, and I\u2019ll go back even further than that, and be digging into Malory, and eventually I\u2019ll run out of trail, and say, \u201cbut I wanted to know THIS\u201d, and then I\u2019ll just make it up, because that\u2019s what these guys did. And then I go “Oh yeah, okay cool, I’ll do that”.<\/p>\n

So, you know, I\u2019ll take Excalibur, and say, Excalibur was actually part of a Superfriends team of sorts, because that sounds like fun, I like Superfriends. And, so, we meet in the Hall of Justice, and I\u2019ll grab an archangel instead of the, what was the guy that talked to the Power Rangers?<\/p>\n

(It’s Zordon)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, so, we\u2019ll have that, but we\u2019ll call him Michael, and, anyway. So I take things that I like, that I thing is nifty, and I put it together with other things that are nifty and that seem to fit together, and I stick it in a story, introduce some characters, and then they go off and do something I hadn’t had planned with it. \u2018Cause the characters from the books, they aren’t any different from the players.\u00a0 They go do things. And it\u2019s like, \u201cWhat is wrong with you people?\u201d<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

And, I think that\u2019s a good sign, that you\u2019re doing it right, if your characters are always trying to charge off in some non-progressive direction. Gotta kick them back into line. Because I can\u2019t do that to my players., they wouldn’t put up with that.<\/p>\n

Audience member: *unintelligible but seems to be asking about the Nevernever*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Uh yeah we’ll keep heading into the Nevernever as the series goes on because it gets increasingly important. What with bad guys coming in through there trying to tear up reality (I\u00a0think<\/strong>\u00a0this is what is being said at 31:20) The way that it works is, the Fae, they’ve been established as sort of the auto-immune system of reality, they\u2019re busy trying to keep it from coming apart, from things from the Outside, which, I guess, that makes Harry a big old version of a white blood cell now.\u00a0*Unintelligible but I heard “combat things”*<\/strong>\u00a0But, we\u2019ll be running into, we\u2019ll be playing with some different pantheons and stuff from mythology, we\u2019re going to have to be careful. Because some of these religions still have a lot of people who still follow them. So, it takes a considerable amount of research on my part, so I can figure out well enough, so I can use stuff, and not run over stuff that people actually believe in. That\u2019s kinda tough. I like to avoid, you know, spontaneously insulting someone\u2019s religion whenever I can. It seems like one of those things that will get me through life with fewer black eyes.<\/p>\n

*Audience laughter*<\/p>\n

Audience member: Bob\u2019s apparent personality change, is that merely a reflection of Harry\u2019s personality change, or is it a big old cluebat that something happened offscreen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny you should mention that. Is it merely a reflection of Harry\u2019s personality change, or is it a big clue to something that happened offscreen. Bob\u2019s personality change is linked to whoever owns him. If Bob is somewhat different, if he\u2019s a little more\u2026candid and \u201cI just don\u2019t care if you know about bad things\u201d lately, that\u2019s a reflection of Harry. When he\u2019s back in Butters\u2019 possession, he\u2019s got a slightly different personality, when Harry owns him or when anybody else is carrying him around\u00a0*something unintelligible but I think I heard “writing about it so far”*<\/strong>\u00a0well plus the evil psychopath Cowl. But yeah, Bob is very much, he exists as a, essentially he\u2019s a wizard\u2019s assistant so he’s something of a looking glass, he adjusts to fit whoever he\u2019s working with. Which makes him a perfect assistant, a great tool, but also a really really dangerous one. Because depending on who you are, Bob\u2019s the guy that can help you make things happen, and that\u2019s not always a good thing.<\/p>\n

Audience member: When the Fae mantles shift, what happens to the Mothers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: When the Fae mantles shift, what happens to the Mothers? For the most part, nothing much. They\u2019re huge. They\u2019re mountains, and, you know, all these mantles are\u2026pebbles. So, if enough of them shift, in a way it will affect the Mothers.<\/p>\n

Audience member: *Impossible to hear even at max volume question but you can probably work out what it was from Jim’s response*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Oh, yeah, so like if the Ladies become the Queen, what happens to the Mothers at that point? The thing is that the Mothers are kind of the foundation.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s not so much what happens to them because the little mantles changed. It\u2019s what happens to the little mantles if the big mantles change. So, if someone whacks the being that is, for all intents and purposes, Baba Yaga, and then Mab succeeds, then Mab becomes the new Baba Yaga, and Molly gets drawn up to Mab, and they have to find someone else to become the new Lady. But on the other hand, the Mothers are extremely powerful beings, I mean, they\u2019re really really well, you can tell because they hardly ever show up on the real world. In the Dresden Files universe if you don\u2019t show up on the real world, it\u2019s because you\u2019re too big to walk around there. For instance,\u00a0 I think in the third book, when the Dragon is talking about how the Earth couldn’t bear his weight, it\u2019s not that the Earth itself would literally crack, it\u2019s that reality would have issues trying to contain him, because every time he coughs, it would bend around like Neo in the Matrix. So, they spend most of their time NOT on the real world, they spend it hanging around in the Nevernever, all the really heavyweight guys do that. If you\u2019re in the real world, well, the problem is that you\u2019re in the world, and you\u2019re kind of mortal, and something could come along and try and whack you, if they\u2019re fast enough, or good enough, or lucky enough. Which makes Odin a kind of special guy, because he doesn’t mind it, he thinks it\u2019s awesome. But anyway, you can always tell. If there\u2019s folks who don\u2019t show up in the real world, it\u2019s because they\u2019re super big. So, like, an angel shows up, and it\u2019s just sort of a whispered presence that one person is aware of, that\u2019s because he\u2019s just too big to show up here, it\u2019s a giant sandbox, and he\u2019s got to be very very careful to not squash the sandbox. So, he just shows up for that one bit.<\/p>\n

