Robin Hobb (Engl. OV)

Robin Hobb:
Hello! And please, just call me Robin. At the present time, we have no plans for a German reading/signing tour. But in 2018, I will be at Pyrkon, right 'next door’ in Poznan, Poland! And I’d love to meet German readers there. It will be held from the 18-20 May, 2018

Robin Hobb:
In my reading, I have always been attracted to the fantastic. Sometimes we refer to it as literature that awakens a sense of wonder. For me, it began with fairy tales, and quickly expanded to myths and legends. When, as a teenager, I encountered the Lord of the Rings, I suddenly grasped what fantasy could truly be. I had always known that I wanted to be a writer; that was my time of discovering what I wanted to write.

Robin Hobb:
I knew from the time that I was 7 or 8 years old that I wanted to be a writer. I think that one trains to become a writer by doing a vast amount of reading, across all the genres, nonfiction as well as fiction. I think I took one creative writing course in college. My process of learning was to read a great deal and understand why some books were riveting, and others could be easily set aside. I have no ambitions toward great literature; my mission is to tell a compelling story, and tell it well.

Robin Hobb:
I have a tiny farm, and the chores for it keep me very busy. I’m afraid I do not get much time for simple hobbies that are just for pleasure. I still greatly enjoy reading before I fall asleep at night. When time permits, I like to set out 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles and enjoy them for several evenings. I have a large vegetable garden, and I spend a lot of time tending that. This time of year, I am often busy making jam, or freezing vegetables or drying apples. We also have chickens and ducks to take care of. There is always a task that needs doing!

Robin Hobb:
Social media has completely changed how I interact with readers. When I first began writing, a letter or two might reach me, sent from reader to publisher, often arriving months later. I always tried to answer them. When email first became commonly used, I enjoyed getting email from readers. I tried to emulate Isaac Asivmov, who always responded to at least every first letter from a reader. But over the years, with Twitter and Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram, Reddit and my websites, I am flooded with communication. When I am traveling, the email piles up, unanswered. There are messages on Facebook and on Goodreads. I’m afraid I cannot possibly answer them all anymore. I do try, but to keep up with that, I would have to give up writing. And even then, I would be falling behind. This is not to say that I don’t want to hear from readers. I read all my mail, and I enjoy that they share their thoughts from me. I would need an extra magic day every week, one that no one else had, in order to keep up with messages and letters! I often feel that I enjoy this contact with readers too much! I can do a whole day on social media. It 'feels’ like I've been working hard on my story or book, but in reality, I haven’t typed a word of story. It’s so hard to find a middle ground. I can’t ignore readers, but I must get the writing done.

Robin Hobb:
I began writing stories when I was 7 or 8. At 18, I began submitting them for publication. In the years between 18 and 30, I sold short stories to children’s magazines, did newspaper reporting, and had some stories in sf or fantasy 'fanzines’ or amateur publications. At 28 or 29, I began to sell stories to the 'real’ magazines, such as Fantastic. At 30, I sold my first novel to Terri Windling at Ace. That was Harpy’s Flight, written as Megan Lindholm. For the next ten years, I wrote as Megan Lindholm. I had good reviews and moderate success. When I wrote Assassin’s Apprentice as Robin Hobb, I felt I broke through the midlist ceiling and began to move up.

Robin Hobb:
Trying to get published is frustrating. I’d work hard at it for months, and then go without submitting anything for a long time. But I was always writing. I think most writers are like that; that the writing is something we do, and maybe we try to get published and maybe we succeed, but we always keep on writing. Even after I’d had several books published, I was still getting low advances. That’s the business of writing; a writer gets paid based on previous sales. It was discouraging to work on a book for a year, and get far less for it than I would have received if I’d worked a minimum wage job. But I WAS working a job at the same time, and taking care of my house and children while Fred was at sea. So that writing money was always very welcome, even if there wasn’t much of it!

