"I am a teller of stories, a
weaver of dreams. I can dance, sing, and in the right weather I can
stand on my head. I have a little magic and a trick or two. I know
the proper way to meet a Dragon, I can fight dirty but not fair, I
once swallowed thirty oysters in a minute. I am not domestic, I am a
luxury, and in that sense, necessary."
- Jim Henson's "The
Storyteller"
Michelle Travis is the author of numerous
articles across a wide variety of magazines, and is currently
compiling two books of her poetry (ONE SOUL, SEVEN
FACES and BECOMING
SCHEHEREZADE). She holds a bachelors degree in
Creative Writing, another bachelors in Classical Studies, and a
Masters in Education, all from the University of Arizona. A
longtime anime and gaming fan, she currently lives in Phoenix
with her husband John.
AND THE GREATEST OF THESE is
Michelle's first novel, but she has already begun the sequel
(THE TWILIGHT
OF ALL TIME), as well as a companion collection of
short stories based on the original novel
(PAST:IMPERFECT/FUTURE:CONDITIONAL). In
September 2006, she also completed a full-length SAMURAI
7 novel THE
SWORD OF THE SOUL.
She is also working on a supernatural/suspense
novel begun as part of the National Novel Writers Month 2005
challenge (working title: STRANDED), as well as the
new National Novel Writers Month 2006 challenge (working title:
APOCALYPSE RISING).
Here you can read some of Michelle's thoughts
on the writing of AND THE GREATEST OF THESE, on
writing in general, and on life... or ask her to post a "thought" on
the topic of your choice by emailing her at mtravis@andthegreatestofthese.com!
(New
Note!)
... on re-doing the original AND THE
GREATEST OF THESE 'theatrical trailer': "Three words - IT'S
ABOUT TIME! Now that John has the better computer (although
we're still mystified as to why the hell Windows Movie Maker keeps
crashing for no good reason, I was able to re-do the video a little
more properly this time. It, along with several of my other
videos, can now be found on YouTube.com - just do a search for the
keywords SAMURAIKO PRODUCTIONS!"
(New Note!)
... on beginning
THE TWLIGHT OF ALL TIME: "Enough people were
grousing at me to start work on the damn thing, so I finally just
sat down and started writing. (I have the bulk of it outlined,
though.) It's set about two years after the ending of
AND THE GREATEST OF THESE, and the Prologue is now
available at http://www.thetwilightofalltime.com,
for those that want to read it!" In other DBZ writing news,
I began a new story on the FanFiction.net site called
COME BACK TO ME, set immediately following the
Epilogue of AND THE GREATEST OF THESE, so feel free to check it
out!"
(New
Note!)
... on completing the SAMURAIKOPRODUCTIONS.COM
website: "God, it feels good! I have been wanting to get
a website live for Samuraiko Productions for AGES, and was finally
able to do it. Took some major work, though, but I think the
end result was worth it. Unlike this site, the Samuraiko
Productions website is for all of my writing and creativity, not
just one book. Now that the site's live, I will be moving some
of the stuff off of here that I was temporarily hosting (such as the
SAMURAI 7 videos I've done) to really get this site back to what it
was meant for - promoting the book."
... on finishing a second book for another
anime: "Absolutely unreal. Writing one novel-length fan
fiction was remarkable enough, but now that I've practically
finished a second in just under a year (SAMURAI 7: THE SWORD OF THE SOUL), even I
am just amazed. Both books are well over 100,000 words each
(although TSotS is longer than AtGoT by several thousand words),
which means I have no excuse for not finishing NaNoWriMo this
year! And I've already begun sequels for both of the books
(the sequel to the DBZ novel is THE TWILIGHT OF ALL TIME, while the
sequel to the S7 novel is THE SEVEN FLOWERS OF AUTUMN)!
GYAH!"
... on the reviews that AND THE GREATEST OF THESE has
gotten: "For the most part, the reviews have been
overwhelmingly positive. I was surprised how many fans and
fanfic writers have been actively rah-rah-rahing me on, wishing me
luck, telling people about the book, and enjoying what they've
read. It's a really good feeling... which is sometimes offset
by every tenth person emailing me just to say, 'You know, you need
to get Toriyama's permission first...' Duh! That's what
this whole site is for!"