Audience Member: Since Molly comes from such a close-knit family, how is Harry going to be able to explain what happens to her? And since that same family is taking care of Harry’s daughter, how is he going to be able to explore his relation with Little Maggie?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ok, so her question is, since Molly comes from such a close-knit family, how is Harry going to explain what happens to her? **Evil Jim laughter** And since that same family is taking care of Harry\u2019s daughter, how is he going to be able to explore his relationship with little Maggie? **Evil Jim laughter**<\/p>\n

Yeah, that might\u2026that might just be a small part of the next book\u2026what\u2019s going on with that. Yeah, Harry has to go up to Michael and say, \u201cYeah, about your daughter, ummm\u2026.she\u2019s sort of the\u2026.she\u2019s sort of the\u2026..the trampy queen of Faerie these days\u2026that\u2019s kind of the job she inherited, so, you know, if she shows up looking weird\u2026\u2026er, try not to hold it too hard against her?\u201d Uh, we\u2019ll have to see how that pans out, because Michael is, you know, he has a great heart, great soul, but he\u2019s not a saint. He\u2019s definitely going to have his limits. Somebody\u2019s going to get Charity with her nail-gun at the rate things are going. We\u2019ll have to see what\u2019s going on, that\u2019s what it\u2019s shaping up like though. It\u2019s going to be fun to see that happen.<\/p>\n

Yes, back there.<\/p>\n

**Unintelligible** \u2026do you have a master plan for the next 5, 6, 7 books, or do you just start writing and say \u201cthis is how it is.\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Um, when I set out to write the novels, I kind of planned out the big events, like the kind of events you\u2019d learn about in history class, and I have those planned out.\u00a0 And those are kind of like my Milestones, where I know “these things are going to be happening”. Then, I have some of the character things planned out, some of the big milestones for main characters, and I know kind of generally where they\u2019re going. And then they start running around and changing plans on me. I never planned out Harry\u2019s love life, because I wanted that to be something that kind of grew up naturally over the course of the series. And, it turns out, the person you\u2019re in love with can have some small effect on the rest of your life\u2026 Who knew? I wasn’t all that bright, when I started writing these. I\u2019m still not all that bright, but at least I\u2019m becoming more aware of how bright I\u2019m not. But yeah, as a writer, it\u2019s a terrible plan to not plan the romance, but as a storyteller it\u2019s fun, because there\u2019s all these things happening that I have to stop and take into account, and new people come up and ask me questions and I\u2019ll go, \u201cOh my gosh, they\u2019re right. Hmm\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

\u201cHow am I going to change everything? Because that\u2019s actually a very good point\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

So I know generally what\u2019s going to happen. I know when I start a story\u2026ok, so, what I told you about the next book? That\u2019s pretty much everything that I know about it. I know a few things that are going to happen, I know some of the set pieces that I want to put in there. I generally know a couple of one-liners I\u2019m going to be sure to use. And then other than that, once I get things started, it\u2019s like, \u201cOk, let\u2019s go!\u201d At this point in my writing process, that\u2019s enough for me to write a Dresden story.<\/p>\n

If I was doing something else, for instance, if I was doing the steampunk, which is kinda what I\u2019m working on right now, that\u2019s something where I want to have considerably more story laid out in advance, and I have to stop as I go along and write out different parts of the world so I can establish them and know what they are.\u00a0 You know, look up \u201cWhat about this giant hole, uh, in reality? Oh, well, this giant hole can be explained by\u2026\u201d And then I\u2019ll figure out how to explain the giant hole.\u00a0 And it kind of builds out into the world.<\/p>\n

The Dresden Files universe, fortunately it\u2019s got enough grounding behind that, ok, well, fortunately and unfortunately. Fortunately it\u2019s got enough grounding behind it that I’ve figured out enough of how it works that I know how the rest of it works. And so going through is just a matter of me grabbing the right levers and pulling and seeing which *unintelligible* and that\u2019s a lot of fun, for me, I love doing that. Unfortunately, for me, everyone else has seen my how it *unintelligible*, and there are people out there who are better than me, better than ME, at going, \u201cshouldn’t this lever open THAT door?\u201d Oh, what do you know, it did. Shut up.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

Just stop giving me a hard time. Uh, which is great, because as soon as somebody makes a comment like that, I can go up and grab them and say, \u201cYou\u2019re going to help me write these books, and you get to read them early, and have bragging rights. \u201c And they go, \u201cOkay!\u201d, because most of the time, people are excited when I say that. And then they\u2019re trapped. Because then they\u2019re stuck in the beta-fu asylum with the rest of the inmates, and, you know, occasionally getting one chapter a month, and occasionally three in a day, however many I\u2019m feeling at the time.<\/p>\n

Right here.<\/p>\n

Audience Member: What are you going to tell us about who stole Mother Winter\u2019s walking stick and the person who has it now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are you going to tell us about who stole Mother Winter\u2019s walking stick and the person who has it now? Uh, we\u2019ll get there at some point. You should be able to figure it out, because it\u2019s in the book. That\u2019s stuff that I, uh, I don\u2019t like to throw lots of new stuff in when there\u2019s old stuff that I haven\u2019t used yet, I\u2019m fundamentally lazy as a writer, I like to make things connect. There\u2019s already been a half dozen people who said, \u201cHey wait, it must be this!\u201d and I\u2019m like, yeah. But yeah, that was, uh, I\u2019m kind of tempted to write, I keep being tempted to write the French-Indian War in the Dresden Files universe. Because it\u2019s really interesting, there were a lot of things going on at that point in time. Except, to do that, I\u2019ll have to learn about the French-Indian War.<\/p>\n

