Bring On The Wonder

The One Where The Wenches Were In Fangirl Heaven

Readers, we've been so overwhelmed by everything Fever that it's taken us a while to write down all our thoughts and share them with you! So far we've talked about the Wenches feeling the Fever here, a Feverborn NON spoilery review here, and Barb's excellent post with more details about how amazing our Fever weekend in New Orleans is here.

As Barb mentioned, one of THE best things that weekend was the Q&A with Karen Marie Moning. We made it to the second session, and it's almost impossible not to be giddy and happy in Karen's glowing presence. 

Look at the happy Wenches.
Being on a KMM high is a VERY real thing.

So Karen's already posted the transcript from the Q&As on her blog here, these are just what we took away from it and our thoughts on it! And some of our uncontrollable fangirling!

Words fail us when it comes to Karen's sheer brilliance!

Click through to read more!


This is how Barb and Zee remember it. Probably not in order. Karen's exact words in red. There were some pretty... wasteful questions we haven't added for obvious reasons. 

• New release date is sooner than usual. Not as soon as Feverborn was to Burned, though. She has a release date, has for a while, and we'll know within a month.
• Will there be more info about the Nine? The Nine show themselves as they're ready.
• "I am a woman who likes to have 9 in her life" when she was asked about which one she'd prefer.
• Who's older, Barrons or Ryodan? Why do you care???
• Feverborn explores Mac's skewed sense of reality. If the book can deceive her once, can it deceive her permanently? Mac is struggling with this.
• When asked about seeing Adam Black again: It's hard to write so many alphas on the stage at once, so some of them have to be hidden in the background, or taken off the stage completely to highlight those that need to be on stage.
• Last book read & TBR: Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz (so good!); reading nothing now. She doesn't read when she's writing. Doesn't really watch TV, either. Focuses on the story she's working on.
• She's fascinated by Colleen--a female MacKeltar!! Colleen isn't ready to come forward, so she's stay locked in a compartment in my head until she is ready.
• What actor would she cast as Barrons? (Did that fool really think she'd answer that question? Some of the questions were a waste) There's no actor she would cast because he is so alive, so real in her head, she couldn't cast him."Barrons lives in my head. I can see him. SMELL him. TASTE him."and someone asked a general question about more Barrons POV sex scenes, "I have sex in his POV every night" Yum!
  How about Joe Manganiello? She wouldn't pick him for Barrons but she'd pick him for something! "That man!"

Agreed.

• Referencing people complaining about the books for whatever reason. She will always follow the story wherever it takes her. She'll let us bitch, but she's still going to do it her way! Huge applause for that one! "Even if it pisses you off, I'll listen to you bitch about it, but I'M NOT GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING."
• One of my FAVE things, that just smacked of sincerity was when she said "I will show you what I feel you need to see to make the emotion complete." ----That was in response to wondering if we'd see what happened to Dani in the Silvers. And I LOVED someone saying, "I need to see the pain". That's how I feel about it! Give me her pain, because it makes the joy that much better.

• Is there Fever fanfic and how does she feel about it? She has no idea if there is any. She only sees online stuff that her team shows her. (Shout out to Team KMM for keeping social media clean for her. That must be a gargantuan task.) But fanfic is such a great writing tool, a way to practice the craft, and it's amazing that people can make money jumping off of others' ideas. Also she's honored that people want to expand her stories like that.
• Her goal as a writer is to make the reader feel.
• Her writing style developed due to a gift of a box of books that included smutty romances and Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison. The combination of sex and death was fascinating. "What else in life is interesting to talk about?"
• What book made you want to be a writer? "I think I came out of the womb writing. And that pencil hurt." And then smiled that gorgeous smile and apologized for the graphic image! Ha!
• None of the characters are difficult to write, although Barrons is less chatty than most. Lor & Dani are the easiest. Elaborating on Barrons being a little more reticent than the others "When he wants to be there, he's there, and when he's not there's not a damn thing I can do about it."
• She never knows what Barrons is going to give her.
• I asked when she wrote the Barrons POV, how soon did she know that is was canon. She knew right away. "Have you ever been involved with someone you knew you didn't deserve? That's how Mac feels about Barrons. She knows she doesn't deserve him. But she will when I'm done with her." (Someone actually followed this reply of hers, which gave us CHILLS in the best possible way, with "who is Dani going to end up with" and that made us roll our eyes just a wee bit. This isn't Twilight. These "Team" wars questions are painfully pointless and out of place.) 

