1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

I completed the final edits on The Byrd books– Early Byrd, Nestling Byrd, Jail Byrd, War Byrd and Angry Byrd— probably sometime late last August; they took me about eighteen to twenty-four months (interrupted by two bouts in the hospital with heart issues) to write and edit. Four of the five have now been published, with the last one due out any day now.

The Byrd series, though set sometime in the near future, is based on history that dates back to and just before the reign of Augustus Caesar. During this period the Romans were suffering from interminable and expensive border raids undertaken by the tribes of what is now Germany. While the Romans during this era were invariably able to beat back the raiders after the fact and even undertake powerful punitive invasions, their political and military system wasn’t up to the challenge of taking and holding the (to them) cold, alien forests. So, in an attempt to bring about a better cultural understanding and relationship that might lead to the development of Germany as a sort of self-ruled Roman client state and better neighbor, after one of their more successful punitive raids the Romans demanded that the tribal “kings” of Germany turn over their sons to be raised by high-ranking nobles back in Italy essentially as Romans themselves, with the intention that they eventually be restored to their German thrones as “uplifted” barbarians worthy of trust and properly appreciative of all the good things that Roman civilization had to offer.

Things of course didn’t turn out at all as planned, either in my books (where aliens play the part of the Romans) or in actual history…

I’m very proud of the Byrd books; though they’re only marginally furry. (The aliens, who play major roles throughout, are best visualized as anthro wolf-bears both physically and mentally.) While the Byrd books are essentially ‘escapist’ or ‘fun’ stories and never aspired to be Great Literature, they mark a major turning point for me as an author in that despite many failed efforts I was never been able to write convincing aliens before. This time I think I succeeded at long last, and have the skills I learned writing furry stories to thank for it.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

Somewhere in between is the best answer, though no truly sane person would ever approach writing the way I do.

I began writing in a serious way on the Transformation Story Archive Mailing List (TSA), and I owe all of what success I’ve had as an author– and many other Good Things in my life– to my fellow members there. This background deeply shaped my techniques. There, I gradually developed the habit of writing a story-part (usually 1-2k words) pretty much every day in a disciplined manner. I soon learned that the best way to attract and hold readers– and receive highly-prized feedback– on the TSA is not only to post near-daily, but also to make sure that each and every story part leaves the readers eagerly awaiting more. This is a very high– sometimes impossible– standard to meet in Real Life, and particularly so in longer works. Yet, it’s clearly what’s not only what’s called for in order to succeed in a mailing-list environment, it happily also results in a finished book with that “impossible to put down” quality that suits the action-adventure genre so well. Therefore, in pursuit of these goals I developed a sort of hybrid ‘in-between’ approach to story planning that still serves me well. On the one hand, it’s absolutely impossible to plan ahead a hundred or so “mini-cliffhangers” to hold a reader’s interest during a book’s multi-month writing process. If anyone were to attempt plotting out or outlining a story in such detail, well… I think it’d be easier to just write the thing and be done with it. On the other, you can’t do proper justice to things like plot arc and theme without at least the broad strokes of a master plan. So, I spend weeks and months and sometimes even years thinking about a book– usually while simultaneously writing one or more others– thinking about not plot details but rather the grand sweep of things. For example, before writing Freedom City I spent weeks thinking about and mentally probing the limits of all the major aspects of human freedom I could think of– political, economic, social, sexual, scientific, and (being at heart a transhumanist) physical form. Then I thought some more and came up with a plot and setting where I could explore them in depth. In the end, the exploration of each of these forms of freedom became its own subplot, parts of a greater whole all “singing together” as part of the larger theme.

(By the way, I’d like to note here that though many interpret Freedom City as a political novel, it was never for a moment intended to be anything of the sort. I created the setting solely because it was the best place I could come up with to explore to the limit all the freedoms listed above. Am I a Libertarian? Yes, in many though not all ways. And this certainly colors what the final novel became. But Freedom City never was– and isn’t now– a personal political statement. I meant to create art, not an Atlas Shrugged-style rant. One of my greatest regrets as a writer is that it’s so often taken as such.)

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

The quick, easy kind that makes lots of money!

In all seriousness…

The vast bulk of my work was written solely to divert the reader’s tedium and entertain, because that’s mostly what I personally seek as a reader. It features lots of action, potent imagery and outright violence in world-shaking quantities, all structured over what I hope is a thought-provoking exploration of provocative concepts and irresolvable moral dilemmas. I happen to like to think and to confront new ideas, you see, and assume my readers feel the same way. But what gives me the greatest satisfaction of all is to attempt a genuine piece of literary art, a story that stands more on craftsmanship and symbolism than big ideas and ray guns. I’ve written only a handful of these, and less than half of this handful are furry. When the attempt is successful– and it isn’t always– the resulting stories actually give me a sort of “artistic high” for days and even weeks afterwards.

“Cheetah’s Win”, which is both furry and an attempt at “high art”, was perhaps the most satisfying writing experience of my life to date. Certainly, in literary terms it’s the most “perfect”.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

That’s tough, for several reasons. I write mostly in first person, which I suspect means I “live in the heads” of my protagonists more completely than most. Plus I’ve been writing in a serious way for almost twenty years, having finished over twenty-five books and god only knows how many novellas and short stories along the way. I’m very much not the person who wrote Transmutation Now! (my first novel) circa 1997 anymore, but at least in certain respects I certainly was then. Each and every protagonist I’ve ever written— and most of the supporting characters as well— contains an element of me, from the washed-up action-adventure actor Jack Strafford (who, like me, was confronting middle-age and then found new meaning in a new life– his physical transformation into an anthro-rabbit was a metaphor for my own discovery of the furry fandom) to David Birkenhead (whose struggle against evil and prejudice was fought as much against his “friends” as his putative enemies, and which reflects my own hugely-frustrating career working for a Big Three automaker and experiences in UAW politics) to Lawrence Hightower, a homicide detective who loses his soul in a society where it’s absolutely unavoidable that absolute evil be employed to fight absolute evil. (He also reflects my experiences in UAW politics– this was not a fun time in my life.)

Identity being such a mutable thing– and as a transformation fan I’m of course obsessed with hacking the concept of self-identity— the correct answer to your question has to be “Whatever protagonist I’m writing on any particular day.”

Continue reading “Member Spotlight: Phil Geusz” →