Interview Becky Gauger

by

Billie A Williams

1) Is this your first published book? What does your writing schedule look like--do you write every day?

This is my first book, although I wrote another as well before I got this one published. When I’m being good, I try to write every day. Most of the time that doesn’t work, so I end up writing for long stretches at a time then finding excuses not to write for long stretches of time.

2) How long have you been writing? If you didn’t write what profession would you choose?

I’ve been writing since I was eleven years old, that makes it nearly thirty years now (ouch!) which just goes to show how good I am at procrastinating. I always swore when I was a kid that I’d be a cartoonist, until I found out that cartoonists have to draw hundreds of pictures every day, then I turned to writing. If I couldn’t write I think I’d like to get into computer animation, I think it’s fascinating, and that way I could still be a cartoonist without all the drawing!

3) What genre(s) do you write in? Do you experiment with others? Do you write non-fiction articles, or books or perhaps poetry? If you couldn’t write in your chosen genre--which would be your second favorite?

I generally write science fiction and fantasy, usually together like “The Wizard’s Wife” which is written as a fantasy with dragons and wizards, giants and elves, yet everything in the book is scientifically possible. My wizard, AErin is actually a scientist, but in a time when science is so fantastic that everyone believes it’s magic!

Romance is an element in all my stories. I’m a great believer in innocent yet sexy love (and no, that’s not a contradiction). I’ve ideas for some regency romances, but they aren’t written yet.

4) Becky this sounds like such a fascinating story can you tell us how you came up with the idea for it?

I was watching the cartoon version of the “Lord Of The Rings” and in one scene Gandalf was charging into battle, beard streaming, sword raised, and I realized Gandalf can’t be as old as he lets on! That got me to thinking Why doesn’t the wizard ever get the girl? “The Wizard’s Wife” is the story of what happens when the wizard falls in love, and what happens when someone is stupid enough to kidnap his wife.

5) When you write a fantasy do you borrow someone else’s world or do you create your own? How do you go about that--it seems like such an awesome task.

When I write fantasy or science fiction I create my own worlds. I dislike “because I said so” worlds, where the author simply decides things are a certain way “because I said so.” I try to make things make sense. My worlds have a history, a reason for being the way they are. I’ve researched the science that I use for magic in the book, so if you look at AErin’s crystal ball, or at dragonfire, or at the curse AErin puts on the kidnappers for taking his wife, they all make sense. They are actually possible, they are simply not the way we would think of using science nowadays.

6) What do your characters names mean--are they significant to the plot of your story?

Yes, several of the names have special meanings, although those meanings aren’t found anywhere in the book. My wizard’s name, AErin, is actually a cross between Aaron and Erin, and is pronounced ay-er-in. My heroine, Marela, is a woman who has lost everyone she loves but later discovers a family she never knew about. Her name means “daughter of sorrow” (mar-ela). One of my minor wizards’ name is Nerald (ner-ald), meaning “eagle of the north” for reasons which become obvious in the story. I have a dwarf named Moregro because he wants to “grow more,” and an elvish jester named Aykay based on the letters AK for reasons I’ve never understood, and a wizardess named Serena (Seh-reh-na) because, despite being the mother of eleven, she is still serene. My names are fun and a lot of them are simply strange spellings of normal names, you’ll recognize those as you read.

7) What audience did you have in mind when you wrote The Wizard’s Wife? How did you keep yourself on track? Do you have a time line or a story goal that you write toward?

I wrote “The Wizard’s Wife” for about ten years. I knew I wanted to write a story about a wizard falling in love, but I didn’t really have any further ideas until I actually started writing. For years I only wrote the occasional scene that would come to me, until I finally buckled down and decided this wasn’t a game anymore, I was going to write this book!

The story is for anyone who likes romance in their science fiction or fantasy. The love story is very important to the book and I hope I’ve written a love story that people will remember. But the book is also very much a fantasy adventure. In fact, the book is actually almost half and half. The first part of the book is mostly the romance, and the last half of the book is mostly the adventure. It all ties together and reads as one integrated story and I’ve had compliments from men in their fifties, boys in their teens, and women of all ages, so the story is for everyone. (By the way, it’s not a sappy love story. It’s sexy and sweet, but it’s real. These people each have their own lives to live and their own talents and goals, but they’ve decided they want to live and love together. They manage to do that without either one losing what they are.)