**Audience laughter**<\/p>\n

But there was all sorts of cool stuff happening, because that\u2019s when Ebenezer was a young hot-head, and the current Merlin was his opposing hot-head, and they were best friends, and, you know, that was when Listens-to-Winds was a young man as well, kind of the earlier generation of wizards when they were punks Harry\u2019s age.\u00a0 Because they were such monumental screw-ups. Because that\u2019s the way life is. You find out, oh my gosh, my parents were, they were fumbling along just the way I am now, at this point in their lives. It\u2019s one of those great lessons that humbles you as you go on. But anyway, that\u2019ll be fun to write at some point, some day. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m ever going to get to do it, but it was a very interesting period of time for wizards.<\/p>\n

Audience Member: Uh, two questions. First, would you ever consider doing another Spider-Man novel again? And, what would you say to someone who\u2019s looking to get into the business of writing books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ok, first question, would I consider writing another Spider-Man novel? Uh, sure, I would consider it. I love writing Spider-Man. That was so much fun. I don\u2019t know if, at this point, uh, you don\u2019t get paid a lot for writing Spider-Man novels. And that would be kind of a serious hit in my income to write for Spider-Man again. If they were willing to pay me even half of what I would make on an original novel, I\u2019d be willing to. But if they were like, \u201cHere\u2019s your 10k, thank you Jim\u201d, maybe not. When I’ve got some stories of my own that I’m excited to get out. But, generally speaking, Spider-Man, yes, more Spider-Man. I actually got offered, they offered me the chance to do DC content, they said \u201cHey, if you would like to do a guest stint for Superman or Batman, you know, we would love to have you there.\u00a0 And I\u2019m like, oh my god, that is so flattering. But\u2026I\u2019m just not a fan of Superman or Batman, and I could not write it well enough to make the people who are fans of Superman and Batman happy, like I could with something like Spider-Man. Um, so that didn’t work out so well.\u00a0 I had to turn it down. It was a great offer.<\/p>\n

And then, now, I get vengeance because, the original writers of the Dresden Files graphic novels *unintelligible* they saw his work on the Dresden Files stuff and said “hey come and draw Batman!” and he said “whoo!” and I’m like “I’ve lost Artie, that’s like noooooo, what have you done to me Batman, I will have my vengeance!”.<\/p>\n

As far as what I would say to someone who was *unintelligible* to writing books. Uh, tough biz, it took me about 9 years for me to break in, if you’re gonna do it, you have to commit to it and say to yourself “I’m gonna do this, even if it takes me 9 years like that lunkhead Jim” and then you go do it. The thing is, no one’s gonna help you, you’re not going to have anybody who’s standing there with you everyday going “you need to sit down and write today, you can do it!” it has to be you going “I need to sit down and write today, I can do it”. And whatever you need to do to motivate you to do that. Writing anything, even if you only write a sentence you’re still closer to the end of the book than you were before. Write what you love, people say “write the things you know”, like I know wizards and faeries and stuff, no, write what you love. Something that is going to keep you back and doing it over and over, write the things that make you happy and keep your interest on the book. If you find yourself writing something that’s boring and that you’re not enjoying, you’re doing anything wrong. Write something that you like, and then when you’re sitting down and writing and you go “oh yeah, someone’s going to scream at me if they don’t get to read the next part…if I can get anybody to read this part”. And eventually, if you hand in there long enough, breaking into writing is mostly about not quitting. If you’re too dumb to quit, you’re off to a good start, which explains me. Because you’d think that after 8 years of no one wanting any of my stuff that I would probably go “Well, maybe I should go find something else to do” instead of “No, I just need to keep going for a little while longer, maybe go to some conventions”. And uh, I was too dumb to know that it was never going to happen so it happened. And that’s kind of what you have to do, you have to believe in it until there it is. Use the internet, the internet is awesome, for networking, meeting people, for getting advice, for getting writing advice. Go *unintelligible* livejournal (I\u00a0think<\/strong>\u00a0that’s what’s being said), there’s writing lessons there. But anyway, that’s mostly what it is, you have to believe in it until it works. If you can delude yourself into thinking it long enough you’ll be able to do it.<\/p>\n

Over here *gestures*<\/p>\n

Audience member: *Unintelligible but something about whether it was a conscious choice to have Harry giving out the advice that “there’s no substitute for being in your child’s life” and then needing to be told that in Cold Days.*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: It was not a conscious decision in Cold Days but If I’d thought about it I would have done it. Harry’s great for saying one thing and doing something else. It’s really easy to give other people advice on how to do life and then life walks up to you and you go “oh that’s how people make that mistake”. You know, Harry going on and on to River Shoulders and how “you’ve gotta be involved in your son’s life, there’s just no substitute for you being there” and now he’s got this daughter who’s living in a house in Chicago and he’s just sort of peering at it through one of those doctor *unintelligible* telescopes. And ignoring his own advice that he’s given out regularly, which is very human, and it’s very like Harry. Unfortunately, being just sort of a lunkhead who’s trying to figure things out as he goes along. We’re just going to do a few more questions then we’re going onto the signing.<\/p>\n

*points at someone in a red shirt*<\/p>\n

Red Shirt, you know you’re not going to survive the *unintelligible*, you know that?<\/p>\n

Red Shirt: Are we going to learn more about Mac? His background?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Are we going to learn more about Mac and his background? Yeah, of course, I\u2019m going to keep throwing little bits and things out there. There\u2019s already been somebody who worked it out.\u00a0 I’ve been contacted by one person who successfully worked it out, and said \u201cHey, is Mac THIS\u201d, and I have to write back, \u201cI\u2019m not saying he is, and I\u2019m not saying he isn’t.\u201d So, if you want to dig into the clues that are there and figure it out, have fun.<\/p>\n

Audience Member: *unintelligible*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Not that you aren’t good, are you kidding? I was clueless when I got started. The biggest problem with The Dresden Files is that people have to start with the book I wrote when I *unintelligible*.<\/p>\n