... on the one-year anniversary of the
ANDTHEGREATESTOFTHESE.COM website: "Can you believe it's been a
YEAR already? Holy crap. The site's traffic has gone up
by a whopping 500% over the course of the
year, and Year Two has already shown signs of DOUBLING in
pace. Word has definitely gotten around about my little
website, and the FanFiction.net connection has certainly
helped... Plans for Year Two include adding the Fan Art page, new
trailers now that I have the new computer and editing software, and
as soon as health allows it, really hitting the convention scene to
promote the site..."
...
on the medical situation: "For years, I've been actually
blessed with remarkably good health, the primary exception being my
migraines. It's only been lately, really, that everything went
downhill, and all at once it seems. Now I get to deal with
PCOS and type 2 diabetes, neither of which are fun to live
with. So now I find myself having to rigorously monitor what I
eat, take meds on a regular basis, and try not to stress out more
than I already do. However, I've got a great team of doctors
working with me, and a very supportive husband... I don't know what
I'd do without him."
...
on the trailer for "WRATH OF THE DRAGON": "It is fricking
COOL! I have been absolutely ecstatic with how FUNimation has
been doing trailers these days... they just keep getting better and
better until you're practically slavering with anticipation for the
DVDs to come out."
... on receiving fan art: "I do want to say
thanks to those of you who send me DBZ art. It's great to see
that folks love it so much they want to draw for it, and I am
working on creating a page for folks who want to put up DBZ art on
my site (not necessarily related to the book). However, there
is the matter of bandwidth and storage space. Some of the
stuff I've gotten is HUGE, and while I wish I could put it all here,
I do have to pay for this site. I have done my best to keep
the site ad-free, and at the moment, I don't ask for
donations. (Although if you want to throw money my way for me
to keep the site live and help with costs, send me an email and
we'll talk.)"
...
on creating a LiveJournal: "I admit it - I got harassed into
it. So many people who visit my site have asked, "Why don't
you have a LiveJournal yet?" Fine, now I have one. And
this is taking some major getting used to... I mean, when you think
about it, I've been doing this already for seven months on
here! Maybe I should move the Author's Notes over to my
LiveJournal.... hmm. But I am slowly getting the hang of the
LJ system (took me about an hour to customize the thing, not the
easiest trick when you're on a DIRT SLOW Internet connection), and
I'm pleased with the end results. I could get used to
this. For those who want to check it out and add me as a
Friend, it's called Samurai_ko's Scribblings, over on http://samurai-ko.livejournal.com.
Also, if you know of other communities I should be in, let me
know!"
... on turning 32 on
April 3rd: "Yay, another birthday! (And I already started
getting presents - go me! I also know what John's getting me,
but it's a gift for us both - we found the COOLEST art program,
which means... you got it! My book can now be done as
manga!) But I decided a long time ago that I will never be one
of those women who lies about her age. I'm going to be 32
tomorrow, and I don't really care. I won't dye my hair either
(a few highlights is one thing, but not to hide grey or anything,
that's a lost cause). I've been going grey since I was 21,
anyway (and it's a nice silver, too, not that blah color like it is
on some people). If I lie about my age at all, I'll start
telling people I'm 40 so everyone will tell me how great I
look!"
... on winning the lottery: "As of Sunday,
April 2nd, the Powerball is up to something like $172 million
dollars. (I pass the sign everyday on the way to work, and
then I fantasize about what I would do with all that beautiful
cash...) And I was thinking, 'what would I do if I
won that? First - take it as an annual payout - I want an
influx of cash on a regular basis. Second - pay off ALL my bills
(credit cards, student loans, rent until the end of my lease) and
all my parents' and in-laws' bills. Help them on their way. And
once I got all the responsible stuff done, never mind Disneyland - I
am on a plane to Japan to beg and grovel and plead with Akira
Toriyama and the guys at Toei and Shueisha for the rights to publish
my book! And then call all the voice actors and get this show
on the road! I can dream..."
