Sneak-Peek Post: GOOD INTENTIONS, THE AMA (Patreon)

Hi all!

So it turned out I had a great time with these questions! Sorry this took a little longer than I intended. I hope the depth makes up for that. Thank you so much for engaging with this!

(Also, if you missed a chance to ask a question before this went up, don't be shy about it in the comments. Always happy to hear from you.)

Ronnie

What happens to other angels who fall for their charges? Rachel’s a special case, but it’s had to happen before. What’s the consequences? Also, is Lorelei the first demon to ever switch sides?

Damn, kickin’ off with a big one!

This issue is sticky for Heaven. It’s an example of how Heaven isn’t perfect, and how “perfect” is debatable. The guardian relationship involves a huge disparity of power, so while it isn’t seen in the same vein as mortal “teacher and student” or “boss and subordinate” scandals, angels feel like it’s close to that neighborhood. Plus, it’s a reminder that angels can be flawed and have failures. Angels don’t like being reminded of that.

The first thing that happens is serious censure and demotion. They aren’t guardians anymore, and that hurts. Demotion especially hurts because guardians usually have multiple mortal charges, and they love them all (presumably not romantically). To be cut off from all those other lives is a big deal.

The censure and explicit “You fucked up and can’t be trusted” of it all is also a huge deal to the angels. They feel that more than a mortal would in a similar situation.

Heaven doesn’t want to stand in the way of love, so if it’s mutual there might be some accommodation made like the angel being rendered mortal to be with them for their mortal lives…and that former angel won’t have an angel looking over them. This might be a sacrifice an angel would make for love, but the conditions are no small thing. It’s like a gut punch that never heals. If you’ve ever seen the ending of The Graduate, where the main characters run off together onto the nearest bus all smiling…and then their smiles fade? It’s like that, but for one of them it’s cosmic.

I don’t want to say definitively that Lorelei is the first or only demon to switch sides, since we’re talking about the whole world and thousands of years. However, it wouldn’t be more than a handful of others at most. If there are others, they may have been destroyed or gone into hiding. She’s the only such case anyone has to talk about.

Jamie

Do you have a confirmed release date yet?

I do not. When I last spoke with Audible, they thought Tess Irondale’s previous book commitments might push the launch back to June 2nd or so. That said, I’ve been in contact with Tess since she started working and she’s probably 60%-ish done with recording. There’s production and quality control stuff to do once she’s done. I can’t tell if we’re ahead of Audible’s estimate or if the beginning of June is still what to expect.

Joshua

What more can you tell us about Onyx and her past lives, those who hunted her, or what factions they are involved with (new or old); all without spoiling the upcoming book. Maybe give us teasers we won’t see in the upcoming release? An Easter egg, if you will ;) Take your time. <3

Hmmm… without spoilers…

It may not be explicitly stated, but this book will illustrate how the evil sorcerer-priest in Good Intentions needed a whole big ritual production to abduct Rachel and Lorelei, while Onyx & Molly could basically grab a couple hairs and a ritual circle and wing it from there in an afternoon.

Donnie

Do you intend to have the GI series go on indefinitely, or have a planned conclusion?

I’m gonna write Good Intentions (and PMF and Wandering Monsters) until I can’t or until people don’t want them anymore.

Ryan

The witches. More on them and their lives.

Onyx is still in touch with her family and on good terms. Her parents live in a nearby city, they know Onyx is bi and they love Molly. They don’t know about Alex yet, but in fairness it’s only been a few months and that conversation is always weird (I’ve been there myself).

The thing about Molly and Onyx is how much of their lives are basically normal. Magic is a passionate pursuit, as much a career as a religion…but even then, much of their time and attention is consumed by social stuff, chilling out, and ordinary day-to-day life. They aren’t trying to compete for power or ambition, so they’re more chill than a lot of the other Practitioners out there.

Austin

This may be out of left field but I've noticed that Tanner and Alex share a lot of the same character qualities. Was this internal by any chance. A sort of fun head cannon I have is that the two series are actually in the same universe and Tanner is another incarnation of Alex.

Not out of left field at all! Tanner and Alex share a lot of qualities I like to see in a protagonist. I’m a big fan of the “non-powered hero in a superpowered environment” sort. Die Hard is my favorite action flick (shocker, I know) specifically because John McClane is scared from the first shot to the last. He’s acutely aware of his mortality amid all the crazy shit he does, and you can see it. I want to capture that.

