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Are you a fan of Lauren McLaughlin and her works? Lauren will be visiting Random Buzzers starting on November 9th to talk about her latest release Recycler! Come in here to welcome Lauren to the Buzz Boards and leave all of your questions for her.
Last Modified Nov 02, 2009, 01:36:00 PM
Welcome to randombuzzers! I actually just read your books a few weeks ago, and it was kind of cool to have some humor between all my usually suspenseful reads. I absolutly loved the whole plot of the story, and it really had me thinking. What gave you the idea to write about a cycler? How do you get inspiration for your work?
Posted Nov 02, 2009, 04:47:36 PM
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." -Slaughterhouse-5 "He was already dead." "He was twitching." "He was twitching because he's got my axe embedded in his nervous system!" -Gimli and Legolas "Ideas are bulletproof." -V "Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate." -Jack Sparrow If it doesn't work, then may I tear them to shreds? -Saphira "Cheese is the devil's plaything." -House "Ah, music! A magic far beyond all we do here!" -Dumbledore "For certain you have to be lost to find what can't be found, elseways everyone would know where to find it." -Barbossa "Where
is Haymitch, anyway? Isn't he supposed to protect us from this sort of
thing?" "With all that alcohol in him, it's probably not advisable to
have him around an open flame." -Peeta and Katniss "I'm wasted on cross-country. We dwarfs are natural sprinters. Very dangerous over short distances!" -Gimli "You sly dog! You got me monologuing!" -Syndrome "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" -Effie Trinket "Certainty of death, small chance of success... What are we waiting for?" -Gimli "You have a touch of destiny about you..." -Tia Dalma "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" -Mad-Eye Moody
I know you probably get asked all the time, "where did you get the idea for this book?", but I want to know if it came from something you had to study in college? Did you have to take a class on gender (my sister did...), or is it just a topic you find intriguing?
And thanks for being on RandomBuzz!
Posted Nov 06, 2009, 01:16:27 PM
I will dance, I will sing, to be mad for my King. Nothing Lord is hindering this passion in my soul! And I'll become even more undignified than this! Some may say its foolishness. LALALALALA HEY! LALALALALA HEY! Its all for You my LORD! - Undignified, David Crowder Band
Now boys, Vampires don't exist. But if one did and he thought someone knew, he might smother them in their sleep.
Hush, you bird. My baby's a sleepin'. Maybe got a dream worth a keepin'. Woh, you team; just keep a creepin' at a slow clip-clop. Don't you hurry little surrey with the fringe on the top.
Hello Lauren and welcome to our hive!!! 
I'd like to know if besides seeking solace in a protective cover of urban anonymity, did Jack and Jill also travel to New York to fetch a pail of water?
Posted Nov 06, 2009, 03:12:55 PM
Hello there, Saquiwolf. I love your avatar. I'm big into wolves. As for the inspiration behind Cycler, that's actually one of the hardest questions to answer. Ideas swim around in my brain for a long time, competing for attention. Eventually one of them gets so big I just have to write about it. I guess gender has always been an intriguing topic for me. I was kind of a tomboy when I was a kid and later on I chafed against the standard gender stereotypes that were on offer. I guess I never wanted to feel pinned down by anyone's expectations of how I should behave. So it was really interesting for me to create a character who desperately wanted to fit into gender stereotypes but whose biology wouldn't let her. Plus, I loved the idea of having this secret identity which develops a mind of its own. Sort of like Jekyll and Hyde or a werewolf.
Posted Nov 09, 2009, 09:46:58 AM
I know you probably get asked all the time, "where did you get the idea for this book?", but I want to know if it came from something you had to study in college? Did you have to take a class on gender (my sister did...), or is it just a topic you find intriguing?
Hi Suprbee. My college didn't have a gender studies program, but I do remember taking a feminist theology class once. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about it. It didn't make much of an impression on me. Gender has always been interesting to me because it's always in flux. It can be a fun creative endeavor or it can be used to put people in boxes. Obviously, I'm much more of a fan of the fun creative approach. But when writing novels you have to make things difficult for your characters, so I focused a lot on the putting people in boxes approach.
Posted Nov 09, 2009, 09:51:49 AM
Hello Lauren and welcome to our hive!!! I'd like to know if besides seeking solace in a protective cover of urban anonymity, did Jack and Jill also travel to New York to fetch a pail of water?
Indeed they did, SakuraGirl. A big dirty pail of water straight from the East River. Sadly, Jack wound up falling down and breaking his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.
Posted Nov 09, 2009, 09:53:40 AM
I just wanted to chime in how much I loved your books. Speculative fiction so often devolves into silly gimmickry, but you do a wonderful job of creating a character who isn't defined by her condition, and plausible ways that she tries to fit into the world.
