Jane Lindskold-Fantasy Writer Extraordinaire

Jane M. Lindskold is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels.

Jane published her first novel, Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls in December, 1994. In her Athanor series, she writes about shape-shifters, satyrs, merfolk, and unicorns — who have sworn to keep their existence hidden from a human race prone to kill what it does not understand. In her Firekeeper Saga, she writes about a woman who discovers that politics among the wolves she was raised by and politics among human royalty are not so different.

Lindskold lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband, archaeologist Jim Moore. (www.Wikipedia.org)

Ah, the power of the written word! I was totally immersed and disturbed by Jane’s short story series, the Albuquerque Adepts. The best stories are the ones that make you think, feel and ponder and her story of the coming of age of a teenage wizard, accomplished all three. Her insight into the multiple shades of gray we all live in and the understanding of the maddening maze of motive and desires of the heart, never cease to amaze me.
As cerebral as Jane can be, she is also a wicked gardener and cook along with being a master craftswoman and beader. Along with her wonderful husband, Jim, she shares her home with their assorted cats and beloved guinea pigs.

Jane was gracious enough to answer some of Sleep Compass’s questions:

1. Is easier to have rules and a background on a world that you’ve created than on something like ‘Mah-jong’ where people can look it up and dispute what you’ve written? Do people allow you creative license or do they seem to pick out any inconsistencies? (o.k. that was 2 questions in one!)

Both types of writing have their challenges. I find that if people are going to nitpick, they do it whether or not the world is imaginary or based on the “real” one. Mah-jong was fun to work with because no two sets of rules seem to agree, so I didn’t need to worry about getting anything but the very basic elements “wrong.”

The unforgivable inconsistancies are those within a story. I feel the same about that whether I’m a reader or a writer. For example: I try very hard not to have a spell do one thing one time, and another another time. I try to keep the personalities of my characters consistant, and not forget life-changing experiences. This is particularly important when writing a series.

2. When other authors comment on your work, does it carry more weight with you personally than when a fan does?

Author comments only hold more weight if they are related to craft. As with any profession, appreciation of how the work was done does bear more weight when it comes from someone who does the same sort of work. (Well, and when the writer is one I admire for their own craft).

3. Having talked to men in the prison system, it really highlighted the differences in perception of strength and aggression between the sexes. Is that why there are so few women warriors? In your book, ‘When The Gods Are Silent’, the heroine warrior, Rabble, is actually the element, fire, and not a human woman.

I really can’t say. I think socialization has as much to do with aggression and women as does biology. A little girl who runs around screeching is told to “sit down and act like a lady.” A little boy in the same circumstances may have his behavior dismissed with a sigh and “boys will be boys.” Some cultures have had women warriors — the Scythians, for example; also some Chinese cultures. It’s pretty hard to separate Nature and Nurture.

However, women do have some physical differences. There’s no denying that. Tamora Pierce in her excellent “Protector of the Small” books deals with this. Women have less upper body strength, for example. But they also tend to have higher pain thresholds. I think the latter would be very useful for a warrior.

4. You stated in the older Chinese cultures, there was no distinction between science and magic. A hundred years ago, television or cell phones would be considered magic. Is science really magic that is understood?

The lack of distinction is pretty universal among cultures. Most science grows out of magic. Alchemy gave rise to chemistry, for example.

Much magic is systematic. And much science if full of wonder. However, where many proponents of magic would be happy to hear their craft described as a “science,” I don’t think many practictioners of science would care for their craft being described as magic.

5. Growing up with parents who were both attorneys, a profession by its very nature that has to be cemented in provable facts, what attracted you to so strongly to magic?

My mom may have been an attorney, but she never failed to point out the wonder of autumn leaves changing colors or the faintest tinge of green in the willows that signaled winter was finally over. She also raised us all Catholic, which is full of ritual that is on the edge of magic.

However, I write about magic. I don’t practice it.

6. Because of the Internet, how do you feel about getting an immediate response to your work as opposed to even 10 years ago, when you had to wait for reviews to be printed and receiving feedback from your fans from ’snail mail?’

