Garth_Nix

1. I don't plan a companion guide, but you never know. Right now I'm working on another novel, which will pick up roughly from the end of ABHORSEN/ "The Creature in the Case" (which I just mistyped as "the Creature in the Vase" a whole lot less scary).
2. I hope that one day good films will be made. I'm doing whatever I can to make this happen, we just need a bunch of stars to align, as it were! Good to see the painting. I love that the books inspire art.

The bell charms were unfortunately derailed by the death of a very good friend of mine who was helping me with the whole project. With him gone I kind of haven't had the heart or the time to sort it out since then. However, I know a lot of people want them so I will do something about it in the next six months. Sorry!

Hey, thanks. You're a quick reader to have got through CLARIEL already! I spend a lot of time on character names. I mix up existing words that have particular meanings or resonance until I get a name that sounds right. I say them aloud. Sometimes I'll do dozens of possible names until I get the one that sounds and feels right. In the Old Kingdom, I used the -iel and -ael endings from angel's names a lot because they resonate with power, even if the reader doesn't consciously realise it.

I'm not really sure. I was thinking about death a lot, I guess because my grandfather was dying when i was beginning the book and he was the first person I knew closely to die. It also took a long time and made me wonder about stages of death, being between life and death and what people believe about the afterlife (if any).

You know, I'm not sure whether people get an individual Charter mark or not and I've put off deciding this until I need to for some reason (such as it being depicted in a film). This pretty much sums up my approach to world building in general, I only work out what I need for the story and move on. Any director with a great visual sense but also a very strong feel for the structure of story would suit me. Guillermo Del Toro has certainly shown that.