Robin Hobb:
I began writing before I was married, so I began writing as Megan Lindholm. I didn’t want to lose my writing credentials under that name by switching to another one. When I moved to a different name, it was a very conscious choice to set the Hobb books apart from the Lindholm ones, as the voice and story telling style was so different.

Robin Hobb:
When I get an idea for a story or book, I immediately know if it should be written as Lindholm or Hobb. The stories I write as Lindholm would not work well in the Hobb voice, and the opposite is also true. Under either name, I feel free to experiment; every new book or story is an experiment. I feel there is definitely a basic difference between how I write as Lindholm and how I write as Hobb. Lindholm stories are more often short stories; they move faster, and they are often set in the contemporary world, with a different use of language. Hobb is more layered, and the world is as much a part of the story as the characters are.

Robin Hobb:
See above! ;-)

Robin Hobb:
I don’t start out with any goal except to tell a great story. I don’t want to dazzle the reader with my style of writing, or present a challenge to them. The books I enjoy most are the ones where the story telling is transparent. I fall into the tale and forget that there is a writer, and a book cover and print on a page. At the end, I wake up, and the book is more like something that happened to me rather than something I read. So I don’t really give any thought to theme, or symbolism or any literary device. I just want to tell the story.

Robin Hobb:
Unfortunately for me, I can only speak about English, as it is the only language I speak. 
I do think that the way we tell stories changes over time. A very common example would be, for English speakers, the works of Chaucer or Shakespeare. Of course the language has changed over centuries of use. And from my French translator, I have learned that sentence length is very different from language to language. Often Arnaud has to join several English sentences together to make one lovely French sentence. A direct translation would be choppy, dreadful French.
So the translators task is not just to translate word for word, but to convey the feeling of t
he words, and the pace of the scene. So I can imagine that German might have changed enough in 20 some years that the translation would no longer sound right.
I have been blessed with excellent translators. If you enjoy any of my works in translation, at least half the credit should go to the translator!

Robin Hobb:
Oh, not at all! The books, taken in order, tell not just of Fitz, but of events in his world that have immense impacts on his life. So in chronological order, they would be:

• The Farseer Trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest.)
  This set tells of Fitz’s early years at Buckeep, and his first great challenge and how he survives it. (Wow, with will be hard to do without spoilers!)
• The Liveship Traders Trilogy (Ship of Magic, Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny)
  The next set of important events in this world takes place in Bingtown and the Rain Wilds. Traders, sea serpents, pirates, kidnappings, slave rebellions. And a character from Farseer in another guise.
• The Tawny Man Trilogy (Fool’s Errand, Golden Fool, Fool’s Fate)
  We return to Buckkeep, and a fresh set of challenges for Fitz and 'Lord Golden’ as the Farseer dynasty teeters on the edge of ruin, and an alliance with an old enemy comes with a deadly challenge.
• The Rain Wild Chronicles (Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons, Blood of Dragons)
  Back to the Rain Wilds. What better way to be rid of unwanted youngsters than to send them off into the wilds with the unruly young dragons who have become an immense problem. Will the ancestral memories of the dragons help them find their ancient home, or lead them all to death?
• The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy (Fool’s Assassin, Fool’s Quest, Assassin’s Fate)
  Our hero Fitz has aged and found peace at last. If only that were true of the Fool as well. When vengeance is all that remains to him, Fitz lets nothing stand in his way.

So as you see, the story meanders through some sixteen books. And characters move freely among and between the trilogies. I never know who was going to show up suddenly in one of the stories.

Robin Hobb:
As of right now, there are no plans for television or film. I’m not averse to such an idea, but it really hasn’t come up.