I like it. Most of my fans are incredibly polite, even when they disagree with me, so I enjoy the contact.

7. You been in love with and had 2 very intelligent and supportive men in your life; Roger Zelanzy, the famous fantasy writer and now your husband, Jim Moore, who is an archeologist. How much or does the dynamics of the man and woman relationship in your own life shaped the characters in your stories?

Because I like men in general, I have trouble writing the kind of fiction that demonizes men, that makes “patriarchal cultures” the bad guys.

I write about relationships, but romantic relationships aren’t the center of my stories. I write about parents and children, men and women, friends, and rivals.

I have trouble demonizing anyone or anything, just for being part of a group. Shades of grey interest me.

8. Question from my wonderful boss, Kevin- How did you create the discipline to work at home? Do you work ‘x’ amount of hours a day and at certain times?

I am self-disciplined, having learned to finally be so somewhere in college. Basically, if I want to earn my living, I need to be disciplined. Procrastination makes me edgy.

I’ve actually written a couple of longish essays on this for Tor.com, entitled “Tailbone to Chair.” You might get more insight from these, because my process had a fairly complex evolution.

9. Writers, by their very natures are notoriously solitary people, if even by default by what they do. Independent, self-sufficient-intelligent-
Is that why so many writers(esp. sci-fi and fantasy) have cats? A reflection of themselves?

I have cats, because I started having cats when I lived in an apartment where I could manage to sneak in a cat (or two, or three), but not a dog. Later, when I could have had a dog, I had the cats, and didn’t think they’d like to share.

I dislike the idea of people who want animals to be reflections of themselves. I like animals because they are not me, and I enjoy their different way of seeing and reacting to the world.

Someday I might have a dog, but right now cats and guinea pigs are good.

10. You have a GREAT understanding of human nature. That life isn’t black and white and there is a kaleidoscope of reasons and motives for everything that we do. If you weren’t a writer, have you ever thought about being a psychologist or …politician?

Politics has been a family profession. My maternal grandfather, Michael V. DiSalle, was governor of Ohio when I was an infant. I grew up in D.C., and met politicians aplenty. That said, I was not really drawn to it. And never to psychology.

SleepCompass’s Favorite Five Questions-

1. Gilligan had his hammock, Dracula his coffin and SpongeBob SquarePants his ‘pineapple under the seaE2-

Where is your favorite place to sleep?

Bed first. Sofa second.

2. Do you-
a – sleep alone?
b – sleep with a significant/insignificant other?
c – with critters?

B and C.

3. Jack Nicklaus dreamt a new golf swing.
Robert Louis Stevenson had a dream that became the basis of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Paul McCartney heard the melody for ‘Yesterday’ in a dream.

Jane, you are a very creative person; has an y inspiration come to you in a dream?

Yes! The first of the Albuquerque Adept stories — “Hell’s Mark” or was it “Hell’s Bane” — came from a dream. So did a couple of the sequels. So have other short stories (“Behind the Curtain of Flowers” for one).

Pearl Bright and Albert Yu, major characters in Thirteen Orphans, both appeared in a dream.

In fact, if I don’t get enough sleep, my writing suffers.

4. They say you are most vulnerable during sex, I say it’s during sleep. Sex is often when we pretend, prepare, and promote who we want to be, not always who we actually are. Sleep is when all pretensions, prejudices and poses are washed away and left in it’s wake, is our true essence, born from the ocean of our subconscious.
Or I could be wrong
What do you think?

I really haven’t thought about this one… I like both, and don’t feel terribly vulnerable in either situation.

5. Which song lyric describes you-

“I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream”

“I want a dream lover, so I don’t have to dream alone”

“Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something”

None of the above!

Perchance to Dream(2000)
An anthology of stories edited by

Denise Little

Diane Duane, Jody Lynn Nye, David Bischoff, Jane Lindskold, Andre Norton and other dreamweavers explore the haunting world of daydreams, nightmares, and other realms of the imagination.