... on FUSION REBORN and the San Diego road
trip: "It kicked major butt! I thought the movie was
fantastic, I really did! The voice actors are really getting
into it, and let me tell you, Goku's power-up to Super Saiyan 3 in
this movie is one of the coolest scenes in the DBZ films.
Annnnddddd... because my husband, my friend, and I were the first
three people in line at the theater (we got there an hour early
and were practically standing in the rain waiting for the movie), we
got free t-shirts! (They're black with the Ultimate Uncut
Special Edition logo on the front, and this big picture of Goku on
the back, like the one in the wallpaper at the DBZ site.
Woohoo!) Downsides - the theater seats were really
small, and the guys in the projection booth started the movie like
halfway through it with the sound and the picture off synch for
about five minutes! So I got up to complain, and then they got
it fixed. We started with RETURN OF COOLER (which was nicely
remastered, sound quality was much better this time), and then
straight into FUSION REBORN (this time starting at the
beginning)! We had fun chatting in line with other anime fans,
I did a little book promotion while I was there, it was great (the
general consensus was, "You're writing a book? Cool, where can
I get it?!"). And San Diego was terrific, too... we hit the
beach while we were there, went walking around the Ocean Beach
district (I did some comic book shopping), had some awesome food
(little advertising for the restaurant right near the theater -
Pizza Nova ROCKS! If you find yourself down on Fifth and Washington
in the Hillcrest area, hit this place, it is sooooo worth it!),
played a lot on my brother's Xbox (Burnout Revenge is good therapy
for a six hour drive...), and generally had a good time. Until
I realized that an hour or so after we'd left San Diego, I
left my bag at the Wendy's we'd stopped in for food before hitting
the road, so we had to turn around and go back for it! I felt
like such an idiot..."
...
on advertising: "At first, I felt really stupid. I have such a
low self-esteem sometimes that I can't imagine trying to convince
people to come read my stuff or watch my videos or whatnot.
But then I realized that if I don't tell people... if I don't try
and convince others of what I'm doing, my chance of success is
virtually zero. And even if people hate me, at least I know I
tried. I was quite pleased, however, to find that so many
people at the cons are rooting for me! I guess people like
seeing the underdog succeed... And now that the Fusion Reborn
film is hitting theaters in March, I've had a lot of folks ask if
I'll be advertising at the movie! I wish I could hit all the
theaters and promote, but I'll have to settle for me and my friends
wearing my t-shirts to the movie (and maybe handing out a few bumper
stickers or buttons or something. I don't know
yet."
... on the BEHIND THE SCREAMS feature that comes
with the BUDOKAI 3 game: "I don't have a PS2, but I really wanted to
see this thing. So a friend of mine went in on the game with
me - I got the DVD, he got the game. (And I got the Broly
figure - it looks like a troll doll on acid.) I thought it was
hilarious. And I've met most of these folks by now! And
as much as I should know better, I still have a hard time imagining
the voices of the characters looking anything but like... well...
the characters! And go Chris for using his own company to do
the audio work!"
... on creating a forum for the website: "To be
honest, it's a little bit frightening. I mean, I'm giving
people a chance to say that I suck in front of millions of
people. However, I got another fan letter while I was setting
up the forum, so maybe it's not such a bad idea."
... on the concept of 'Mary Sues', and whether
Kurenai fits that mold: "Dear God, I hope not. I'm in the
middle of this big discussion on a FanFiction.net forum about what
makes Mary Sues (or their male counterparts Gary Stus) so
aggravating. My first thought was to race back to my book and
see if Kurenai qualifies. According to my god-daughter, the
Fan Fic Goddess, she says no. I'm not quite sure I believe
her, but it is rather reassuring."
... on getting
back into writing Dragonball Z fan fiction after a really
long hiatus: "It feels really good to be writing for DBZ
again. All of a sudden I find myself scribbling new chapters
and short stories and working on new trailers again. And I've
started watching the series again, as well as the movies.
(Then I saw the teaser ad for the BEHIND THE SCREAMS thing on
BUDOKAI 3, and I really want to see this, but I don't have a
PS2!) And it's like falling in love with the show all over
again."
