My interview for Fantasy & Science Fiction is up on their blog, and I am my usual urbane and pithy self. Check it out! (It won't take long.)
And while we're on the subject-
A while back, when I was describing A Dog of Wu to a friend, before I'd written it, she said the worst thing you can say to a fiction writer: "It sounds like..."
In her case, she finished the sentence with "...Brave New World." But my brain heard "...someone else has written your story."
Of course, they hadn't said that. And if you actually read A Dog of Wu (go on, I dare you) you'll see it's nothing like Brave New World. But when you start writing, you're often obsessed with the originality of our ideas: Have that one great idea, your story will be successful, and you'll be off on a career of champagne, caviar, and celebrity pet treats for your dog.
Of course, none of that is true. Hamlet wasn't an original idea; neither was Romeo and Juliet. And wasn't there that musical, West Side...something?
Ideas are ideas. Everybody has them. Originality emerges in execution.
