Na razrusha'ya. I am not ruined. E'ya razrushost. I am ruination.

And there's nothing wrong with being a lizard either. Unless you were born to be a hawk.

You want a love story too? There's none to be had.

Don't argue. Never deign to deny. Meet insults with laughter.

Anything worth doing always starts as a bad idea.

My stories usually begin with the characters and some elements of how power (personal, political, magical) functions in the world. The rest develops as I write, and research helps a great deal with that. If you're going to write about an agrarian economy, research agrarian economies. If your main character is starving, then you should know what it means for a malnourished body to break down.

People, particularly big men carrying big rifles, don't expect lip from a scrawny thing like me. They always look a bit dazed when they get it.