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Hi, Sarah,
Thanks for posting and for being such a loyal and true fan! I appreciate it very much.
Yes, I do reach out to my readers and answer mail, but 22 questions is quite a lot, so I’ll try to put together some replies that will, I hope, satisfy your curiosity.
Your questions: First, the series you loved so much is out of print, which I find agonizing! I hope it will reappear one day, perhaps as a one-book affair.
I don’t even like clam chowder, so if I made it sound delicious,it was strictly hyperbole! My inspiration for ON THE RUN and, later, KIDNAPPED, was a desire to see if I could write a longer series and keep the story going. What I do doesn’t really call for what you call inspiration. It just takes a lot of thinking and planning. In other words, it’s WORK!
When I started, did I have an ending planned? Of course! I plan completely before I ever put a single word down on paper. It’s not possible for me to write a coherent story unless I know the climax/ending, and I’m writing toward something.
My favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut. Best book ever written: THE SIRENS OF TITAN.
Favorite book in ON THE RUN: I’ve written 105 books so far, and ON THE RUN was a lot of years ago, so I can’t come up with the title. It’s the one where Meg thinks Aden is dead, but she is moving on with the quest, intending to save their parents even if she has to do it alone. Aiden’s line “She was really something!” That stuck with me, and is still in my head! I even recall tearing up a bit writing it.
The identity of Hairless Joe was planned from the start. Believe me, I never surprise myself with a story. It always has to be planned, otherwise I don’t know what I’m writing about.
I loved the idea for THE HYPNOTISTS, but apparently, my audience didn’t. That series kind of fell flat — maybe because it just didn’t measure up to MASTERMINDS, which is still a huge hit.
Aiden and Meg were underdogs, which meant the reading audience was always going to root for them. Of course, they couldn’t be too cocky or smart-assy. But the readers loved them and wanted them to succeed.
And, finally, I didn’t research fugitive life or anything else for ON THE RUN. The only research I did was to consult a road map now and then to make sure I had the geography right.
OK? Sorry I couldn’t find the time to go into more detail, but there are edits to make, books to write, book tours to go on, etc. Thank you again for your support for my work, and especially for ON THE RUN, which I happen to feel is some of my best work from the early years..
Kindest regards, Sarah, —–Gordon Korman—–