So, how's your book coming along?
It spent a few weeks in someone's slush pile last summer and has now lived in another since August, waiting for $PUBLISHER to reject it as well.
If you're so sure that it will be rejected, why don't you self-publish?
I'm rotten at marketing. I hate marketing. I'll gladly leave to the professionals. And being self-published means that nobody will take you seriously as a writer any more. Also, I'm not so vain that I think the world should be enriched with the fruits of my labour at my own expense, or so conceited that I think anything I publish and market myself is likely to make enough money to cover my expenses. Writing is work; it may be enjoyable work, but I still don't want to do the work and pay for it myself.
That's almost half done, at least the first draft. I passed 50.000 words on January 30th. It's set in Valdyas as well, but it's not a sequel: exactly one character returns, who was thirteen in the first book and is now about fifty.
No, not at all. If I go three generations back I can only say "Western European" and six generations back "European" but as far as I know there's not a single drop of Russian blood in my veins. (Neither is there any Jewish blood, much to my chagrin).
Are you sure you're not Russian? You've got a Russian name.
It's not an exclusively Russian name, but a generic Slavic form of the Greek "eirene", meaning "peace". That it's used in Russian in exactly that form doesn't change that. I call myself Irini in Greece, but I do get very angry when people call me "Irene"; if I'd wanted to be called Irene I'd have chosen that name instead.
Come on, admit it, you must have at least some affinity with Russia.
No, none at all. I just happened to join the Orthodox Church in a parish founded by Russian emigrants and chose a name from their list of saints because it was much better than the name I was using at the time.
What is that name you're not using?
I'm not telling you.
And why don't you change it officially by deed poll?
No such beast in this country. You need to go to court and pay hefty charges. More trouble than it's worth. Moreover, they only grant it when the name you have is offensive or indecent, not if you simply don't want to use it any more.
What in the world have you got against frames?
Better than I can explain: "What are frames, and why are they evil?". In short: they make bookmarks not work, and search engines lose their way.
That said, I do use frames for the website of the local Council of Churches because they had specific requirements that frames are an easy solution for. If I did it again now, I'd probably rely on CSS and do away with the frames altogether, and I might rework the site that way yet.
What languages is your signature in? What does it mean? Where did you get it?
"Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick" is the inscription on a house in Haarlem (Kruisweg 26) that looks late seventeenth-century but was in fact built in 1931 (thanks, Paul van der Wilt, for pointing that out). It means "I can begin, I want to persevere, I shall succeed". "Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin" is the translation in Ilaini.
She's not a guy. She's my alter ego on rec.games.roguelike.nethack. The name comes from a character in our role-playing campaign in Valdyas.
Why aren't there any NPC stats, scenarios and other gaming information on the Valdyas pages?
Because Valdyas is not a game world. I started it, and keep developing it, for my own enjoyment and later the enjoyment of a select few others as well. Part of the enjoyment did indeed come from games, but that's not the purpose of the world or of the pages about it. I've never changed anything in the world or its culture for the sake of the game, though the games have made me discover things I otherwise wouldn't have thought of. Rather, the games exist for the sake of the world.
But you've used it as a game setting, haven't you?
I admit that. But that still doesn't make it a game world. If you want to use it as such, go ahead, but you'll have to make up your own game specifics.
Not as well as I'd like.
What's the use of a language that nobody can speak? Is it a secret language?
What's the use of paintings? Of poetry? Of anything people make for enjoyment? Anyway, the world can always use more diversity. And no, it's not a secret language; it's right here on a public web page.
If you're dissatisfied with the Dutch school system, why don't you homeschool your children?
There's no provision for homeschooling in the Netherlands. I have neither the expertise to teach them all they need to learn to get into high school, nor the energy to fight the system to that extent. Also, fighting the system would go over the kids' backs, and it's not worth that. Anyway, they learn things in school that I could never teach them, such as how to get on with people with wildly different lifestyles. Last but not least, their particular school has become a lot better in the past year or so.
Last updated 04-Feb-2004
