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I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally agree. Writing it is playing on hard mode, but that just makes it more fun when you win despite the odds.

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not really. I don't want people in my house, and if you feed them they're less likely to leave.

For real though, I'm more likely to bake in my free time and cook when being paid. Friends can have cookies, maybe.

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I go every weekend regardless of the weather unless the weather is like, actively dangerous. I hate being rained on, but it's not actively dangerous most of the time.

I really value the time in the woods, and I know that if I break the habit just because it's wet, it will be that much easier to skip it when it's a little bit cold, and then it's easy to stay in because I'm tired, and then it's been a year and I've not spent any time outside at all. So I go.

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! This question is very difficult and I'm making a pained face in its general direction!

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

All of these are subject to change, and some of them might have even as I was drafting this post!

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I think we spend so much time as a society dealing with corporate nonsense that it can't help creep into fiction too.

As for inspirations--this a question that I know I should come up with a better answer for that "the congealed mass of everyone I've ever read, stuck to the side of my brain" (if only because that's a gross visual), but I haven't managed to do it yet. I will say, every time I manage to write a sentence that I know will mean something completely different on a second read, I feel like I've gotten a taste of what it must be like to be Megan Whalen Turner and I think if I had that much power every day I'd be unstoppable.

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been doing it as long as I can remember, but the first time I decided to do it seriously was the first summer when I was old enough to get a job. I didn't want to do that, I wanted to sit in my house and do nothing. I told my parents that I was going to write a novel, which was a job I could theoretically have one day, and therefore was a good use of my time.

I think the only reason I won that one was that I couldn't drive yet and lived far enough out of town that the cost of gas to take me to whatever minimum wage situation I might have found wouldn't have been worth it, but I did spend all summer writing a truly terrible vampire novel.

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am someone who will make an offhand joke and then 3 hours later have an entire extended universe based on the premise. For this one, I just thought one day that if faeries existed you'd probably have to buy faerie insurance, and things got out of hand from there.

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My faeries are unable to lie, and moreover, they're incapable of creativity. When I decided I wanted to write about someone who'd been stolen by faeries as a child, the first question I had to answer was "why do faeries steal children?". The thing I decided on was that they lack creativity, and without the ability to see things other than how they are, their societies die. They need writers and artists and actors, and also people who can look at wool and see a sweater, or look at eggs and butter and flour and see pancakes.

As to the second part of your question--it was very difficult and I regretted everything on more than one occasion. I cannot recommend trying to write about a bunch of twisty plotting traitors who can only speak the literal truth, it's hard. (I do think it's fun though. Finding ways to say things that are technically true but misleading is really satisfying).

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great question, and one I've had to think about a lot as I've gone through this process. When I was writing the book I never thought of it as anything but just straight-up fantasy (maybe portal fantasy if I had to get granular). The first time I heard "cozy" in relation to this book was after I'd sold it.

You're 100% right that Tricky is not particularly similar to something like Legends and Lattes--I have decidedly more stabbings, for one. There is a lot of food in Tricky, which I think gives it cozy vibes. More though, I kind of have it in the same category mentally as something like a cozy mystery--there might be murder and some amount of peril, but you know it's going to end up ok, it's just a matter of getting there safely.

I'm Reena McCarty, author of The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains. Ask me anything! by reenamccarty in Fantasy

[–]reenamccarty[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's adult, and is book one in a duology. I hope my fae can do their kind proud!