{"id":41162,"date":"2023-06-15T06:30:50","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T18:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=41162"},"modified":"2023-06-06T22:58:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-06T10:58:21","slug":"qa-thursdays-13-ashleys-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2023\/06\/15\/qa-thursdays-13-ashleys-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A Thursdays #13: Ashley’s Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, I\u2019ve been reprising a Daughter of Blood<\/em><\/strong> (and by extension The Wall Of Night<\/strong>) Q&A series that featured in 2019.<\/p>\n

Today’s question came from Ashley, who asked about how, or whether, the Christchurch earthquakes influenced the writing of the books. A very pertinent question, I think.<\/p>\n

\"daughter-of-blood-by-helen-lowe\"

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

Ashley: You were writing Daughter of Blood<\/em> during the Christchurch earthquakes. Did they influence the story in any way?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I began writing <\/em>Daughter during the period of the earthquakes themselves, which extended from September 2010 through until December 2011, with the last big earthquake on 23 December of that month (although aftershocks always continue for a period afterward, but that\u2019s the generally accepted endpoint of the major events.) Mostly, though, I would say the book was written during the period of initial aftermath when everything was still in devastation mode and generally at at sixes-and-sevens for a long time. The insurance and rebuild phase had momentum by the time I finished in early 2014 but really only kicked off for me at the end of that year. That period, which continued for me until 2017, was also hugely disruptive, just in a different way\u2014but any influence would be on WALL #4 (<\/em>The Chaos Gate) rather than <\/em>Daughter.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As for whether the earthquakes and the initial aftermath period had an influence on the story of <\/em>Daughter of Blood, as opposed to the writing process, I find it really hard to point to any direct correlation. However, the <\/em>Wall of Night story is about people under pressure, in circumstances that are often traumatic, so having \u201clived\u201d that (albeit in a particular circumstance\u2014i.e.natural disaster\u2014that is not reflected in the book), it may help the characters responses to feel more authentic. One point I made in an Australian interview, though (after <\/em>The Gathering of the Lost was published), was that it may be years before the full effects of the earthquakes are known, so may also take a more objective observer, looking back, to identify influences in my writing.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Previous Thursday Q&A Refeatures:<\/h3>\n

2022:<\/strong><\/em>
\nMarch 31 \u2014 #1 Phoebe\u2019s Question on Book Planning<\/a><\/p>\n

April 21 \u2014 #2 Sam\u2019s Question on Deleted Scenes<\/a><\/p>\n

April 28 \u2014 #3 Sandy\u2019s Question on Characters That Take Charge<\/a><\/p>\n

May 19 \u2014 #4 Lindsay\u2019s Question on Research<\/a><\/p>\n

June 23 \u2014 #5 Chris\u2019s Question on Tirael & \u201cWhat Would Have Happened If\u2026\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

June 30 \u2014 #6 Rosie\u2019s Question on the Web of Mayanne<\/a><\/p>\n

September 8 \u2014 #7 Jason\u2019s Question on Weapons & Names<\/a><\/p>\n

October 6 \u2014 #8 Robin\u2019s Question on Tuckerization Characters<\/a><\/p>\n

November 24 \u2014 #9 Josh\u2019s Question on Whether I Have A Favourite Moment in Daughter of Blood<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

December 15 \u2014 #10 Shannon\u2019s Question re Sections or Characters that were Hard to Write<\/a><\/p>\n

2023
\n<\/strong><\/em>March 30 \u2014 #11 Jenny\u2019s Question re Inspiration and Keeping Going<\/a><\/p>\n

May 18 — #12 Tom’s Question re Food and Feasts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, I\u2019ve been reprising a Daughter of Blood (and by extension The Wall Of Night) Q&A series that featured in 2019. Today’s question came from Ashley, who asked about how, or whether, the Christchurch earthquakes influenced the writing of the books. A very pertinent question, I think. Ashley: You were writing Daughter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,50,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-writing","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41163,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41162\/revisions\/41163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}