Audience Member: How do you look back on your past works as you move forward as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Do I look back on my past works as I move forward as a writer? Gosh, growing as a writer is mostly about trying to do things you’re not sure you can do. So, when I wrote Changes, it’s like, okay, you’re going to completely alter every bit of your story, every major character, basically every major prop, every major set and turn it into something completely different. And do this in such a way that is germane to the story that’s happening and keeping with the plot that’s going on around it. And you’re going to tie up a bunch of plots that have been going for a long time and give birth to a bunch of new ones….go. And I kinda wrote out out my goal and I looked at it and I went “am I crazy? Couldn’t I just write the last book again and change the names around?” cuz that would make a lot of readers happy. But, that wouldn’t have been… that was the whole point of Changes, we’re going to do a major life changer right here. So growing as a writer is really about…if you’re writing a book and you absolutely know that you can do everything that you’ve got planned for it and do it well, you haven’t aimed high enough. You need to keep trying to write something that you’re not sure that you can pull off, and sometimes you’ll pull it off and it’ll work like in Changes and sometimes it’ll only sorta work like in Ghost Story. But, you have to keep going as a writer, *unintelligible* to say okay, what I’m going to do is that I’m going to take an action hero and I’m going to put him in a positions where he can’t really take any actions. What a genius move that was. But it was a good time for Harry in terms of seeing some other people take over some stuff in the story have a more leading role and Dresden got to be a little more thoughtful about his life. Not that he’ll really stop and take it in and do a lot of good things with it, I don’t think, but neither do the rest of us so I suppose that works out.<\/p>\n

But you really have to try something about your beginning, so you know I’m going to drop Dresden in and have him play hob-cob with Nicodemus. Cuz how well’s that going to work out? I mean it’s one thing, it’s one thing when it’s Clooney and Pitt, they’re friends obviously, planning their scheme, their heist. This is going to be a semi-different situation. So I have to write I heist book and a backstabby\/twisty\/politicky book at the same time. And I don’t know if I can do that, it might be an awful disaster, I don’t know. But I’ve gotta try, because if we’re just doing another adventure book *unintelligible*. Oh, and by the way while doing all that, I also have to do this intricate setup between Harry and one of his oldest friends, and mutual children that are at stake. No pressure there.<\/p>\n

And I don’t know if I can do that, but that’s what I’m setting myself up for and the book’s *unintelligible*.<\/p>\n

You’re taking bits of your soul and you’re forging them into something and then show them to people and say “isn’t that pretty?” and then you’ll hope they say “yeah, yeah, this is great”, You guys say it’s great, thank you, I appreciate that. Seriously, I mean, occasionally I get out and people say “Jim, you write stuff that makes us happy” It’ll be like *unintelligible*, I gotta keep reminding myself of that. Because, really if you’re going into writing for the money, don’t do that, don’t ever do that. I got my first book published in 2001 and it took me until 2009 to broker minimum wage over the course of when I started writing to where I was. And now *unintelligible* I’m doing so well that they *unintelligible* complain now, but it’s not something you could- Don’t clamp up and do it for the money. Occasionally you’ll have somebody who says “yeah I just quit my job so that I could become a writer” and I’ll be like “Oh my god! no, do some research before you quit your job”, it’s gotta be something *unintelligible* your passion. As far as growing as a write, just write something that you’re not sure you can accomplish. When you get started, maybe don’t do that when you get started because even if you think it’s going to be easy writing even the simplest kind of story, not easy, it’s like lifting the engine lock out of a car, it’s simple, but it’s not easy. You do it wrong and you’ll kill yourself or someone else, and your first stories will be that bad that you’ll make whoever you make read them wish you’d killed him. I wouldn’t have made Osama Bin Laden read my first five manuscripts, they were that bad.<\/p>\n

Anyway, thank you very much guys, for your questions, for your interest and for your continued support as readers and we’ll get some books signed.<\/p>\n

\n

B<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Booktalk Nation Interview WoJ Transcript 5-15-14<\/strong><\/p>\n

Transcript by\u00a0Second Aristh<\/a><\/p>\n

Hello everyone, here’s a transcript from yesterday’s interview.\u00a0 You can watch the video\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0 Questions start coming in around 23 minutes into the video.<\/p>\n

Are we going to ever see any stories from Morgan\u2019s point of view?\u00a0 Obviously this will be set in the past, but it would be interesting.<\/strong>
\nIt would be interesting.\u00a0 Huh.\u00a0 Yeah maybe.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t even considered that before.\u00a0 It might make for an interesting story.\u00a0 Especially in retrospect.<\/p>\n

Are Georgia and the baby okay?\u00a0 We last saw her in Aftermath, 8 \u00bd month pregnant and not well off.\u00a0 Then we just see Will by himself and angry.<\/strong>
\nYeah they\u2019re fine.\u00a0 Will\u2019s just kinda angry generally speaking.\u00a0 It\u2019s mostly because he\u2019s not sleeping very much.\u00a0 He\u2019s got a baby werewolf to deal with.\u00a0 That\u2019s gotta be tough on him.\u00a0 Just regular parenting is hard enough.<\/p>\n

How has Mouse been?\u00a0 Will you incorporate him into further adventures or has his character been placed on the shelf?<\/strong>
\nMouse has been very busy taking care of Maggie.\u00a0 You\u2019ll get to see a bit more of that in the upcoming book. \u2026 Mouse has been actually doing his own children series in the back of my head with Maggie.<\/p>\n

Will we see Faith again, and if so did she learn to be a wizard?<\/strong>
\nYou will indeed see her.\u00a0 Faith will be the client that sets off the big apocalyptic trilogy.\u00a0 She was the first Dresden client in the very first Dresden short story that I wrote, so I want to use her again to kick off the big ending.<\/p>\n

