of rules; the breaking thereof...

right! today there will be no comments on capital letters, prologues and people dying. got it?

What about pasta?

no pasta either.

No Pasta? What are we going to eat then, Dave?

haha, good joke, very funny...

I do my best. Today I want to ask you about the writing process.

you do?

Oh, so now you're the comedian! I shouldn't have to tell you that visual jokes don't work in a blog, Dave, so pretending to fall over in shock is not going to generate any laughs.

but i was shocked. you really want to talk about the writing process?

Certainly do. These characters in The Shadow Without, Jetta Coorain and his mate Samuel Robinson and Kelsey Prant; how do you think them up?

well, i'm not sure about other writers but i just listen to them.

Listen to them? Like voices in your head?

yeah, something like that. i get little snippets of dialogue from them, just bits and pieces. then the other characters start to interact, like answer back, that kind of thing. and the more dialogue i hear, the more answering back i hear and the more fleshed out the characters become. soon i hear most of a chapter, just the critical moments, but enough to sketch out the scenes.

You're hearing and you're sketching, so where does the writing come into it?

when i have enough detail i just sit at the keyboard and let the characters do their stuff. so in the opening chapter, Jetta walks into the cafe and the cook tries to kill him. that's what i started with, i sketched it out and wrote it up--

And then?

then i asked Jetta why the cook was trying to kill him.

You mentioned that death, not me! I didn't break the rules, okay? Look, I've read that first chapter--

what a surprise...

--and Jetta eventually works out that his grandfather is trying to contact him via the Song Stones but it is the stones themselves that have led the demon Molongo directly to him. Are you saying this is what Jetta told you? After you sketched him out?

that's what i am saying.

You're not bipolar by any chance are you?

not that i know, why?

No reason, really. Just that sometimes you kind of flip out, don't you?

flip out? no, not at all. i simply use all the tools at my disposal, without prejudice, to create the best stories i can. i believe The Shadow Without is one of them.

Even though you ripped the story off one of your own characters?

and you call me bipolar...