They were both established early in my writing, too, so there’s a lot of “lean on what you know” in them. While they aren’t me and I don’t think of them as author self-inserts, a lot of minor details like Alex’s motorcycle and his law firm job are things I knew.

As for your head canon… uh, it’ll never be actual canon, but a GI/PMF crossover fanfic has definitely been in my brain as some kind of stretch goal someday. You are not the only one who has had that thought.

Natho

There are a number of past-life connections between characters - Onyx/Old Gypsy & Alex/Lieutenant, 'Nam Alex and Alex's father or grandfather, etc. What if anything does this imply about how the universe works?

The world works far less on “fate” or “destiny” than it might seem. A big part of this is the principle of magic pulling back on itself, which is different from destiny. When it comes to things like magic, there’s a greater tendency toward coincidence and connection by happenstance, but there’s no predetermination at work.

We’ll see Alex & Onyx explained in the next book. As for Alex and his grandfather, it’s as Rachel said: someone in Heaven thought they were being cute.

Ian

[Good Intentions spoilers ahead] Something I've always wondered, and probably not something that's a good candidate for any kind of story, but did Lorelei ever realise/find out that Lydia killed John/Alex in Antioch? (I'm not even sure if Alex is still aware, or if his quipping and defenestrating were done during too much of a flashback) And that (I'm assuming) it was John's blood Lydia was cleaning up when Lorelei ran into her there? I've always been intensely curious what Lorelei's reaction to that would have been.

Alex knows, but under the weight of everything else in his past lives and the immediate threat from Lydia in GI, he’s not really hung up on it. The magical therapy session with Molly and Onyx in NC helps him get even farther past that. Lorelei would know because Alex tells her everything, but like Alex she’s more concerned with the present than the past. It’s just one more reason to kick Lydia’s ass on top of a pile of other reasons.

Bradley

I would love to hear more about the WM crew, but will consume and enjoy whatever gets posted

Hooray!

I have starting ideas for the next book, but not a whole arc worked out yet. We’ll most likely see how War Cloud interacts with his faith and the clergy, and get more of an idea of the pantheon. Shady Tooth’s details will probably keep trickling out.

P.J.

Is there an explicit connection between RPGs and actual magic in the GIverse? Computer games and magic? Was the beginning of DoHA a fluke, or some kind of regular occurrence?

It’s not explicit. There’s definitely some degree of alternate dimensions going on. It may not have been entirely a fluke, but it was more fluke than not.

David

And speaking of DoHA, will Amanda ever meet the new crew?

The honest answer is I don’t know. I’m proud of DoHA and that crew, but I haven’t had an idea for a sequel or a GI appearance.

Mark

It would be interesting to see what Amanda is up to with her new life

By now (six months later in-world, heh) I imagine it involves touring the world on her own yacht. Probably with Eric and Fallon.

jmundt33a

Maybe a look at Alex’s past lost loves like the librarian and Siobhan would be interesting. What’s Molly’s cousin the cop up to these days.

I’m not sure when we’ll revisit those past lives, but the possibilities are always open.

Molly’s uncle Kevin is doing the usual. He and his partner know supernatural stuff exists but he has no idea about Molly and Onyx or the FBI task force. As a point of trivia: if I have a real author-insert in my works, it’s Kevin, as he’s based on a character I played in a LARP for several years.

Vairya1

What do the archangels and higher angels of heaven get up to? The lords of Hell are occupied competing with each other, and all their demons are geared toward getting/harnessing souls or holding their realm in Hell. That’s Hell’s side. But what about Heaven’s? What do the archangels, the seraphim, and the ophanim do all day long? Michael shows up in GI 1. We’ve heard what guardians and messengers do, but Heaven has a library, lords, and bureaucrats. To what end? Put another way. Heaven has bureaucrats. How would Rachel reply to a bit of heavenly paperwork sent down from on high to “explain her actions”? I mean, on her watch, we’ve seen Azazel, Baal, Sammael, and Belial bite the big one. And she was involved. Who else are heavenly bureaucrats going to ask for answers?

Might be more than I’m ready to unpack here, but I’ll tackle a little of this.

Heaven leans toward the “just maintain the stable status quo” mindset. To Rachel’s thinking, the answer to “what do the other angels do?” is “Fuckin’ not enough.” But Heaven provides guardians, and constantly evaluates all those mortal souls, and there’s some apparatus for those who have passed on and haven’t chosen to reincarnate, and tracking basically all of creation and all of history…which they can’t nail 100%, despite their power and their earnest attempts.