Does Harry have an incorrect understanding of the Dark Hollow and other parts of the world?<\/strong>
\nOh god yes.\u00a0 I won\u2019t say Harry is clueless, but his understanding of lots of things including the way that magic works is incomplete in many ways.\u00a0 If only because he hasn\u2019t been trusted by a lot of the wizarding community by a lot of the people who could have taught him better.\u00a0 And a lot of the people who do know better aren\u2019t correcting him because they think it\u2019s important to learn these things on your own.\u00a0 Harry\u2019s going to be stumbling across things where he goes \u201cOh, well I didn\u2019t understand this exactly right.\u201d\u00a0 Like for example the literal Outer Gates.\u00a0 That was something he did not know actually existed.\u00a0 He thought that was a metaphor for a long time.<\/p>\n

How did Ebenezar\u2019s instant death spell in Changes work?<\/strong>
\nThat had to do with Ebenezar\u2019s stick.\u00a0 That was all to do with the Blackstaff.
\nAny more to elaborate?<\/strong>
\nWell, there are folks who have speculated on where the Blackstaff came from, and that should explain it for those who piece it together.<\/p>\n

Are Mother Summer and Mother Winter two of three Fates?\u00a0 If so what is the third?<\/strong>
\nNo, they\u2019re\u2026 read Skin Game.<\/p>\n

Fix looks like he had a rather impressive Summer Knight\u2019s sword.\u00a0 Was that part of the standard kit or something he had managed to get on his own?<\/strong>
\nThat was a blade that Titania had made for him.
\nIs there even a Sword of Winter, and if Harry doesn\u2019t get it, who has it?<\/strong>
\nNo, not as such.\u00a0 The Knight himself is considered more important.\u00a0 Summer likes to externalize things about violence because they\u2019re not quite as attuned to that sort of savagery.\u00a0 In Winter it\u2019s much more important for you to be the weapon than it is for you to have the weapon.\u00a0 Harry is expected to be the sword.<\/p>\n

Do other planets except Earth have a Never Never, and if yes, what causes them to have a Never Never?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve got enough to deal with with just the one planet, much less other planets!!\u00a0 There\u2019s one planet, and they\u2019re multiple realities of the one planet running around side by side into infinity and now you want more planets too?!\u00a0 Aaahhhh
\nLet me think about that one, and I\u2019ll get back to you.<\/p>\n

How many people died because of the events of Dead Beat?<\/strong>
\nThere were several dozen casualties in Dead Beat, and the wardens who acted there managed to prevent more than that.\u00a0 The town got kinda crazy, but in Dresden\u2019s Chicago people are very very good at putting their heads down when things get completely weird and then pretending nothing happened afterward.<\/p>\n

Will there ever be a story with baby Drac or his daddy?<\/strong>
\nThere might be.\u00a0 The Impaler is one of those people I\u2019m saving for later.<\/p>\n

Will we see the Jade Court?<\/strong>
\nProbably not.\u00a0 You might see one of their agents.\u00a0 You\u2019ll probably never see them because they\u2019re very isolationist, and they like to stay isolated.<\/p>\n

Why doesn\u2019t Harry get a sword?\u00a0 Everyone else gets a sword.\u00a0 I thought for sure he was going to get one.<\/strong>
\nWhat\u2019s he gonna do with a sword?\u00a0 He\u2019ll cut himself.\u00a0 Honestly, if he had a sword he\u2019d fall on it, you know he would.\u00a0 Somebody would take it away from him and hit him with it.\u00a0 That\u2019s the kind of thing that happens.<\/p>\n

In the next short story compilation will we be seeing more of Sigrun Gard?<\/strong>
\nI think she appears in one\u2026 maybe.\u00a0 The only one that actually featured her was Hereot (sp?)\u00a0 She actually appears in Even Hand.\u00a0 It\u2019s the story from Marcone\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

What does Murphy do for a living now that she\u2019s not a paid officer?<\/strong>
\nShe\u2019s got her half retirement, and she gets a small stipend from the Brighter Future Society.\u00a0 She\u2019s got some money she had put by as well.\u00a0 Basically Murphy is scraping.<\/p>\n

When will we learn about the original Merlin?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s gonna be a few more books.
\nHow many more?\u00a0 Is it gonna be a lot more?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 A few more.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got another five or six books until we get to the end of the case books, and I think the original Merlin stuff will start coming out towards the very end.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said before that you\u2019d like to see an animated series made from these books.\u00a0 Do you have anything to comment on that?<\/strong>
\nThat would be awesome.
\nAny ideas on who you would want the voices to be?<\/strong>
\nIf it\u2019s gonna be an animated series, we\u2019ve got to get Marsters to do Dresden.\u00a0 If he could be talked into such a thing.<\/p>\n

Will Harry drive around in that hearse for the rest of the series?<\/strong>
\nHaha no.\u00a0 He\u2019s got the Munstermobile for now, but no.<\/p>\n

Will Maggie play a big part in later books?<\/strong>
\nWait and see.<\/p>\n

Will we see Lash again?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not gonna tell you!!\u00a0 (sing-song; insert Jim\u2019s happy dance)<\/p>\n

How did Michael know about Elaine in Grave Peril?<\/strong>
\nAt that point Michael and Harry had had enough bonding time for Harry to share some things with Michael that he hadn\u2019t shared with anybody else.\u00a0 He\u2019d actually known Michael for about a year by the time Grave Peril got started.<\/p>\n

Will there be a short story from Kincaid\u2019s perspective?<\/strong>
\nProbably not, although if I ever get around to writing the short story about Hawaii then there will be one where he\u2019s at least in it, but it will be from Murphy\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

How did Harry and Michael Carpenter originally meet?<\/strong>
\nIt was on a case that Harry was working that he crossed trails with Michael.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to say much more than that in case I want to go back and write it at some point, but it\u2019s in my notes back there somewhere.\u00a0 They wound up fighting the same bad guy.<\/p>\n