... on the
differences between writing for DBZ and writing for
SAMURAI 7: "Two totally different writing styles.
I've spent years studying Japanese culture, history, and the like,
not to mention years playing in the LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS
campaign my husband ran. And Kurenai and Nasami are completely
different women, completely different characters. Kurenai is
forever afraid - Nasami absolutely thrives on risk. I
don't know which one I like better (DBZ vs SAMURAI
7), although lately I've been writing more SAMURAI 7
as a kind of a break. I'd immersed myself so completely into
DBZ that it actually became harder to write for it."
... on her
grandmother: "She was a rare breed, Nana was. So much like me
that it was almost frightening. How the world can just go on
without her is still a mystery. Some things you just never get
over, I guess."
... on not
finishing NaNoWriMo: "It's very easy to make excuses, and oddly
enough, quite a few of them are legitimate (promotion in job with
new responsibilities, trying to unpack from moving, my grandmother
passing away on Thanksgiving), and yet, when November 30th rolled
around, I just wanted to cry. However, I console myself with
the thought that I DID get a huge amount of writing on
FanFiction.net finished..."
... on publicity:
"No one ever believes this, but I am extremely shy around people at
first. Once I get to know someone, or I'm not driven off
screaming with a stick, I can ramble on with people with ease.
But part of this trip was to talk to people about my book, and I was
terrified to open my mouth. It wasn't until I had a long talk
with my husband that I figured out why. I almost never believe
people who compliment me... but the minute someone bad-mouths me, I
take it as fact. And it didn't help that right before
I left Phoenix, I read a few posts on various forums about my book
that had me just wanting to mope. Nearly wrecked my mindset
completely. Nearly."
... on ANIME VEGAS: "It was frickin'
awesome! Great fun, but man, am I glad I had not just gotten
paid before I went, because otherwise my paycheck would have
vanished! I got to meet lots of voice actors and directors and
chat with them (and get autographs, too, heh heh). Let's see,
who did I meet? In no particular order...
Clarine Harp (Tweedledee in Kiddy
Grade, creative guru, did you know she knits? She was
working on some red and black thing.)
Christopher Bevins (ADR director, and
Kanone in Kiddy Grade, I don't think he took that baseball
cap off all weekend)
Laura
Bailey (Marlene in Blue Gender, and a great
rapper, and right deadly with a Nerf dart gun)
Justin Cook (Raditz in Dragonball
Z, totally dry and deadpan wit, very slyboots, he
was...)
Monica Rial
(Rio in Spiral, she had me laughing all weekend)
Vic
Mignogna (Broly in Dragonball Z, who
apparently has this thing for free shampoo... don't ask me
why)
Colleen
Clinkenbeard (Kirara in Samurai 7, she
actually remembered me when she signed an autograph, isn't that
awesome!)
Mike
McFarland (Master Roshi in Dragonball Z, he
is a shameless upstager)
Greg
Ayres (Chrono in Chrono Crusade, how
someone who sounds that innocent can have hair like THAT is a
mystery)
Hillary Haag
(Rosette in Chrono Crusade, a real sweetie but who gives as good as
she gets when Greg started teasing her)
Christopher Sabat (Vegeta/Piccolo in
Dragonball Z, and one of the NICEST guys you could hope to
meet... but a bit... odd)
Still a bit miffed that I missed
meeting Sean Schemmel, but oh well, I know Chris Sabat will be the
first to tell him, 'Hey dude, this chick wanted to take us out for
drinks and YOU MISSED IT!' Drat. But it was still darn
cool, attended some great panel discussions (I spent quite a bit of
time laughing through them, admittedly, I couldn't help
myself). And I'm gonna go on record saying that Chris Bevins
is awesomely patient and nice... he spent something like 40 minutes
talking to me after a panel discussion on how to write script
adaptations and doing translations and stuff, very encouraging and
open. Chris Sabat was the same way, going on and on about how
one would go about trying to get licensing and ways to market and
stuff. Talking to those two alone was worth the trip."
