The Most Epic Other Sides Interview Ever

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about Other Sides: 12 Webfiction Tales, an anthology of stories and/or chapters of serialized novels by web-publishing authors like Zoe E. Whitten, Lyn Thorne-Alder and M. Jones.

Today, Charissa Cotrill and Erica Bercegeay, the bizarre creative minds behind The Peacock King, asked to help them promote the book a little more.

Lo and behold, via the power of tinychat.com, I give you the following interview:

[15:55] gabrielgadfly: Quick. Introduce yourselves. Include titles.
[15:56] charnanigans: I like how the word "quick" makes me freeze up like Christine O'Donnell in a civics class.
[15:56] irkdesu: I am Irk the Happily Aggravated. I eat skulls and cowrite the Peacock King, in that order.
[15:57] irkdesu: ...Some may call me Erica Bercegeay.
[15:57] charnanigans: I am Char. I am also partly responsible for unleashing The Peacock King on the world.
[15:57] charnanigans: I refuse to apologize.
[15:57] irkdesu: She finds the skulls.
[15:58] gabrielgadfly: Right. For the record, we're doing this in the spirit of Bill O'Reilly.
[15:58] gabrielgadfly: i.e., "Fuck it, we'll do it live!"
[15:58] irkdesu: In the spirit of livetweeting!
[15:58] charnanigans: I don't have a TV. Oh God. Does this chatroom make me look fat?
[15:58] gabrielgadfly: So tell me about Other Sides. How'd you get in?
[15:58] irkdesu: We got invited to contribute a story.
[15:59] irkdesu: I am unsure of the criteria for invitation.
[15:59] charnanigans: Yeah, I'm a little baffled on that myself. I think MCM has a crush on me.
[15:59] irkdesu: The list of people is pretty prestigious so it's pretty flattering.
[16:00] gabrielgadfly: The story you contributed was a rewrite of the first chapter of Peacock King, right?
[16:00] irkdesu: It was.
[16:01] gabrielgadfly: What's Peacock King about?
[16:01] charnanigans: Yeah, we were asked to submit either a chapter from our serial, or new standalone material
[16:01] charnanigans: Being that we were utterly swamped at the time, we opted for the middle road.
[16:01] irkdesu: Peacock King is about a guy named the Peacock King. He's very tall.
[16:01] irkdesu: He tames animals, but he wants to tame other things, like people and spirit guardians.
[16:02] charnanigans: This is sort of frowned on by everyone else.
[16:02] irkdesu: That's not very good, so someone's got to stop him, and unfortunately Gerald decides that he is that guy.
[16:03] gabrielgadfly: For readers / fans / mindless thralls that have read PK as posted on your site what's different for the rewrite?
[16:03] irkdesu: Gerald talks more gooder.
[16:03] charnanigans: LOL
[16:03] irkdesu: Also, Gerald reveals himself to Lyric later, so there's more suspense.
[16:04] irkdesu: Lyric being Gerald's brother working as an animal trainer for the Peek.
[16:04] irkdesu: That means Lyric gets time to flail on his own for awhile, which is more fun to watch!
[16:04] gabrielgadfly: So you're in the process of rewriting / editing all the PK chapters?
[16:05] irkdesu: Yeah, it's like torture. I hate rewrites so much.
[16:05] irkdesu: They go much slower than first drafts.
[16:05] charnanigans: And like most forms of torture, I'm having fun making her do it.
[16:05] irkdesu: Yeah, she is, she cackles all the time.
[16:05] gabrielgadfly: How much has reader feedback influenced your edits?
[16:06] irkdesu: A lot of people expressed confusion over the first ten chapters.
[16:06] irkdesu: They're the weakest bit of the whole Trilogy, really. There's awful POV shifts.
[16:07] irkdesu: Characterization is off a lot, and details aren't consistent sometimes.
[16:07] charnanigans: In our defense, we didn't quite know what we were doing yet at the time.
[16:07] charnanigans: Three books later and a couple years, and we've got a better grip on this weblit thing.
[16:07] irkdesu: And we hadn't even named kingdoms yet.
[16:08] irkdesu: Once she took a more active role we hit our stride.
[16:08] gabrielgadfly: Getting back to Other Sides for a bit. Have you two read through the book yet?
[16:08] irkdesu: I have, the whole thing. It's a pretty varied romp; there's all kinds of stories.
[16:08] irkdesu: From high-paced gnome action to time-travelling baby stealers.
[16:09] charnanigans: I'm almost through. Normally it would have been a sit-down-for-a-couple-hours thing, but I'm pretty swamped at the moment.
[16:09] gabrielgadfly: Do you two have any favorite stories (besides your own) from the anthology?
[16:09] charnanigans: I have to go with the crowd on MCM's and MeiLin's stories. I loved them.
[16:09] irkdesu: MCM's and MeiLin's steal the show, I think. I really liked MCA Hogarth's, though.
[16:10] charnanigans: I also really enjoyed Zoe Whitten's short. It was a great lead story.
[16:10] irkdesu: It's slow and well-detailed and a lovely alien look at an alien world, with aliens...in.
[16:10] irkdesu: Sorry, lunch hasn't hit my brain yet.