• She made my fangirl heart really happy when she said she has Sherlock on her DVR but "I wish he was in my room" (DON'T WE ALL?) referenced Joss Whedon, said she was a Neil Gaiman fan (which readers will know we are!) and specifically American Gods when talking about Papa Roach which was verrrrry interesting.
• Papa Roach is a god. Not unseelie.
• She loves Neil Gaiman and believes they have similar philosophies.
• The reason she's going to start releasing two books a year is because she's starting a new series. So each year will have one Fever book and one new series book. She needs us to come along with her, to trust her. She believes it will be better than Fever. "I need you guys to stand behind me for this"

We would follow her off ANY cliff(hanger)

• Her Writing Process: She already knows the whole story. She's always working 3-5 scenes ahead. Each night she thinks about the scene she's going to work on the next day, really focuses on it and lets her subconscious work on it while she sleeps. You should feed your subconscious , be sure and work that muscle. Plot should follow the emotion of a story, not the other way around.
• She also said this great thing about having her whole solar system up there (when she's focused on a series) and how she doesn't think of other characters and stuff because putting more planets up there could make the whole thing come down and then she has to start putting them up there again. 
• When asked about the new series: her response was "What if it's not classifiable?" and "I need to evolve as a writer." Darkfever is shelved in romance section, and there's no romance, no sex. 
• She also asked us as readers not to tie her down with labels. Let the artists you love step outside their boundaries and just create! She's asking us to trust her. She asked if we remembered Shadowfever, and how satisfying it was for us and said I WILL ALWAYS DO THAT FOR YOU! 
• She cried twice writing Feverborn, which is something she thought was ridiculous when other writers said that, "That's just stupid, you baby!" (huge laughter here!) But she cried twice, because she loves Dani so much. Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you, and Dani has been carved. Which means that her joy is going to be stunning.
• She also mentioned a couple of times how much she was like Dani at that age.
• I don't remember what the questions was, but I LOVED when she answered a stupid question with a question. Like, why is the sky blue? "Why do YOU THINK the sky is blue?" Her smartassery made our smartass hearts smile. And laugh more than once.

• Someone asked if something was going to happen between Kat & Kasteo, which she OF COURSE wouldn't answer, but she did say, "Never put a map on the wall you don't intend to use."
• Lor is SO FUN to write! She gets to say those sexist fucking things she can't say because she's a lady. We'll see more Lor because she is nowhere near done with that man.
• We loved the story about Lor suddenly speaking to her in the laundry room while she was folding laundry and she was like "God this is good" and started typing out stuff he was saying in her head (she has computers all over the house because she never knows when the muse will speak) and said when she was done "It was like taking dictation!" because that's how loud and clear Lor is in her head.
• One of the most "hmmmmm" moments, was when someone asked about the book of rain, she said "Bet you'd like to meet Rain." cue ominous music.
• When asked about Cruce's cuff she said "I guess that means I should describe it in the next book, I'll work on that" (After reading the glossary I realized there is a small description of the cuff there, but I guess not as detailed as some wanted.)
• Somebody asked if a fae who turned into a human can turn back into a fae, (and I think someone asked if a human turned into fae can be turned back too) she said, "That’s a good question" I think she said that in response to a couple of other questions too
• How Shazam definitely has a bit of her little monster in him. 
• The new books were part of the original dream. She's always known where the story arcs were going.
• She knew after she finished Shadowfever that she wasn't done telling Mac's story

Karen made us laugh, she definitely made the three of us tear up more than once because.. wow. That woman has got PRESENCE. She gave us goosebumps just talking about the books and characters we love. She made us feel so much in such a short time. It was amazing. Like her books, there are untold depths to her. Zee mentioned in her review here how she felt like Karen's mind was like the Unseelie King. Too vast to show itself to us in one form, kaleidoscopic, and this session with her just proved it. 

We just sat there in awe after she was done. Immobile. Mouths agape. Like this woman KNEW us. We connected. In a room full of people, she could see inside us and know the very secrets of our souls. Her books have always made us feel that way. Like we reveal our secrets as they reveal theirs. Do you know what it's like to be in a crowd of strangers and to feel like one person in the crowd is a kindred spirit? That one person will always GET you? Even though you've never really spent one on one time together? That's how we felt. And it was enough of a realization and emotion to bring you to your knees (if you weren't scrambling to maybe talk to the goddess herself for just a few precious moments.) 

It's a staggering feeling to realize that the woman is as wonderful, as complex, as magical as her books. And literally a few minutes in her presence is all you need to fully realize that. She radiates a kind of glow, and it honestly makes you feel like you want to spend just one more minute talking to her, about anything, nails, cats, cars, books, anything. She's approachable, she's real, she's hilarious, and witty, and all I know is she would fit right in as a very Saucy Wench. And we love her for it.