What Heaven wants is to guide and coach mortal souls into virtue and faith of their own volition. Hell gets in the way of that. Heaven opposes Hell and guards mortals, but not in an aggressive, let’s-just-kick-their-asses way, which is one of Rachel’s many frustrations… though in fairness, outright war would drain Heaven’s strength, too. The shenanigans in the books have been a huge boon of progress at relatively little cost; Rachel is pissed off because she feels the advances made against Hell are only valued in the context of that low cost.

When Rachel gets paperwork from Heaven asking her to explain stuff, she answers it with lewd and profane doodles.

Daniel

I believe Lorelei in Personal Demons had a throw away line to Alex that was to the effect "theres no such thing as fairies." is this true or just to her experience? If true, what made you decide to nix them and is it true for all Fae?

Probably the biggest reason I made this decision was the urge to be a little different from the other urban fantasy properties I’m familiar with. Vampire vs werewolf vs wizards vs faeries seems kind of common, and obviously I’m on board since I write similar stuff, but I wanted to put my own twists on it.

One of those was the prerequisite evil nature of vamps and werewolves; you have to be an irredeemable shitbag to become a vampire or werewolf in the first place. Another thought I had was, hell, maybe there just aren’t faeries? Not every myth needs to be true.

 pCiaran

I love everything you write and will continue to buy and read immediately. If you were to write a totally new series what would it be (genre-wise)?

Thank you!

I have a bunch of things in my head. Things I want to write:

-Sword & sorcery/high fantasy (as opposed to “S&S, but monsters”)

-I have a sci-fi book in my head that originated as a Star Wars fanfic, and I can’t decide whether to write it as a fanfic or work up my own original world around it and sell it. This thing is even fully outlined already. (Star Wars publishing runs on “don’t call us, we’ll call you,” so pitching isn’t much of an option.) 

-A smutty space opera, kind of Good Intentions in Space

-A smutty post-apoc adventure (Good Intentions in a Pac NW wasteland!)

-A historical fantasy or close parallel world. The small disgruntled retinue of a petty noble has to escort him on a pilgrimage to cleanse his sins, but as soon as he feels cleansed he goes on a bender and sins again and then freaks out and it’s on to the next nearest pilgrimage site, all the way to the Holy Land.

Also, I’ll admit: Part of me wants to crawl back under the Literotica blanket, or indie-pub books that are basically the same. I’d like to write more stuff that has just enough SFF trappings to hold all the smut together while the smut basically is the plot. I put a high value on “light and pleasant” stuff, especially amid our current pandemic stress-storm, and I think there’s nothing wrong with elaborate sex fantasy silliness.

The problem is I take all that seriously, and I get in my own head with things like, “Is this sex trash premise harmful to some group in some way I don’t see? What do my casting and POV choices say given all the cultural baggage about sex stereotypes? Is this orgy just an orgy, or will it be seen as a commentary on gender roles, and how will that reflect on me as a writer?” and… well, it sounds silly and I roll my eyes at myself, but I also take all that seriously. Plus author branding is a thing.

(As an aside, if there’s demand for more stories of “Good Intentions, but purely the sex trash parts,” let me know. I mean, I’m gonna write what I’m gonna write, but it never hurts to enable me.)

Peter

What's it gonna take to get Wade a steady girlfriend? Or boyfriend. Or non-human-thing. I'm not judging.

No spoilers, but this will be addressed in Past Due.

밤 봄

I want to know more about Practices. What kinds of practices are there? Details about how specific one works(especially Onyx and Molly's witchcraft)- it's belief system, philosophy, cultures, morals I want to know what practitioners do with their stuff in general-I guess many practitioners seek for the truth of the world because it is kind of religion or philosophy so i want know how they do with certain practice. Also mundane stuff like in your previous snippet Molly used sex magic to find a lost cat. Things they do to make their life easier. Ordinary life of one practitioner. And I also want to know about how churches work with angels or the Host if they do. Like if there is exorcism in practice. Or some stuff that doesn't necessarily have to be cool, serious.

Some individual faithful (of many faiths) definitely get a little overt divine help as a result of particularly strong faith and virtue, but it’s not nearly as systematized as a magical Practice. There’s way more mystery to a legitimately faithful preacher calling down a miracle than there is for a Practitioner casting a spell, largely because that Practitioner knows how to repeat the event. The preacher is just grateful to God or the angels or whatever and doesn’t expect more, because that humility is part of what makes their faith compelling.

