I‘d like to think that there will come a time when people will ask me where I get my inspiration from and I can actually sit down and say something meaningful, as opposed to, “Weeelp, there’s just all these voices in my head, and if I don’t do what they say…”
It is true, of course, that the past few years, I’ve been traveling to the back-country a lot to kindle the kind of imagery evident in epic fantasy. I mean, I freaking live in Lord of the Rings country…
…well, it’s not quite New Zealand, but still. I know what a tolerable distance to walk is, what it feels like to carry all you need for a couple of days on your back, and how glorious it feels to allow the sunrise to envelop you after a long, cold night.
But of course, I’ve been writing epic fantasy long, long before I’ve discovered that walking out under daylight wouldn’t melt me. In fact, the first draft of Jaeth’s Eye was written almost ten years ago, in the summer after high school. Against all odds, I told myself I was going to be a successful writer, spat in the wind, and rode a plane with my boyfriend back to my hometown in Daraga in the Philippines, where I then shut myself inside my parents’ decaying old house and finished a manuscript in six months. Once in a while, an unseen tokay gecko would start a racket in my room, which would scare the crap out of me because–believe me–these things are vicious…
Without divulging too much more information (such as my addiction to RPG video games or my occasional, ambivalent indulgence in Asian soap operas), I think that my inspiration just comes from the desire to explore. The unwillingness to spend money on plane tickets, phobias, motion sickness, and a bunch of other lame excuses makes me, in actuality, a very poor traveler. Both writing and reading epic fantasies gives me a chance to visit (make-believe) countries, cultures, and people without ever having to pay someone fifty cents to use their toilet.
Writers can be very shallow creatures.
