(long pause) Sorry, I’m flabbergasted by that response. That is a very different interpretation that I’d heard of that before. Going to have to say that yours is probably the canonical one, though.
So, what was it like working with Robert Jordan?
Working with Jim was a gas. We had the business relationship, where he’d throw a lot of questions at me and I’d throw a lot of answers back at him. I thoroughly enjoyed the way that Jim viewed the world, from what I could see at least. He didn’t do anything in small ways. Everything was in large bites, and everything on the table: not just the meat or just the starches. He ate it all, digested it, and it went into his databank. And everything came out of that.
So, it was just a lot of fun, even to the point of fixing his computer, because if one anti-virus program is good, then three or four running simultaneously is even better. (Note: he made a geek joke. That is why I really like this guy.)
So it was just a delight to see this mode of operation translated into writing the Wheel of Time as well. You take a single country, or a person from that country. They don’t have the characteristics of a single country in our life, but rather he is drawing from half a dozen or more cultures that we are familiar with, combining them in new ways, shaping them to produce a new being which at the same time draws from so many different elements in our life. So that was great.
And you know, the chats at the end of the day were also wonderful. I would bring him the stock market report on a daily basis and we would either commiserate or celebrate what had happened on that day. There was not a lot of just chit-chat. I tried to respect the time that he put into the books, but at the same time, I was really surprised that he would give as much time as he did instead of writing. If it were me, I’d lock the door and not let anyone in while I was writing, but he was often interrupted while working.
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