I had a few questions about your stories:
Last Modified Nov 09, 2009, 10:58:58 PM
Hi n_s_ssj.
Glad you enjoyed the books. I'm with you on the "silly gimmickry" into which spec fic can sometimes devolve. I wanted to avoid that. As for the cause of Jill/Jack's condition, I decided to leave it unexplained. There's plenty in medicine that is unexplained and I thought that gave the premise an air of mystery and fate. I could imagine plenty of biological scenarios that might lead to such a condition--hormonal, genetic, that sort of thing. But I also wanted to leave open the possibility that there was some kind of psychosomatic cause at work. I'm a big believer in not making things too neat.
As for the news not escaping Winterhead, I guess all you'd have to believe was that no one snapped the actual transformation with their camera. You could take all the pictures in the world of Jill in a man's tux and it wouldn't prove anything. I liked the idea of creating this kind of quasi legend, where some people insisted they saw something but others would never believe it.
As far when Jack "began," it's a little complicated. His body began as soon as Jill first cycled, but he didn't become aware of himself as a separate psychological entity until after Jill started repressing her memories of him. I think of it as the existential evolution of a split personality.
Can they keep hiding the condition? Are there other cyclers out there? These are two questions I considered answering in the sequel, but there was too much other stuff to get into. I wanted to keep the focus tight and intimate. I think if I were to write a third (which I have no plans to do just now) I would approach these topics.
Thanks for writing. You ask great questions!
Posted Nov 10, 2009, 06:17:32 AM
Hi Ms. McLaughlin! Welcome to the boards. Anyways I was wondering where you got the idea for your books from. Did you take a phycology class at school or something? What was it?
Posted Nov 10, 2009, 11:20:11 PM
What? You really want to hear whatever sarcastic thing is going through my head?
Hi there, punckrocker12. I did take psychology in high school, but I don't remember much about it, so I doubt that's where the idea came from. I never really know where my ideas come from. They're all just sort of swimming around in my brain. I've always found gender to be an interesting topic, perhaps because I've always been uncomfortable with simple gender dualities.
Where do your ideas come from?
Posted Nov 11, 2009, 03:48:17 AM
Hi!
(Sorry for my bad english, I will try to do my best)
I just buy your book yesterday, in french, and I pratically finish it. I really like the story, it's change from the new era of "vampire story". I swear, when I enter in the bookshop yesterday, I saw a complet wall of book about vampire. I don't hate vampire story, but enough it's enough.
Anyway, I have a question, maybe you can't give me a answer, or maybe you can. Why in english, in the sumary, it says something like Jill transform her-self in Jack for 4 days, and in french it's "cinq jours par mois dans la peau d'un garçon" what means five days a month in the body of a boy? So? It's four or five? I'm a little bit confuse hihi! ^^
I hope what I just wrote was comprehensible and i'm waiting for your answer
Tourlou!
Abou!
EDIT: I finish the book in my French class, and I just have one word to say: Awesome! I just can't wait for the next book!! And I pass my book to one of my friends, but i'm not sure if she wants to read it for the story or just because the cover is pink... =/ Whatever, the important is that she HAVE to read it hihi ^^
Last Modified Nov 11, 2009, 05:38:25 PM
Hello Abou. Your English is wonderful. Much better than my French, that's for sure. I admit I was a bit surprised when I saw the French title of the book. In the English version Jill transforms into Jack for *about* 4 days per month. Of course, there is some irregularity and occasionally Jack's phases are longer. Perhaps the French publisher decided to settle on 5 because that's where it ends up. Who can tell. At any rate, it doesn't change the spirit of the book, which is what's truly important. Thanks for writing!
Posted Nov 11, 2009, 11:33:09 AM
Glad you liked it, Abou. I'm not sure when the sequel is coming out in France. When I find out, I'll post it on my blog, which is at laurenmclaughlin.net. Thanks for reading!
Posted Nov 12, 2009, 10:48:24 AM
Are you a fan of Lauren McLaughlin and her works? Lauren will be visiting Random Buzzers starting on November 9th to talk about her latest release Recycler! Come in here to welcome Lauren to the Buzz Boards and leave all of your questions for her.
What made you decide or want to be an author?
Posted Nov 13, 2009, 04:03:37 PM
Hi there, vroengardforever. I guess I decided to be an author when I wrote my first novel. Before that I had decided to be a screenwriter. And before that I was a poet. I've always written something, probably ever since I held my first crayon. But novels are what I love most. Getting lost in a novel-sized story is both wonderful and terrifying. But I think the best thing about being an author is that your readers engage really deeply with your work. It's like an on-going conversation. I love that.
Posted Nov 13, 2009, 04:29:16 PM
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