Who is your favorite character that has only appeared in the Dresden books?<\/strong>
\nI really like one of the guys from Skin Game.\u00a0 He\u2019s a character named Goodman Gray from Skin Game.\u00a0 I really liked him.\u00a0 He was fun to write.\u00a0 Bob the Skull is right up there.\u00a0 I have all kinds of fun writing Vadderung.\u00a0 Unfortunately it\u2019s all from Harry\u2019s point of view, so I don\u2019t get to write Vadderung\u2019s perspective on everything.\u00a0 He\u2019s incredibly funny in my head, but I don\u2019t always get to put it into the story.
\nAs a follow up, do you base these characters off of people in real life that you know?<\/strong>
\nOh god no.\u00a0 No, I wouldn\u2019t do that to anybody that I knew.\u00a0 The one character I did do that with was Shiro, and Shiro is a compilation of a couple of martial arts teachers I had as a teenager.<\/p>\n

\n

Geek and Sundry Skin Games interview<\/a><\/p>\n

Transcript by TheCuriousFan<\/p>\n

TM: Hey everybody, Tigermonkey here, I am honoured to be interviewing Jim Butcher, the author of the latest Dresden Files novel, Skin Game. Jim, thank you for being here, Skin Game is the fifteenth book in the series of The Dresden Files, if someone was thinking about jumping into the series, what would you tell a new reader that they are getting into?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: If you’re jumping into Skin Game, I guess you’re getting into the Ocean’s Eleven episode of The Dresden Files. It’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Phillip Marlowe. That’s been my favourite description of it so far.<\/p>\n

TM: What made you decide to get into the heist genre with Harry Dresden?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Oh you’ve gotta write a heist novel at some point, I wanted to write the League of Doom episode of The Dresden Files where it’s like “we’ve gotta put Harry in a black hat and put him with all the bad guys doing bad things and see what happens.”<\/p>\n

TM: What would you say is your favourite aspect or part of the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: This is one of the first times in the series that we’re getting into ah sorta the major league kinda the heavyweight power group that Dresden hasn’t been in before he’s actually had bad guys come up to him before and thrash him and then say “ah, I just kinda wondered if you were ready for the big time yet”. He’s playing with the famous people now so people like Hades are showing up, you know, I’m finally getting to do this sort of thing where it’s like “ooh, I get to grab cool stuff from mythology and so on and start bringing that into the story” and so that’s been a great deal of fun.<\/p>\n

TM: So James Marsters has been the reader for the audiobooks um, most of the audiobooks since the very first one. I am a massive fan of the audiobooks, I get them every single time, do you ever hear his voice when you’re writing for Harry now or has it always been the same voice that’s in your head ever since the very first novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: No, Harry just sorta sprung full being into place in my head when I started writing him, I sat down and the very first line I ever wrote for Harry Dresden was “My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, conjure by it at your own risk”. And then I just started writing and like the first two chapters sort of flew off the same night, he’s sort of grown into it I think, as he’s been reading, but it hasn’t really changed the way that I think of it in my head, so much, although he does a fantastic job of the reading of it though. I was actually very pleased to hear with Skin Game to hear he was recording it and then it took him like an extra hour or something to record one scene because it was the scene where Harry actually meets his daughter for the first time because he kept breaking down crying. I’m like “yes! I made Spike the vampire cry”.<\/p>\n

TM: Nice! We know there’s an endgame in sight with The Dresden Files, there are only so many books left and you know it’s all kind of leading towards something. When this series ends, do you think you’ll ever actually be able to let go of Harry and just stop writing for him as a character?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: I kind of can because I know where he’s going. The thing about stories is that they’ve gotta have an ending, if they don’t have an ending that’s when stories start to get stale because they just circle and do the same stuff over and over again.<\/p>\n

TM: Harry practices a good amount of parkour in this novel, what kind of other special skills do you think you’d wanna throw at his way in the next couple of books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Oh gosh, he should probably learn how to keep his mouth shut but I don’t see that happening probably because that never really happened for me either. I got beat up a lot when I was a kid and I had the bad taste to be the smallest kid in class and and one of the smarter kids in class and I might not have been able to keep my mouth shut. Let’s see, as far as learning other stuff goes, I wanna see him start to learn shapeshifting because that will be hilarious.<\/p>\n

TM: Random regular question, what books are you celebrating right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Let’s see I just got caught up with both the most recent book in Benedict Jacka’s series, the Alex Verus novels, which if you haven’t read you should check them out they’re really very good. I also just finished Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. I hate that guy, but yeah, you get to the end of Words of Radiance and you’re like “oh my god! oh my god! this is epic! This is what epic fantasy should look like because this is epic!”. But yeah, I’ve got to get together, maybe get Pat Rothfuss and we can go find Brandon and break his fingers because he’s writing entirely too fast.<\/p>\n

TM: Damn healthy competition!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: I know!<\/p>\n

But at the same time, I wanna write him to say “write faster”, you know, one of those things you always love and hate to hear as a writer because you know, you love it because you want people to love your stuff, you hate it because it’s like “oh my god I’m already working so hard you don’t even know. It took me nine months and you finished my book in eight hours aaah.”<\/p>\n

TM: Well how do you deal with that kind of pressure?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: I blow up a lot of people virtually. So yeah whenever things are too tough I’ve gotta log onto Battlefield 4 and start killing.<\/p>\n

TM: So Harry’s subconscious ID shows up again in Skin Game, are there any plans for Harry’s subconscious to shave his goatee anytime soon?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Well no because c’mon we all know that our evil mirror wears a goatee, I mean if Star Trek taught us anything is was that.<\/p>\n

TM: For my own personal I-just-want-to-knowness (should have just said curiosity), how long did it take for you to come up with the name Octo-Kongs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: *laughs*<\/p>\n

That was one of those on the fly moments, I actually had to stop and consider a minute because I thought I might do something with Pong instead of Kong.<\/p>\n