... on speeding tickets: "I got nailed
speeding on my way back from Las Vegas (something about me coming
home from vacation almost guarantees me getting a ticket...
thankfully I don't go on vacation that often). Word of advice
- don't speed. Why? Not only is speeding dangerous, but
the sheer and absolutely mind-numbing boredom of sitting in
defensive driving school is enough to kill people."
... on fan mail: "I
could get used to this! It's such an awesome feeling, opening
my email and seeing a bunch of letters from people I don't know who
are telling me what they think of my book... most of them can't wait
for the book to come out (major rush!), but a couple of the fans
have told me in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that I better not mess
with the existing storyline! Which I don't. I took a lot
of care to make sure that the book fits canon. But when you've
got such major gaps in the timeline to play with, a little free
interpretation is allowed, I think... And it's amazing how far
some of my fans have gone for me - telling everyone they know,
putting me on their websites , I'm even in one's email
signature! How's THAT for cool?"
... on moving: "One day, I will get the hang of
this. I will have all my stuff nicely organized in
color-coordinated boxes and know exactly what goes where and with
what and so on. What a hodgepodge of boxes and such I have
now. Stuff is all OVER my apartment, boxes piled hither
thither and yon. I was, however, quite proud that on my day
off, I got twelve boxes unpacked by myself. And my new
apartment has WINDOWS! Yay! Natural light! (My
husband and my mom called my old apartment a cave... which it was,
in all truth.) But now I can't find anything... and my
entertainment center is still buried! This is so uncool.
Michelle is just not a happy camper without her stereo
system. And after I got the 3-disc soundtracks to Kiddy
Grade, too... I want to hear these LOUD!"
... on writing
"fan fiction": "In the strictest sense, yes, AND THE
GREATEST OF THESE is a fan fiction. A long one, to be
certain. And now I've started posting stuff on FanFiction.net
(thanks Jen!), and the response has been overwhelmingly
positive. And there are some really talented folks on there...
which means all the more to me when they tell me that they hope I
get published. I've become the rallying point for fanfic
writers... FanFic Writers of the World, Unite!"
... on using gaming
as storytelling practice: "One of my other projects is turning my
posts from the "Legend of the Five Rings" mailing list into a
novella. (For those not in the know, L5R is a
role-playing game set in a pseudo-medieval Japan. Great
fun. My husband John ran the game for two and a half years,
and I used to post the stories of our adventures to the list.
Quite a few people used to actually collect them. Now I want
to get them into a cohesive format.) I write extensive
character histories for every character I play, and they run a wide
gamut - one is an antisocial Scottish knight, another is a
gambler-turned-superhero/martial artist, a third is a devil-may-care
starfreighter captain, a fourth is a scholary samurai with a
tendency toward recklessness, a fifth is a wild mage with multiple
personalities, a sixth is a cyborg hacker/infiltrator from the
future, a seventh is a Mystic/Inquisitor wielding the power of the
Light against the Dark Symmetry. My characters may be weird,
but they are certainly original... Another thing I did to improve my
storytelling abilities was run games of my own - Tales from the
Floating Vagabond, AD&D, 7th Sea (my current campaign), and
soon L5R. I had to tell an interesting enough story
to get people to want to play every Saturday. If my current
group is any indication, I must be doing something right... they
want to play every day. And of course, now John wants to run a
DBZ campaign. I said I'd play only if I could play a
Saiyan..."
... on the discipline of writing: "To write a
book, you have got to have discipline. Which, of course, means
I was doomed before I even started. Discipline is so not me -
I am a dive-in-and-see-what-I-can-accomplish kind of person.
But there was so much I wanted to do, and I really wanted to try and
get into the habit of working on the book every day. So I'd
tell myself, 'Okay, just fifteen minutes' or 'Just an hour and then
I'll stop,' and I'd tinker with sections, or try rewriting scenes,
or see which chapters were longer than others so the book would be
balanced, and it helped. If I didn't write, I researched
lyrics, or doodled storyboards, or worked on the trailers. But
that book was part of my life every single day. Even now, when
it's just about finished, I still sit and work on it. The
other thing I do is give myself about twenty minutes a day to comb
the Internet looking for sites to exchange with. With that
many DBZ fans out there, I can really get this to work... I
hope."