8) Who has had the greatest influence on your writing? Was it another author, a friend, a parent or other relative? How?

I’ve loved science fiction and fantasy ever since I became aware that these stories were different than any other. These are myths, they’re adventure, they are fairy tales and folklore. Everything is possible. The good guys always win. And it makes great comic books and movies! Seriously, I love everything about science fiction. Patrick Stewart (Captain Pickard of Star Trek) once described science fiction as the “mythology of the modern age.” I think that says it all. Maybe that’s why I’m a science fiction librarian as well!

Some of my favorite authors are Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Lois McMaster Bujold, Christopher Stasheff, and Wendy Pini. These authors, with their wit and charm, and their grasp of a good entertaining story, have taught me, and helped me through some hard times, when I just wanted to get away from my life for a while. They gave me hope and courage and a good laugh when I needed it. Can there be anything more important than that?

9) What inspires you to write? Do you have a favorite music or some other thing you need to have in your writing area for your muse to kick in?

I’m not so sure “inspiration” is the word. I have stories running through my head all the time. I’ve got entire stories that I love that no one else will ever see, because I’m too lazy to write them down. I generally prefer it quiet when I write, not that it matters much. When I’m really into a story I become oblivious to everything around me. I can write for four hours and think only twenty minutes have gone by. But the hardest part of writing is not the creation of the story, but sitting down and typing it out. I always want it to be perfect the first time, and it never is. That’s why god invented editing!

10) Are you working on any other stories? Can you tell us about it, or them?

My second finished book, which I hope to have published soon, is about a boy who can bilocate. He can literally be in two places at once! Batty discovers a secret organization is running tests on the kids in his town. And no one seems to notice. It is up to Batty to uncover the secret and expose the scientists. But Batty’s not the only person in town with weird abilities!

This is the story of a town where virtually everyone has some level of psionic ability. This should appeal to the audiences of “Harry Potter” and “Artemis Fowl.” It is titled “Psi-Kids,” hopefully you’ll get to see it soon.

11) You must have a very fertile imagination to create a whole new world and characters to populate them--do you have a trick for finding ideas that could be developed into a story--how do you develop them once you have a spark of an idea?

I do have a very fertile imagination. It is the bane of everyone around me! J Actually history is a very good place to find strange stories to build on. For example, I always wondered why we believe that wizards didn’t actually exist. We’ve had wise men all through history who have done amazing things. Our own Benjamin Franklin was called a wizard because of his imaginative use of science. One of the ancient greek philosophers destroyed an invading armada by using soldier’s shields to reflect sunlight onto their sails and set them on fire. That’s where I got my idea to have my wizard use science. As for developing an idea, once you have one it’s just a matter of asking yourself “what would happen because of this” or “what would have to happen to make this happen.” Stories unfold, like growing crystal, going off in all directions and branching in beautiful and unexpected ways.

12) Do you prefer to plot out your story with an outline, or do you start with a character or two and let them tell your story and you just become the scribe?

I’ve found the best way for me to actually get a story down on paper is to start with a general idea and let it grow as I write. If I sit down to plot it and figure out all the problems beforehand I never write it down, because by then I already know all the story and I’m ready to move on to the next one. I usually have an idea what the story is about, I try to write everything out in scenes and dialogue. Once I’m done, or I reach a major plot problem, that’s when I go back and start figuring out the specifics. Editing is wonderful because you can go back and rearrange things, or insert or delete important information. But I find that much harder to do if I don’t already have the scenes and story to work from.

13) Is there anything you would like your readers to know about you? Or anything else that I didn't ask that you would like to tell us?

I’m a science fiction librarian, a great believer in comic books, a devotee of “Doctor Who”, and I talk too much. I hope my books leave people with a warm feeling and a smile.