TM: So, this is not the last book for Harry Dresden, what is going to be up next for him? What other stuff are you going to be writing in the near future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: We’ll call the Mirror universe story in the future, I’ve still gotta do the professional wrestling story which I’m looking forward to. The next one though is going to be, there’s going to be a peace summit in Chicago between the various supernatural nations that is going to go horribly wrong because, you know, we can’t just have a peace summit show up and for everybody to be happy, that just doesn’t happen in Harry Dresden’s day.<\/p>\n

TM: Thank you, Jim Butcher, for being here and letting me ask you a couple of questions, this was tons of fun, thanks for being here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim: Thank you very much, I’ll try and get an actual camera to use at some point in the future.<\/p>\n

\n

Seattle WA 5\/30\/2014 Q&A<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In Book 5 when Harry gets hit with the Barabbas Curse and Shiro takes it for him so he doesn\u2019t die, what stops Nicodemus from just doing the Barabbas Curse on Harry again?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nIt takes a while to set it up and get going.\u00a0 You can\u2019t just whip it out and say here\u2019s a curse.\u00a0 There\u2019s got to be blood sacrifice and ritual and all this other stuff that goes along with it.\u00a0 Otherwise he\u2019d just use it every day, for fun.\u00a0 That guy cut me off in traffic.\u00a0 Barabbas Curse.\u00a0 Because he totally would.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve introduced a couple characters that wear different faces and show up, and it\u2019s not always easy to tell that they\u2019re the same person such as Odin\/Vadderung\/Kringle.\u00a0 Are there other characters that you haven\u2019t yet revealed that are wearing multiple faces that we have already seen multiple times?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m shocked that you would suspect such a thing of me sir!\u00a0 *I\u2019m not gonna tell you*
\nThose are pretty much scattered all over the Dresden Files cosmos.\u00a0 You\u2019ll see more as we go.\u00a0 There are a lot of characters that are there right now that aren\u2019t who you think they are.\u00a0 We\u2019ll have to see how it turns out, though.<\/p>\n

When a wizard uses cold magic, where does the excess heat go?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nEngineering or physics?\u00a0 In this case it would be going over to the NN.\u00a0 If it\u2019s not actual fire happening, the NN is my go to for anything that doesn\u2019t quite fit.<\/p>\n

What would happen if Harry wore an iron earring?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nIt would do horrible things to the mantle around him and put him in terrible pain.
\nIn several books he\u2019s been pierced with iron and it seems as if the mantle goes away but doesn\u2019t actually.\u00a0 He\u2019s in incredible pain because he\u2019s been beaten up, but with long term exposure would his back go back to being normal?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nWell, somebody asked something similar a couple of nights ago.\u00a0 They pointed out that when Harry crossed Mab and Mab took the mantle away from him when he broke Winter Law that his back collapsed too, but his back didn\u2019t collapse when he got pierced by iron.\u00a0 And I looked at him, and I said, \u201cYou\u2019re right.\u00a0 That seems like an inconsistency.\u00a0 Like someone is lying or doesn\u2019t understand the exact
\nsituation of things or something like that.\u201d\u00a0 Then I said to him what I said to you, next question.<\/p>\n

Why did Harry shout his entire Name to an Outsider, especially when he knows all the Outsiders act as one?\u00a0 Now this Outsider has his Name.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\nYeah, why would he do that?\u00a0 Harry was shouting a challenge to it, and basically he has to respond in kind so he could find out who this thing was.\u00a0 It was worth it to him to make that effort.\u00a0 It does seem a little crazy, but on the other hand he doesn\u2019t always make the best decisions.
\nConsequences of stupidity?<\/strong>
\nWell yeah.\u00a0 On the other hand nobody broke into his brain and tried to make him do things either.\u00a0 Huh, that seems like an inconsistency doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen specialists in earth magic, water magic, fire magic, spirit, ectomancy, necromancy, etc.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve never seen an air magic specialist.\u00a0 Is there a reason for that or is there someone I\u2019m not thinking of and what would that look like?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nLuccio kind of is, but she lost most of her awesome mojo when she got switched into a new body.\u00a0 Basically the air magic folks, depending on how much magical muscle they have, they can do a lot of things with wind.\u00a0 They\u2019re also really good at communication type stuff.\u00a0 The Merlin is a fantastic air mage.\u00a0 That\u2019s the basis of his \u201cI can communicate with everybody at the speed of thought.\u00a0 Now everyone shut up, and let\u2019s get this plan together.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of where that comes from for him.<\/p>\n

Back in Dead Beat when we see Quintus Cassius pop up again where he\u2019s aged to an old man because he gave up his coin.\u00a0 Why did he never summon it back?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nHe tried.\u00a0 The knights got the Coin secured before he could do it.\u00a0 They wrap it up and take it back to the basilica.\u00a0 They\u2019ve got special holy lunchboxes for them.<\/p>\n

I was wondering if it was intentional that Butters\u2019s catch phrase \u201cPolka will never die\u201d is P.W.N.D. which really seems to fit Butters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m shocked you would think that of me…\u00a0 I\u2019m doubly shocked that somebody noticed.<\/p>\n

Uriel gets very upset when Harry tries to change his name.\u00a0 Is Harry\u2019s ability to name things something that every mortal possesses or is something giving Harry naming rights?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nNo giving things names is something anybody can do.\u00a0 It sticks a little harder coming from Harry because he has so much more power relative to the rest of the world.\u00a0 Naming things is a way of having power over them.\u00a0 That\u2019s in almost every magical tradition.\u00a0 That\u2019s something that other people can do as well, but a lot of them don\u2019t.\u00a0 The problem is when you Name something you create a link to it.\u00a0 By doing that you\u2019re leaving yourself open to it in some ways.\u00a0 Dresden just runs around naming things willy nilly because he\u2019s such a careful guy.<\/p>\n