... on positive and negative criticism of AND
THE GREATEST OF THESE: "There is no such thing as pleasing
everybody. It's just not possible. Which is fine by me,
because I know there are a lot of other stories and fanfics and
whatnot out there that just don't do it for me, personally. To
each his or her own. But I'm happy when even SOME people like
the book! Some of the praise I've gotten has had me flying
high for a week, and even better is when it comes from total
strangers! Amazing how far some of them have gone for
me. But as is always the case, for every person I get who
emails me and tells me that he or she loved the book, I get bashed
on by someone else. Some of it is hurtful - there's a site out
there called MagicNinjas.com, I think it is, that has a thread
devoted to me that is absolutely scathing. There are a few
posts on it that just rip me and the book apart.
(Although I find it vastly amusing that at least once a week I see
more than a few hits from that site coming here... I guess people
want to see what the fuss is about.) Not one of them has a
nice thing to say. I console myself with a quote from Jean
Sibelius: 'Pay no attention to what the critics say;
No statue has ever been put up to a
critic.'"
... on taking part in the National Novel Writing Month
(NaNoWriMo) challenge for November (to write a 50,000 word novel in
30 days): "It scares the hell out of me. I've taken almost two
years writing AND THE GREATEST OF THESE (which, by
the way, tops over 110,000 words), I'll have just moved, and now I'm
going to try and write THE TWILIGHT OF ALL TIME in
a month?! I must be out of my mind. (For the
statistically-minded among you, to duplicate the length of the first
book in 30 days would require me writing a little over 3600 words
per day for 30 days.)"
... on the importance of music in writing: "Music has
always been a big part of writing for me, mainly because music is
such a large part of my life. Stories, poetry, anything I
write usually has a score in the back of my mind for it. The
whole book is saturated with music - each chapter starts with song
lyrics, songs are quoted throughout the book, and as I was writing,
virtually every scene uses music from the American soundtrack of
Dragonball Z. (Thank God I have all of Bruce Faulconer's
DBZ soundtracks, they are just great! I love
playlists - I've got a 42-track playlist for the book. Now I
get to start compiling the chapter lyrics for THE TWILIGHT
OF ALL TIME!) And to make things even more
interesting, of all the songs quoted in the first book, no two are
by the same artist! I intend to do the same thing with
THE TWILIGHT OF ALL TIME, and it means I can't
quote any artist already referenced in AND THE GREATEST OF
THESE, either! One day, I hope to get real music
composed for it, entirely original stuff (in addition to the regular
DBZ music, because, well, stuff like 'The Dragon Theme' has
GOT to stay in!)... I miss my piano sometimes, I miss writing music
like I did in high school and college. I have a few themes in
my head I'd love to experiment with for the book, but no way to
really compose anymore. But hubby mine keeps saying that for
our anniversary he wants to get me a piano, so there's still
hope!"
... on voice acting the characters of the book: "I
talk to myself when I write (I talk to myself a lot, for that
matter). It has to do with getting spoken language right, I
guess - you talk differently than you write. God, I would love
to have the regular DBZ voice cast do my book (I have this
fantasy of having my book made into a 7-DVD set. Don't I
wish...), and I find myself wondering who should voice my original
characters. (I am going on record right here, though - the
FUNimation cast does it or no one does. At all.
Period. They are simply too damned good not to.) While
DBZ doesn't have a lot of female characters (especially
compared to the guys), I've started watching a lot of other anime
that DO have more female characters (I looooove Kiddy
Grade). Personally, I would love to have Colleen
Clinkenbeard voice Kurenai (although Wendy Powell, who voices Emi
from Baki the Grappler, would be a close second). But
who to voice the rest? No idea. I have a few pages of
notes on how the characters should 'sound', so that when I wrote, I
knew the language they used and could hear them in my head, and I do
use certain people, but I think others might be better. Who
knows? I also got a few really nice emails from some of the
voice actors I've written to *waves to them cheerfully*, giving me a
lot of encouragement and support, they are just awesome! They
are just great fun to talk to... I wonder if I could get them to do
my answering machine messages..."