Practitioners are all over the spectrum: there are ambitious sorts who see magic as a way to Conquer the World, and some who see it as a calling to do good, and some just use it for personal convenience. I don’t have a full listing of Practices yet. Also one of the key concepts is that a Practice is what someone makes it, so there are probably lots of witches who feel like those other witches are doing it wrong, as with hermetics and others.

The thing is, just because you have a magical talent doesn’t mean you have a calling to a life of adventure and philanthropy. Lots of people who have incredible talents still want 2.5 kids and a nice day job.

Tobias

So, this isn't quite Good Intentions stuff - more like a general/broad question. When you're writing your stories, do you come up with a concept for the story/world first - and after that you put in problems from the real world. Or do you see a problem in society and make a story where you can explore the problem? Both? 

For instances, PMF certainly seems to take it's root from capitalist megacorps and the problems that arise from that - but something like Wondering Monster seems like a fun DnD universe, with correlations tacked in (Trolls being actual trolls, for instances)

My starting points can vary. The short answer is I think I imagine a protagonist first, but the situation always comes with the protagonist because the two don’t exist independently of one another. If I’m thinking of a space marine, I’m also thinking about what sort of fights she gets into, and then we’re off and rolling.

The economic stuff usually creeps in as I write, because everyone exists in an economic context of some sort, too; I can’t look at a TV show without wondering how the characters pay the bills.

When we were working up the cover for Run Like Hell, I talked about the monster crew as a job situation and Lee Moyer said, “Do all of your books include economic discontent?” and yeah, they kinda do! But it’s not the reason I write. I think that’s such a part of the background noise of my life that it’s always there in what I write.

I think a key unifying characteristic for my protagonists is they’re all people whose first dreams didn’t work out. Often that gets expressed in an economic context, but it’s almost always there. Once I realized that was a pattern for me, I realized I didn’t want to break it and so I leaned into it.

Jimmy

How do their neighbors like Molly and Onyx? For example, the scene where the young girl had her cat stuck in the tree was great. I loved this exchange: “Did you know that in the history of the world, no cat has ever starved to death in a tree?” Chrissy’s little eyes expanded. “You mean Tigger’s gonna be the first!? Oh no!” What does Chrissy's mom think of Molly and Onyx?

Molly and Onyx are generally well-liked by neighbors who aren’t the judgmental types. There are likely neighbors who see all the Gothy black stuff and the pagan accents and the bi pride and have all the trash reactions you might expect. But for the most part, Molly and Onyx are just good neighbors, and that gets noted. Chrissy’s mom probably likes them both a lot.

That said, they’ve moved out of their apartment complex into a single home, and Seattle has a phenomenon called the “Seattle freeze” where it can be tough for anyone to break into social circles and engagement beyond superficial greetings. Witchcraft might help navigate that, but sometimes even when you have magic you just gotta deal with the same stuff everyone else does.

And to close, we’re gonna circle back to a couple more from Natho just because I felt like answering them:

Lorelei and Serena were both transformed from living humans to demons. Are other transformations possible? Would a human attempt to cause the transformation?

Yes to all of this.

Lorelei says that she wanted to change before Alex. Might her change give hope to other demons?

Possibly! But her story would first have to cut through a mountain of propaganda and gaslighting. Demons lie.

If Lorelei can change in one direction, might we see others changing in the other direction? e.g. Lucifer to Vincent: “We have several recent openings in upper management...”

This is absolutely possible. It’s what Sammael was in the first place. A significant portion of Hell is fallen angels. There’s no reason more can’t defect.

Other belief systems? Would someone of Chinese descent see the river and the boatman?

GI posits that supernatural aspects of beliefs and traditions from all over the world are sometimes legitimate and sometimes not, and that not everything fits in a Western Christian-ish mold. In fact, some of that particular mold is misconception, too. Someone who adhered to Chinese beliefs and traditions might not see a boatman or a river, and might instead experience something closer to their expectations. Good Intentions implies the two (or the many) can coexist, even if that might seem contradictory.

Also as an author I do not want to push the notion that one religion or belief system is superior to others, even in fiction. Rachel herself concedes that Jason still has good reason to be an atheist even when he’s personal friends with an angel and a demon. 

Other supernatural beings? Angels, demons, vampires, werewolves, djinn, practitioners, mention of ghosts, mention of nasty things with tentacles???

We’ll see some others in Past Due. One key idea is that there are a lot of supernaturals that don’t fall into a category, but rather arise out of unique circumstance. Alex is a low-key (well, low-powered) version of this. He’s the only Alex, but he’s hardly the only person changed by a weird supernatural experience.