It was like meditation or tai chi, something that required me to be in quite a different state of mind, much more tranquil than my usual more anxious state when I write a first draft. But he was never impatient with his limitations, because that’s all he had ever known. Every time he was involved in the story, the pace had to slow right down, which was pleasant. Writing about Wei was a very peaceful and calming experience. Then I thought, perhaps it could be someone who had a disability, not your usual hero type. First I thought of having twins, where neither of them could do the job alone, it had to be both of them. When I was thinking who would be Kai’s next companion, I had a few ideas. Was it difficult to convincingly write a character with cerebral palsy? Did you do much research into the disease? There is such a strong and loving bond between them, that feels very real. One of my favourite elements of the new book is the relationship between Tao and his disabled brother, Wei, who has broken bone disease (cerebral palsy). I wanted there to be the indigenous beliefs of earlier China - ie Daoism, ancestor worship, that sort of thing.Īt the time Blood Brothers was set, Buddhism had arrived from India, so I decided to embrace it this time and make it a key part of the story. One of the reasons I set Dragonkeeper in the Han Dynasty was because I wanted to avoid Buddhism. It wasn’t so much that I chose to use it in this story, as I chose not to use it in the original Dragonkeeper. Did you set out to include this or did it come out of the story? I was expecting a different dynasty, but was surprised to find it was a time of complete chaos and anarchy (which I used in the story, of course!). ![]() It was just whatever era that happened to be. That meant that I didn’t choose which era I set Blood Brothers in. I calculated that he’d need to be about 465 years old. Why did you choose to set Blood Brothers 500 years after the original trilogy?Ĥ64 years actually! I wanted Kai to be a teenage dragon. Great! I really enjoyed imagining what had happened to the dragons since I was with them last. What was it like returning to the Dragonkeeper world? Then it occurred to me that my dragons can live for 3000 years and I could jump forward in Kai’s life and have a whole new set of human characters. But after a couple of years, I missed the dragons. I was determined to leave Ping in peace living a quiet happy life. Why did you wait so long?Īctually, I had no intentions of writing another Dragonkeeper book. It has been a few years between Dragonkeeper books. Now I get to follow that up by throwing a few questions at Carole.
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