Susan Sizemore: Well, Marguerite is not only one of my very best friends, she was also my first editor. Long ago (sometime in the late 1970s), in a galaxy called Urbana, Illinois, she was the editor of a Star Trek fanzine. Meanwhile, in another part of Illinois, I was writing Star Trek stories for fun (hadn't ever heard of fanzines) and sending them to a friend in Urbana. This friend knew Marguerite, and showed her the stories. Marguerite wrote to ask if she could publish these stories. Fine with me.

This was my introduction to a new world, and a wonderful friend. Marguerite also wrote wonderful fan stories. After about ten years we ended up living in the same town in a different state and were both getting restless with writing fanfic. So were other fan writing friends. We all formed a critique group and started writing original fiction. Among this group were people who wanted to write mystery, cyberpunk SF, scripts, and fantasy. Marguerite and I were interested in fantasy, and in working together.

We sat down and decided what sort of fantasy we wanted to write while in that critique group. We decided we didn't want to do anything Tolkienesque. We didn't want to do high fantasy with fancy royalty and wizards (though we wanted royalty and wizards, just not high-falutin' ones). We wanted lots of characters and storylines that wove together into a whole world. We ended up writing what I think of as a "working class" fantasy about some wonderfully ordinary people who do what needs to be done to save their world. And much to our surprise it really turned out to be about the importance of parenting, both good and bad.

Now, Moons' Dancing (it was published as the duology Moons' Dreaming and Moons' Dancing, but Mar and I will always think of it as only one book) took us four years to write the first draft of this book, learning along the way, as this was our first original story. When we printed out the final draft the page count ran to over 1,000 pages. This was in the days before Robert Jordan's success made that sort of page count almost mandatory for your average epic.

By this time I knew enough about the business of writing to know that our first child wasn't sellable. Not that we didn't try. Besides, it needed rewriting. And over the course of another decade or so, we refined and improved it and finally got it just right. Then we sold it at last -- our eldest child found a home with Five Star Press (though it was out as an ebook for a while before we sold it to a print publisher). I'm very proud of this collaboration with a life-long friend.

Crescent Blues: Was that related to your work with Speculation Press?

Susan Sizemore: Not at all. Both my and Marguerite's association with Speculation Press (trade size paperback SF/fantasy books, for excerpts and info check http://speculationpress.com) came about because the press was started by another life-long friend, Winifred Halsey. Winifred wanted to publish the sort of books she wanted to read. She was rather discouraged by the state of SF/fantasy publishing, and decided to do something about it by starting her own small publishing house.

She asked me for a book, and I was overjoyed to finally write one of the stories from a space opera universe that I've had in my head for a very long time. Gates of Hell was the first novel in what I hope will be many books in the United Systems universe. Marguerite's fantasy Blind Vision was also accepted by Speculation Press.

My role as an editor for Spec Press has been more as an acquiring editor than as an actual editor editor. Editing story structure of other peoples' work is not one of my talents, but I've enjoyed finding stories to recommend to Winifred, who makes the actual publishing decisions.

Crescent Blues: How did the writing collaboration work? (For example, did one person outline and the other write, did you write alternating chapters?)

Susan Sizemore: This book was written and rewritten so many times I don't remember who did what anymore. It all came out very coherent, and it very much came from both of us.

Crescent Blues: What influence does fan culture -- whether for a television show, a sports team or a musical group -- have on your writing?

Susan Sizemore: Well, I learned a lot about how to write while writing fan fiction. I met a lot of my friends through fandom, and I'm grateful for that. I still like to go to science fiction conventions several times a year.

A con isn't like a writers' conference, by the way, though some cons do have programming tracks for aspiring writers. Conventions are a combination of party, film festival, gaming, educational panels on various aspects of books and media, costuming competitions and workshops, shopping in dealers' rooms.

Sometimes there are professional guests -- actors, writers, editors -- sometimes it's a gathering of like-minded friends. Fandom is a community, a multi-generational one at that. There's a fandom for everything as well as just general SF/fantasy/media fandom. I haven't been to a media con for a while, but I hope to get to Gatecon (annual Stargate SG-1 convention held in Vancouver) sometime.

A lot of my stories have been inspired by songs, and though I don't write to loud head-banging, ear-bleeding music as much as I used to, I really think I should.

I NEED basketball. Watching the game being played is like vicariously taking part in a physical chess game. It's a smart, fast game that just watching is good for my brain.

Crescent Blues: When did you first realize that you wanted to write for a living?

Susan Sizemore: Oh, sometime in junior high, I guess. Then I spent years writing just for pleasure. Sometime in my mid-thirties I was bitten hard by the need to actually write something original to try to sell. When I overheard a conversation at a con about a fan story that had been written based on a story I'd written, I went ballistic. If I'd still been in the fan-writing mindset I would have been flattered that someone liked something of mine enough to build a story around it. Instead I was furious -- and it showed me how George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry felt about Star Wars and Star Trek fanzines. Besides, I wanted to make up worlds of my own. I sold my first original book, a time travel romance Wings of the Storm, when I was forty, but didn't start doing it for a living until a few years after that.

