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The Holy Grail wrote: ↑26 Apr 2022, 09:24 Why the title, how did you come up with the title. What would you retitle it to if given the opportunity?

The original title was "Found" when the third book was just half of the ultimate third book, but then I added the second half to finish the series in one big third book and it seemed "Totem" was a better title. I would not change the title.

Mariam Goderdzievna wrote: ↑26 Apr 2022, 17:02 Did the issue of gender equality have a significant impact on you when you worked on this book?

I would say it absolutely did, but maybe not in the way youngsters today think. I wanted to write about a youngster facing real challenge, in the wilderness, and decided it would be best if this character was a girl, not a boy, because usually and traditionally in such adventure stories the default decision has been to use males. I wanted to write books where the women were as strong or stronger than the men, and actually if you look at the female characters nearly all of them are strong, decisive, individuals. Now I know that these days there are arguments that we men cannot write about women, or women write about men, just as there seem to be theories that an old white guy like me cannot write about anyone who is not white. This thesis can become ridiculous - if I am left handed can I write about right handed people? We qwriters tell stories, fill a world with characters, and any realistic fictional world must have a variety of people, male and female, white and brown, young and old, rich and poor. I thought, in this series, why not turn things a little bit upside down and make the teenage girl the hero, the strong one, the one with the power? So this is what I tried to do, and it is very gratifying to see comments from female readers who bond with Sarah or Victoria or Myra. This tells me that as a male writer I somehow managed to make the non-males "real".

Gehm wrote: ↑27 Apr 2022, 09:04 Did you feel you were under pressure or were not giving out the best of your creativity for the book?

Not sure I understand your question. The only pressure I felt was trying to decide how to conclude the series, how long to make it, and why. In the end I just told the story and when I was done, that was what the series was and that was also what the creativity was....

Where do you get your information or ideas for this series?
And what was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating this book?

In what way did the writing of this book change you?

Totem is a fascinating tale. How long did it take you write this novel?

I was intrigued by Sarah's character. Do you know somebody like her in real life? Why and how did you create her character?

Oreoluwa281 wrote: ↑29 Apr 2022, 13:33 Where do you get your information or ideas for this series?
And what was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating this book?

I would say the basis of this series is a combination of my own experiences in the woods and at sea, as well as some environmental battles I have been in, as well as three hears of research.

Sanduni Fernando 1 wrote: ↑30 Apr 2022, 02:01 In what way did the writing of this book change you?

Hard question to answer, you'd have to ask my friends and family. I had a lot of fun with this whole series, all the ups and downs, the many years, and I suppose I would say that this, like anything worthwhile, is something hat takes time, attention, failure and persistence.

Blucabana wrote: ↑05 May 2022, 03:15 Totem is a fascinating tale. How long did it take you write this novel?

I answered this in earlier threads I think. The whole series took many years. For about 20 years I had this notion of a story set in the Olympic Peninsula and about ancient humans, vague notions only, with occasional research. Then in 2010 I took a job up north and during the week in the evening (I rented a place away from home during the week) I began doing serious research on geology, ice ages, climate, genetics, human origins, archeology, botany, megafauna, you name it, and filled notebook after notebook. Then that job ended and I went to seas as a merchant sailor, took the notebooks, continued to ponder the idea, but had no time at all on the ships to write. Between gigs on ships I began the first book, Strong Heart. Then I did a second book, Adrift, and then I had a series. The third book, Totem, was started in the early winter of 2015 on a moored ship in Baltimore, and half of it finished in a year, then rewritten several times, but then I added another half, or book, in 2019, to finish the series, so in the end Totem took 4 years? Then since 2019 and covid Totem;s release was delayed and I did a few edits further.

Blossy20 wrote: ↑05 May 2022, 05:21 I was intrigued by Sarah's character. Do you know somebody like her in real life? Why and how did you create her character?

Her spirit and self is exactly what I imagine my wife was like at 13 or 14. Exactly, which I why I dedicated Totem to her. Also, originally I was thinking of a young boy coming of age in the wilderness and then thought, no, have this adventure be a girl. I knew some young girls when my sons were the same age and one or two of them really struggled, ran away, lived on their own at that age, terrifying and dangerous and yet filled with grit and courage, and I'd guess there is a little of them, too, in Sarah....

After reading the other discussion thread about time travel and ancestral memories, it seems that we should all just ask the author! Did Sarah use time travel to go back and enter her ancestral visions/memories/dreams?

Cheryl Erickson wrote: ↑05 May 2022, 13:41 After reading the other discussion thread about time travel and ancestral memories, it seems that we should all just ask the author! Did Sarah use time travel to go back and enter her ancestral visions/memories/dreams?

I am deliberately ambiguous, and it seems different readers make different conclusions, which delights me. It might be a parallel universe, too, and it seems scientific theory these days is more positive about parallel universes existing than being able to travel in time.

How did you maintain your creativity and attention to detail throughout this book? I was astounded to find such depth of detail and mystery, and I thought it was encouraging that a writer could pack in so much action in just one book.