... on the characters: "When I first started writing,
the hardest thing for me to do was make sure that Kurenai did not
come across as 'perfect.' She's not. Yes, she's
beautiful, wise, powerful, and immortal, but fundamentally, the
driving force in her life is fear, and that is a BIG detraction for
a person. She's afraid of others, she's afraid of her power,
she's afraid of herself, she's afraid to let people get close, she's
afraid of losing them if she DOES let them get close - fear almost
paralyzes her. It torments her. And that fear takes her
out of the realm of 'perfect' and makes her much more approachable,
I think. Then you have Suishoku and Shirayuri... ever see
"Jurassic Park"? I think Jeff Goldblum's character has the
quote like "They were so busy seeing if they could that they never
stopped to consider if they should." And Omega is the absolute
antithesis of Kurenai - if she is fear, he is absolute
confidence. She is compassion, he is ruthlessness. They
are two halves of the same coin, which is why she is so
dangerous. I didn't realize it at first, but both Kurenai and
Omega are representatives of the extremes in my own personality,
brought out for all to see. They are both embodiments of such
raw forces - power, survival, love, hate, one's place in the
world. I identify with them both a great deal. But I'm
not entirely sure I like that."
... on how AND THE
GREATEST OF THESE came about: "It all started with a
dream. An honest-to-God, late-one-night, while-I-was-sleeping
dream. I fell asleep listening to music, as I sometimes do.
(The song in question, by the way, is "Nail's Gift" from
Dragonball Z, beautiful piece of music). And in my sleep, I
had a dream about Goku and a woman standing side by side at the edge
of Kami's Lookout, which is a castle way way WAY up in the clouds
high above the Earth. Just that. A single scene in my
mind’s eye. I had no idea who the woman was, or why she was
there at Kami’s Lookout. I woke up from the dream and thought,
“Whoa…” I immediately sat up, turned on the light, grabbed a
pen and paper, and scribbled down notes of what I’d seen, because I
thought it would make an awesome sketch. Then I rolled over
and went back to sleep. Next day, I looked at my notes and
started doodling, and then I thought to myself, "I wonder if there's
a story in this..." Namely, who the woman was I had dreamed about
standing there with Goku. Then bit by bit, I kept adding to
it. After that, well, the book almost wrote
itself."
... on writing a book that may never see publication:
"There's a quote I have that I love. 'When in doubt, make a
fool of yourself. There's a microscopically thin line between
being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot
on Earth. So what the hell, leap.'" (Cynthia Heimel, 'Lower
Manhattan Survival Tactics' in Village Voice)
... on writing a sequel: "The story's just too big to
tell in just one book. And even before I finished AND
THE GREATEST OF THESE, I knew I wanted to make it part of a
larger story. There's always that voice in the back of my head
going, "So what happens next?" And friends who've read the
first drafts of the book also wanted to know what happened after the
book ended, so the seeds of other stories were born. First it
was just the sequel (THE TWILIGHT OF ALL TIME),
then came a bunch of short stories about little vignettes that
didn't make it into the original novels, or 'what if' stories that I
wanted to tell."
... on Dragonball Z: "I love it. It's
action, it's drama, it's comedy, it's romance, all the good stuff in
one show. It just works. I love the manga, I love the
anime, I could watch it over and over again. My guilty
pleasure, along with "Doctor Who." I remember hearing Chris
Sabat (who voices Piccolo and Vegeta, along with being the voice
director for the show) in an interview referring to DBZ as
'animated crack.' He's so right. And in retrospect, I
find it hilarious that when I was first introduced to the show about
five years ago, my reaction at the time was, 'My God, this show is
ridiculous.'"
... on creating a "trailer" for AND THE
GREATEST OF THESE: "No one ever believes me when I tell
them that it's the first video I'd ever created. But I did it
partly because I wanted to see if I could create one, and partly
from being tired of explaining what the book was about. I
figured I could show it to people and go, "Here. Watch
this." And well, I was hoping I could use it to convince the
people at FUNimation and Viz and the rest that I was serious.
And besides, it's just a really cool piece of music."
Want to contact
Michelle? Drop her an email at mtravis@andthegreatestofthese.com!
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