What sets the cadence of your Name?\u00a0 How does that work?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nWhen somebody uses your Name against you, it\u2019s all about the way you perceive yourself in some ways.\u00a0 The True Name that they need is the Name that you say when you say your Name.\u00a0 Nobody else can give them your True Name unless they\u2019ve gotten it from you.<\/p>\n

From Summer Knight, there\u2019s a wizard sitting under the polar ice caps.\u00a0 What\u2019s he doing and is he still there?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nYes he\u2019s still there\u2026 oh yes he is still there!\u00a0 I\u2019m doing something\u2026 I\u2019m sorry it\u2019s a short story thing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to say anything else about it.<\/p>\n

Why the Winter Court for the ones who are protecting against the Outsiders?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nWhat determines the realm of Faerie is it\u2019s all the NN that\u2019s actually bordering on the mortal world.\u00a0 Anywhere you can get to in the NN from the mortal world is Faerie somewhere because that\u2019s the border territory.\u00a0 Faeries themselves are beings that essentially have a tie to the mortal world.\u00a0 They\u2019re part mortal, all of them.\u00a0 The world needed protection.\u00a0 Over the years it\u2019s changed who that\u2019s provided that protection.\u00a0 Thousands of years ago when there were a bunch of other gods and pantheons in operation, it was different people who were in charge of making sure the world stays secure.\u00a0 Then over the past thousand years or so, it\u2019s fallen upon the Queens of Faerie who are the only beings with enough power to pull it off.\u00a0 \u00a0Of them, the ones that you want fighting all the time absolutely ruthlessly absolutely without mercy, those are the ones who have to stand up against the Outsiders, that\u2019s the Winter Court.\u00a0 When the Faerie queens were established, they were established with a safeguard built in.\u00a0 That\u2019s the Summer Court so that Winter never turned inward.<\/p>\n

Will we see Mrs. Murphy again?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nMaybe?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 We\u2019ll have to see.\u00a0 That might work out.<\/p>\n

You came up with a plan for all 20+ books before you even started writing the first one.\u00a0 Is that correct?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s not true.\u00a0 I had written two chapters.\u00a0\u00a0\";D\"
\nHow much of that has changed since you wrote the first book?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nNot a word, I\u2019m scared to change it.
\nBut Mouse came in out of nowhere.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nSure.\u00a0 New characters have to come in all the time.\u00a0 Plus Harry needed a better security system at home anyway.<\/p>\n

Why is Harry such a dick to Marcone?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nMarcone is a paternalistic authority figure, and Harry can\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n

Toot Toot seems to be getting more powerful as of late.\u00a0 Is pizza some kind of spiritual nutrient that we\u2019re not aware of?\u00a0 What makes him keep getting bigger and bigger?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nHe keeps getting bigger and bigger.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice his Name keeps getting longer.<\/p>\n

Harry had to promise Bob a new skull, and the Fallen are bound to 30 silver coins.\u00a0 Is there any resemblance between the skull Bob sits in and the coins?\u00a0 Is there anything shenanigan-wise might ever happen with the Fallen and their vessels being separated?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nWell, there\u2019s never been a peer-reviewed study to prove that.\u00a0 When I\u2019m building magic in the Dresden Files, I wanted magic to make sense.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want magic that was randomly weird and be known by randomly weird people.\u00a0 I wanted it to have actual rules that it had to follow.\u00a0 You\u2019re looking at parallel structures.\u00a0 In as much as that goes, you\u2019re on track.<\/p>\n

For the different Courts, we\u2019ve got Summer and Winter.\u00a0 Was there ever or will there ever be Autumn and Spring?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nNo, those don\u2019t exist as such.\u00a0 There\u2019s groups of beings that are sort of like that in Wyldfae.\u00a0 The Wyld is the largest part of Faerie by far.\u00a0 So there are groups that can assemble that.\u00a0 Certainly I want there to be the freedom for people to do stuff like that for their games because everybody should get to have fun.\u00a0 That\u2019s the whole point of these stories for people to have fun.\u00a0 There\u2019s not a structure as such in cannon.\u00a0 Those are just transitional states between two extremes.<\/p>\n

For the different big bads that you\u2019ve introduced and what not, which one would you find the most terrifying out of all of them?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThey\u2019re all creepy as hell.\u00a0 The one I\u2019d least like to deal with is Marcone.\u00a0 He\u2019s one of those smart ruthless don\u2019t let anything stop them types.\u00a0 He\u2019s not too proud to just kill you.\u00a0 He\u2019s never going to make an evil overlord mistake because it would never occur to him to make an evil overlord mistake.<\/p>\n

If you know a child\u2019s Name, can you use it on them as an adult?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nProbably not.\u00a0 Not unless they haven\u2019t changed since then.\u00a0 People are screwy like that.\u00a0 Unfortunately that works in real life too.\u00a0 I don\u2019t respond nearly as well when people walk up to me and say, hey Jimmy Dan.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a Name that I really respond to any more unless it\u2019s Julie saying it.<\/p>\n

How did Harry\u2019s dad get Harry\u2019s mom?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nAt the end of the day, he was a good man.\u00a0 She needed somebody she could depend on.\u00a0 Big things get changed because there happened to be the right person in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n

How much does Ebenezer know about Thomas?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nEbenezer knows way too much about Thomas.
\nDo you ever see a sort of multi-generational family reunion showing up in any of the books?<\/strong>
\nSure why not?\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there will be a nice cookout.\u00a0 Everybody will get along, and they\u2019ll sing some songs.\u00a0 They can have it during Peace Talks so that\u2019ll be perfect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below are the 2013 and 2014 fan generated transcripts I have available to archive: 2013 Geek Hard interview Partial Transcript … More 2013 & 2014 transcripts from audio\/video WoJ sources<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-124","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}