Robin Hobb:
“Begin in the beginning, and go on until you reach the end. Then stop.” That’s the advice the king gives Alice in Alice in Wonderland. I think it’s good advice for a writer. Some ideas are only enough for a short story, and others demand more space. The Rain Wild Chronices were actually written as two sets of two books, for example. Almost all my Lindholm books are stand alones, even when the stories take place in a world shared with an earlier book. I think that much of English story telling is done in three parts, even the very simple stories such as The Three Little Pigs, or the Three Billy Goats Gruff or the Three Bears. In a trilogy, there is often the set up for the world and its conflict, the continuation of the conflict with a possible solution, and then finally the working of the solution. So it’s a very natural way for me to break up a very complicated story when I want to tell one.

Robin Hobb:
Writing with Steven was an absolute roller coaster ride. It was fun and exhilarating. And at the end, we promised each other we would never write together again UNLESS we came up with a story that both of us felt could be as much fun to co-write. So far, that hasn’t happened. I’m happy to work alone. I’m never really alone when I'm writing. All the characters are there with me.

Robin Hobb:
I never intend to send any message or advice or lesson to readers. I just want to tell a good story. Along the way, readers may learn how my characters think or feel about certain things, but I don’t always agree with my characters! So some of the opinions in the stories I write are not my own. They are what my characters believe, and what lessons they have decided they have learned. That’s part of characterization and story telling. The books should be the characters’ experience and ideas, not mine!

Robin Hobb:
If you asked a random person, “How are you today?” you would either get a very polite, “Fine, thank you.” Or an honest response, “My daughter has a cold, and my work assignment is late and my car needs new brakes.” Very few of us think 'Today I am happy.' Tolkien pointed out that 'Adventures are not all pony rides in May sunshine.' And he observed that the fun and easy and calm times of a person’s life don't make the most exciting reading. So the reader does not meet Fitz, or Althea or Kettricken at calm times in their lives, but when they are confronting problems. And like most of us, my characters have problems on several levels. Can you defeat the evil swordsman with a hole in your shoe while you grandmother is sick? Because life is like that for most of us. And I want my characters to be very real.

Robin Hobb:
Humor is probably the most difficult thing to write. The wrong sequence of words can easily turn a funny story into a disaster tale. In slapstick, we laugh at the fellow who falls down the steps while carrying the birthday cake. But we know that in real life, that would be a family disaster! Almost all humor has some element of dismay or pain that we don’t acknowledge.
And while my stories don’t have the traditional happy ending, where the girl and boy get married and the kingdom is saved, often their endings are 'as good as could be expected.' Again, that is how life goes for most of us. After the hurricane, we may just be happy to be alive, and if our spouse and dog came through it, we know we are fortunate! A good story does not undo every sad or hard thing that happened, and throw a party for the protagonist. Sometimes it ends with the protagonist holding on to a lesser but very good part of life. Just as we do each day.

Robin Hobb:
All books and stories, for me, start with a character. I listen to the character. Sometimes I outline the first few chapters. When I outline the whole book, when I start writing, I often stray far away from that plot. Still, it is comforting to know there is at least one path the story could follow to reach one ending. I tell people that it is like planning a long road trip. I will know where I start, and where I want to end, and often I know which sights I want to see along the way. But I can be surprised by a detour, or pick up a hitchhiker, or have the car break down. Books are like that. Unforeseen things can happen mid-plot. And they can become very important to the tale.

Robin Hobb:
Right now, I have several possible projects. I am actually writing all of them simultaneously, but that is because I am at the very beginning of them. One will emerge as the strongest and the most compelling to write right now. And that will be my next book.
But I can’t really talk about any of them right now. It is too easy to talk a book to death, and then never write it!

Robin Hobb:
I would like to welcome them to the Six Duchies and to the Realm of the Elderlings. They can find more information about me on my website at www.robinhobb.com. I am also easy to find on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram. Let us hear from you! Although there are Italian and French fangroups, and the wonderful general site called www.theplenty.net (Thank you Nerwende!), there is not yet a German reader group. I’d love to see one form. I have greatly enjoyed the friendships I’ve come to because of reader groups, and the good fellowship I enjoy with them when I am able to visit!
And thank you for this opportunity to reach out to German readers.