{"id":19525,"date":"2013-07-11T05:00:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T09:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=19525"},"modified":"2013-07-10T21:15:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T01:15:40","slug":"ten-questions-about-blood-and-feathers-rebellion-by-lou-morgan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2013\/07\/11\/ten-questions-about-blood-and-feathers-rebellion-by-lou-morgan\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Questions About Blood And Feathers: Rebellion, By Lou Morgan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Blood and Feathers is routinely shouted out as one of those modern urban fantasy classics — I’ve not yet heard a bad word said about the book. The follow-up is here already, and author Lou Morgan would like to tell you about it:<\/em><\/p>\n

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?<\/h2>\n

Lou Morgan: epic procrastinator, medievalist, goody two-shoes. Also writer. Solaris published my first book, “Blood and Feathers” last summer, and they’ve just released the sequel, “Blood and Feathers: Rebellion”.<\/p>\n

My short stories have turned up in anthologies alongside pieces by Joe Hill and Audrey Niffenegger, and I’m part of the team for this year’s World Fantasy Convention in the UK.<\/p>\n

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:<\/h2>\n

The war between the angels and the Fallen has spread – and for Alice and angels Mallory & Vin, the stakes just got a hell of a lot higher.<\/p>\n

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?<\/h2>\n

All over the place. Obviously, it’s a follow-up to “Blood and Feathers”, so it’s grown out of that book and the characters in it, but given that I’m British there’s also echoes of the London riots which I watched with a mixture of horror and a feeling of crushing inevitability, and the sense of global unrest that we’re all aware of.<\/p>\n

Like the first book, it’s heavily influenced by medieval art and the portrayal of angels: more often than not, when you see them in paintings or carvings in cathedrals they’re in armour and I wondered how that would translate to our world, right now.<\/p>\n

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD HAVE WRITTEN?<\/h2>\n

It’s about the things that interest me; the things I keep coming back to. Things like loss and grief and despair and revenge, and hope and faith and friendship and family: what it means to have someone come along who doesn’t pick you up when you fall down, but makes you realise that you can get up again all by yourself.<\/p>\n

Besides that, it’s full of the kind of things that fall out of my slightly magpie-mind: riots, battles, sarcastic Archangels, churches and a funeral parlour run by Death. And maybe even redemption. But to get there, you have to go through hell.<\/p>\n

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING “BLOOD AND FEATHERS: REBELLION”?<\/h2>\n

I was pretty daunted by the idea of writing a sequel. It scared me. Would I be able to remember what the characters sounded like? Would I push them in directions they shouldn’t necessarily go? Would I even be able to finish it at all – or did I just get lucky with the whole “finishing a book” thing the first time around? And that was just the existential mess I got myself in before I’d even started.<\/p>\n

Balancing the real and the unreal was also tricky. I use an incredibly famous location as the Archangel Michael’s stronghold: Mont Saint Michel, on the French coast. It’s one of the most photographed locations in the world, visited by millions every year and of real significance to a lot of people\u2026 and I mess with it. I’d realised I wanted to use it when I visited a couple of years ago – but I also knew that to get the best out of it for the story I wanted to tell, I was going to need to tinker with it slightly. I didn’t want to do too<\/em> much, though, or what would be the point in using it in the first place? In the end, I had a discussion with my editor Jon about whether it should be The Real Place or I should use it as a jumping-off point and invent something totally new – and eventually settled on inserting a few deliberate mistakes in some of the descriptions. They don’t change<\/em> anything exactly, but they’re also an acknowledgement that you’re looking at a fictionalised version of the Mont – one where the angels are in charge (because if my angels being in charge of it wasn’t fiction, frankly, I’d be getting nervous).<\/p>\n

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING THE BOOK?<\/h2>\n

That the quickest way to find out whether or not something works is to do it! Worrying about whether X should happen in a story, or Y, or Z doesn’t solve anything: you just have to get on with it. I guess you can apply that slightly trite idea to life in general.<\/p>\n

I also learned to have a lot more faith in myself as a writer. All that “second album syndrome” baggage doesn’t help – because it’s not about you. It’s about the story you’re trying to tell. That’s what matters, and it’ll find its way out when it’s good and ready. Your job is just to sit there, shut up and listen so you can pass it on.<\/p>\n

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THE BOOK?<\/h2>\n

I loved being able to go back to the same characters and give them more history; giving them real pasts which have consequences and getting the chance to add more light and shade to them. But then I also loved bringing new characters in – ones like the Archangel Zadkiel, who was mentioned in the first book but never turned up in person, and who I’d been itching to write. I think more than anything, it’s just the general mayhem I love: the kind you get when there are angels with swords and guns and people can catch fire and all of them have something they’re fighting for<\/em>\u2026 whether it’s good or bad.<\/p>\n

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?<\/h2>\n

Next time, there’ll be a list of forbidden phrases stuck to the wall above where I write. There were two or three that I kept finding over and over again when we were editing, and good grief was I sick of deleting them by the end of the process. And I’ll make some kind of sensible index for my research: now having several notebooks full of completely, utterly randomised notes, I’m on the verge of losing my mind. And my research.<\/p>\n

GIVE US YOUR FAVOURITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:<\/h2>\n

(After an exhausting fight against the Fallen, Alice – tired and thoroughly pissed off – decides to school an Archangel in manners)<\/p>\n

“Now you listen to me,” Zadkiel dropped his voice to a low hiss. “This is a war. The war. There is no stopping; no getting out. You’re in this – just like the rest of us – to the end. So, frankly, I don’t give a shit if you do it because you’re following orders, or because you want to make it through the day alive, or because you like the look of my fucking haircut. Just get it done.”<\/p>\n

Alice stared at him and felt a flush creeping up her cheeks, but was determined to stand her ground. “You didn’t say please.”<\/p>\n

“Excuse me?”<\/p>\n

“You didn’t say please.”<\/p>\n

“I didn’t say please?”<\/p>\n

“No.”<\/p>\n

“Fine. Alice: would you please<\/em> take care of this?”<\/p>\n

“Seeing as you asked nicely\u2026” She shrugged; out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Castor giving her a thumbs-up and Vin trying to hide a smile behind his hand. Even Mallory seemed to have succumbed to a mysterious coughing fit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?<\/h2>\n

I have a couple of short stories which are knocking about and should see the light of day sometime this year, and at the moment I’m working on a YA book which is still in its very early stages. There’s a few other ideas I’d like to spend some time on which have been stewing for a while – now it’s just a case of waiting to see which one shouts the loudest for my attention.<\/p>\n

Lou Morgan: Website<\/span><\/a> \/ @LouMorgan<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Blood And Feathers: Rebellion: Amazon US<\/span><\/a> \/ Amazon UK<\/span><\/a> \/ B&N<\/span><\/a> \/ Waterstones<\/span><\/a> \/ Hive<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Blood and Feathers is routinely shouted out as one of those modern urban fantasy classics — I’ve not yet heard a bad word said about the book. The follow-up is here already, and author Lou Morgan would like to tell you about it: TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? Lou Morgan: epic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-54V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19525"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19533,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19525\/revisions\/19533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}