Crescent Blues: Who were your first literary inspirations and what made them special to you?

Susan Sizemore: Well, I discovered the art of description and settings from reading Mary Stewart mysteries. Dialogue came from Roger Zelazny. From Anne McCaffrey and Frank Herbert came the discovery that science fiction could have fully developed characters and worlds. I actually learned about romance from Andre Norton, she put wonderful romances into her SF/fantasy. My introduction to historical romance was Kathleen Woodiwiss, and Regency was Georgette Heyer.

My favorite books of all time are Jane Eyre, A Girl of the Limberlost and Good Omens. I've loved The Lord of the Rings since I was 19, but I think I'm more influenced by Tolkien's source material than his books -- but my love of Aragorn is forever.

Dorothy Dunnett is a goddess. If I could create characters even a tenth as amazing as the ones in her Lymond Chronicles, I'd be a happy woman. Mary Renault sparked my love of historical fiction, and since she wrote a lot about characters out of Greek mythology, that helped get me into fantasy and science fiction. I was really into epic poetry when I was young -- the hard stuff like The Iliad, Beowulf, Gilgamesh -- all that stuff that modern day fiction comes from. Though I didn't know it at the time, loving those ancient stories helped me become a writer.

And I've always been inspired by movies. Modern genre fiction has a cinematic feel to it. I recently saw the amazing Chinese film Hero, and my thought while watching it was, "I want to write like that!" But I was watching a movie!

Crescent Blues: Who currently rocks your literary world -- and why?

Susan Sizemore: I'm really hot for Wen Spencer's urban fantasy books. Totally hooked on Terry Pratchett's funny, wise Discworld. Love Susan Grant's romance and worldbuilding in her romantic SF. Addicted to Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden universe. Jacqueline Carey amazes me with her deep, dense, ever so kinky epic fantasy. Thomas Harlan is great, his alternate history with magic Rome has great multiple storylines, and his Wastelands of Flint, which is SF, is even better. John Ringo does fine military SF. Catherine Asaro manages to combine romance, politics and physics in wonderful ways. I'm hooked on JD Robb -- oh that Rourke!

And I'm really into downloading romantica ebooks from Ellora's Cave. There's some really hot stuff going on over there. I love futuristic romance, and found the good stuff hard to find until I discovered EC. In historical romance, [Christina] Dodd and [Connie] Brockway can always be counted on. I've been collecting the new Bombshell and LUNA lines from Silhouette, but haven't had time to actually read many of them yet. Everybody I know is into Laurie King's mysteries, so I plan on giving them a read real soon now.

Crescent Blues: Do you have any writing rituals you'd like to share?

Susan Sizemore: Is spending too much time online a writing ritual?

Crescent Blues: Could be. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Susan Sizemore: Finish the damn book. It's the advice I give myself every time I start one. Writing a book is scary. There's stages to it -- like the stages of death. There's always a point where I panic and do the "I can't do this! Whatever made me think I could do this?" It happens with every book, and I've written a bunch of books and short stories. The point is to get past the panic attack and finish the damn book.

And by the way, there is no one correct way to write a book. Do whatever works for you. If you need a detailed outline, fine. If you write in bits and pieces and then connect them up, fine. If you do character arcs and flow charts and such, fine. If you just sit down and start writing and keep writing until you get to the end, fine. Do what works for you. As long as your method takes you to the end of the story.

And have as many points of view as you need. And use those points of view any way you have to. As long at the transitions between points of view are clear do what works to move the story along. I hate the proclamations that some writers and writing instructors make about thou shalt have only one point of view character. Or two at most, but only one point of view per scene/chapter. Story telling isn't about rules (except grammar, and even those rules don't necessarily apply in dialogue), it's about telling a story.

Crescent Blues: Care to give our readers some teasers about upcoming books?

Susan Sizemore: Let's see -- well, the next thing in print is a novella ("A Touch of Harry" in The Shadows of Christmas Past, out in late October/early November 2004) based in the Primes universe, but featuring a missing persons detective who happens to be a werewolf. It's a fun Christmas romance. And the other author in the anthology is Christine Feehan!

In March 2005 comes I Hunger for You. The hero of this third Primes vampire romance is Colin Foxe, who's been a minor character in the first two Primes books. I'm looking forward to feedback on several of the Primes that are minor characters in I Hunger for You.

Excerpts from all my stuff get posted on my website. So does the occasional freebie story. So check it out at http://susansizemore.com but not before the beginning of October, 'cause I haven't updated it since July, but plan to in the next couple of weeks. To join my mailing list for updates on upcoming projects send an email to sgsizemore@msn.com.

Crescent Blues: Anything else you'd like to talk about (soapboxes provided free of charge)?

Susan Sizemore: Vote. I don't care who you vote for -- that's no one's business but yours. But vote. Take part in the process.

Click here to read the Crescent Blues review of Laws of the Blood: The Hunt.

Click here to read the Crescent Blues review of Laws of the Blood: Deceptions.

Click here to read the Crescent Blues review of The Price of Passion.

Click here to read the Crescent Blues review of The Gates of Hell.

Jean Marie Ward