[16:11] irkdesu: Anyway I like the look at the Jokka I got. I'm going to read more of MCA's stuff now.
[16:11] irkdesu: That's why I killed her off in the Halloween special.
[16:11] gabrielgadfly: So I'm clear on this, there's an ebook format and a print book of Other Sides, right?
[16:11] charnanigans: Yep. Several ebook formats, actually.
[16:11] irkdesu: Yes, they're the same book, but one's made of tree.
[16:12] irkdesu: And one you can pay to have on the Kindle, if you like that sort of thing.
[16:12] irkdesu: You can obtain the non-Kindle ebook for free.
[16:12] gabrielgadfly: How does it feel to have your work printed on the skins of tortured and mulched trees?
[16:12] irkdesu: Almost as good as eating skulls.
[16:13] irkdesu: Also, my mom went crazy proud, apparently I'm legit now. To her.
[16:13] charnanigans: I once made a creme brulee so good, my legs shook and I moaned in rapture as I ate it.
[16:13] charnanigans: This is better.
[16:13] charnanigans: Yeah, with my family, too. Suddenly I'm not wasting time with a stupid hobby.
[16:13] irkdesu: Did i have that creme brulee?
[16:13] charnanigans: No, sorry.
[16:14] irkdesu: ...Baww.
[16:14] charnanigans: That was... wait, maybe? I made it in Baton Rouge.
[16:14] charnanigans: No, you weren't there that night. Sorry.
[16:14] irkdesu: Nope.
[16:14] gabrielgadfly: Ahem.
[16:14] irkdesu: It's okay.
[16:14] irkdesu: Oh, hi.
[16:14] irkdesu: Trees are pretty good mashed up and printed with words I wrote.
[16:14] irkdesu: That was my point.
[16:15] charnanigans: I'd like to do it more, but I'm not married to the idea of pressed tree corpse pulp.
[16:15] gabrielgadfly: So, Other Sides is put out by Ergofiction. Are you two regular readers of the site?
[16:15] irkdesu: I hit it once every week. It's a good resource for WebLit news.
[16:15] irkdesu: And Jan and Anna are smart people who put together a good site.
[16:16] charnanigans: I check it out once every few days. I love the site redesign.
[16:16] charnanigans: ... What Irk said. Those two are awesome.
[16:17] gabrielgadfly: Okay, since this is, ostensibly, a poetry blog, tell me a bit about Poets in PK.
[16:17] irkdesu: I can't think about Poets without thinking the word "durp".
[16:17] irkdesu: They're very powerful, they can rewrite reality in subtle or not-subtle ways.
[16:18] irkdesu: They're very underestimated, though, since most people think they're just idiots.
[16:18] irkdesu: Or "special kids".
[16:18] charnanigans: Not to mention being able to use it for spying and practical jokes.
[16:18] charnanigans: LOL They don't do much to discourage that view, either.
[16:18] irkdesu: And getting rid of hangovers.
[16:19] irkdesu: The Armed are the up-front heroes, the Poets are the unsung ones.
[16:19] irkdesu: They're too busy singing limericks about the Judge's butt.
[16:19] irkdesu: This is why no one takes them seriously... until it's too late.
[16:20] charnanigans: They remind me a lot of court jesters back in the day.
[16:20] charnanigans: Outwardly, utter fools... but their very function is to speak the truth.
[16:20] gabrielgadfly: Gerald has the distinction of being both an Armed and a Poet, right? Is that common?
[16:20] irkdesu: It's more common than the Armed and the Judge in particular like to think.
[16:21] irkdesu: Armed and Poets tend to work very well as teams, and they balance each other out.
[16:21] charnanigans: I wouldn't say it's common, but there is overlap.
[16:21] irkdesu: Armed have their Aim for focus, Poets have flexibility and insight.
[16:22] irkdesu: Poets tend to tilt the odds in the Armed's favor as well, but it's hard to prove.
[16:23] irkdesu: They also get into bar brawls with each other pretty easily.
[16:23] gabrielgadfly: Where can people read the rest of The Peacock King?
[16:24] irkdesu: There's a site for that! peacock-king.infernalshenanigans.com
[16:25] irkdesu: The whole first Trilogy is complete and posted, plus a prequel.
[16:25] irkdesu: The White Thaumist Trilogy starts posting Friday, continuing the story.
[16:26] gabrielgadfly: Awesome. Final comments?
[16:26] irkdesu: We're really grateful for our readers. They make this possible.
[16:26] irkdesu: I wouldn't be able to write without their support, so a big thanks to them, and to Ergofiction and MCM.
[16:27] irkdesu: I want more skulls now.
[16:27] gabrielgadfly: Char?
[16:28] charnanigans: Sorry. You don't want me telling you what just happened on record. >_<
[16:29] irkdesu: Thanks for your discretion.
[16:29] gabrielgadfly: Right.
[16:30] charnanigans: I second the gratitude to our readers. Their comments and participation really keep us going. It's the best feeling to see a new comment on a chapter!
[16:29] gabrielgadfly: One last thing, Char. Can I get that creme brulee recipe?
[16:30] charnanigans: LOL I'll have to dig it up, but sure.

You can download the free ebook version of Other Sides from www.ergofiction.com/ebooks/ or you can buy a print copy from Amazon for just $6.00.