CATHARSIS F.A.Q.s
Q. Skyla, this book is brilliant!
A. Yes, I know, but that isn't a question.
Q. Oops, sorry. So why did you call it "Catharsis"?
A. Do you know the meaning of the word? If not, look it up. Writing it, at times, was very cathartic for me. That's not
the only reason, but saying much else would give away something important to the plot later in the story.
Q. So is the story fictional?
A. Yes, completely and utterly. Otherwise it would be called an autobiography, moron.
Q. I'll pretend you didn't just call me that. So how long did it take you to write it?
A. Parts of the story had been mapped out in my head for about a year, then I wrote a few chapters in the summer of 2003. It officially became my website's eSerial in February 2004.
Posting a bit of it every month on this site is a way to force myself to finish it. The whole thing was done by the fall of 2005.
Q. Um, I read the eBook, and I don't understand the end. Can you explain it to me?
A. No. Basically, I wanted to leave things a little open so readers could draw their own conclusions. I also like things that make you think, which I feel Catharsis does. If you hunt around the eSerials section of my forum and find the old Catharsis topics (either Chapter Twenty, or the Epilogue one), you'll find my thoughts on the ending there.
Q. That answer isn't good enough.
A. Sorry? Look, I'm a big David Lynch fan, and as he once put it in an interview, he doesn't like to explain his movies because it's like a magician telling how the trick was done--it loses it's magic if you spell everything out for people. That's something I agree with, therefore you'll have to suck it up. C'mon, it's not THAT confusing!
Q. Now that it's finished, will you ever write a sequel?
A. No plans to. Look, there's the special edition paperback, and it's got more Catharsis goodness than you can shake a stick at (assuming you'd like to actually shake a stick at something). There's be the extended epilogue (7K words), Rune-POV short story, and the Rune/Eve prequel novelette. But, you know, if you're into reading really, really long things, you should check out my current eSerial, CHILDREN OF THE APOCALYPSE. Extra long chapters, lots of characters, and I'm committed to spending nearly a decade of my life on it. AND a couple of Catharsis characters make a guest appearance in it. ;-)
