PB: My first book, Masques, took me about a year to write, once I quit rewriting the first ten pages over and over again. It's a short book, about 75 or 80,000 words which, set in a small font, came out as just under 200 pages in a book format. It still takes me about a year - except for When Demon's Walk - which was a sheer romp and only took me a little under nine months to write. Ace bought it about a year after I finished it - proof that sheer luck can compensate for skill and experience - and it was in print about a year later.
DL: Do you use any mythology sources for your writing?
PB: Absolutely. Northern European Folklore was steeped into me from childhood and I've taught Greek and Roman mythology. More specifically, I read a lot of folklorist's books, including the invaluable Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katherine Briggs (no relation) before I wrote The Hob's Bargain to brush up on my knowledge of the less well known fey. I have to confess, though, that I used the pooka Harvey (from the old movies of the same name) as a basis for my Hob rather than any of the older stories of mythological creatures.
DL: Your books are character driven. Which ones are your favorites and which characters were the hardest to write?
PB: Hands down the hardest character to write was Rialla from Steal the Dragon. I set out to write a simple, plot-driven mystery and decided in a moment of weakness to make the main character an ex-slave. But when I sat down to write the story, I realized that there was no such thing as an ex-slave just as there isn't an ex-alchoholic or an ex-rape victim. In order to keep the length of the story under 100,000 words, I had to drop the mystery plot or risk trivializing the effects of slavery (which differs from child/spouse abuse only in degree). It was difficult to decide how much Rialla herself could say about her history - I can't abide characters who whine and I must have cut at least ten pages of whining before I was finished. In the end, I wrote the rough draft of When Demons Walk in between drafts of Steal the Dragon.
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