Ok, so we stole the idea of a personal correspondence from the Twilight Lexicon people. But we DID NOT just steal their questions. One or two of them are repeated here because WE asked them of Stepehenie via Myspace. So if there's any controversy over this, we're not in the wrong (someone stole a few specific parts of the Twilight Leixcon and added it to their Twilight site, and the owners of TL got rather upset. We don't wish to upset anyone.These questions are our own.). Here's are the questions we've asked her:
1) Do you have any pets?
5) What does it feel like to be famous? Do people invade your personal life too much? I guess it wouldn't be so bad for authors, but on TV and magazines and tabloids and stuff you see all this crap about celebrities personal lives. I don't think that's fair. Do you ever feel like you've got too much attention?
5) I'm not really famous at all. I live in a normal house on a normal street with no gates and no guard dogs (except the tiny wiener dog, ha ha). Nobody recognizes me or anything. Most of the time I'm just a mom--who gets to spend a lot more time on her computer than most moms. All of my friends knew me before I wrote Twilight so they don't think I'm anything neat. The only time I feel a little bit famous is when I do a signing and people are nervous to meet me. That's just weird. And I'm usually more nervous, anyway. Fan mail is weird, too. But nice.
6) What's your favorite food?
6) My favorite food is cheesecake with carmel sauce. Mmmmmmm....
7) Do you ever get sick of getting fanmail?
7)It's true that the fanmail (it still freaks me out that people are writing FANmail to me--so weird!) gets a little overwhelming at times, but I truly never get tired of reading it. I worry when it takes me a long time to get back to people that they'll think I'm mean, ha ha, and when I have to put my writing on hold I get a little...bratty, but I can't help but love it.I can't believe how people are responding to a little story I wrote just to entertain myself! I love talking to people who love my Forks world--it makes it seem like it all really could be real!
8) I was wondering if they could have an actual TALENT enhanced. Like if you were really artistic or musical or something in your human life, could you bring that on to your vampire life?
8)Yes, Edward's human musical ability was enhanced in his vampire life. Rosalie's mechanical prowess, something she didn't use much while human, also was enhanced. They all have their talents.
9) I have a tendency crack my neck a lot. I get neck sores... And I was wondering if Edward would have like completely lost control the first time he'd seen Bella if she'd cracked her neck? I mean... guess that's one of those questions just make up as you go, unless someone's already asked you this or something. Ummm... yeah. I just keep replaying the scene in my head, though, and Bella keeps cracking her neck and Edward is seriously and completley freaking out.... 'Spose it doesn't matter though because that's not what happened.
9) The sound of her bones rearranging would not really be that appetizing. It's all about the blood. So the sound of her pulse is much more enticing. But if she had given herself a paper cut that day, that would have been the end of the love story.
10)What happened to the piece of pizza Bella dared Edward to eat? Would it be stuck in his system for the rest of eternity? Vampires don't, um, go to the bathroom. Would he just have pizza floating in his stomach for the rest of his life? Ew...
10)Ew, yes. He'd have to cough it up later to get rid of it. Not the most pleasant thing, which is why the vampires only eat food when they absolutely have to in order to blend in.
11) What is Bella going to do about college?
11) That will be a topic of discussion in both New Moon and Eclipse.
12) Okay, this wasn't a question, but an observation: And I really kind of hope Bella doesn't just get a personality trait enhanced or whatever. I think that's sort of... I don't know, wierd. Rosalie brought her 'tanacity', which I think seems to be sort or a suckish gift to bring into your, um, vampire life. Or the 'capacity to love'. That was Esme, right? Hmmm... can't remember. But I'd much rather have like Alice or Edward's ability.
12)Yes, there is a big difference in the potency (for lack of a better word) of the qualities that vampires bring into this second life. There seems to be some confusion about this from some of the things I've read. I'll try to explain it coherently, but I'm a little punch drunk from the editing, so bear with me: Okay, there are levels. Some vampires just have their personalities intensified. Esme is very loving and motherly--she becomes more so. Some vampires are unique in that they had slightly elevated abilities when they were human. Like Edward, who was always very sensitive to what other people were thinking without realizing it. Or Jasper, who was really charismatic, and could always talk people into seeing his side of things.When someone "special" like that gets turned into a vampire, that personality trait takes on a new strength, becoming more like a superpower than a trait. Some peoples' strongest characteristics are physical rather than mental--like Emmett and his physical strength. And Rosalie with her beauty. ("AH HA!!" you are all saying. "But you said that Rosalie's strongest trait was tenacity in the book!" To which I say, "Sometimes Edward lies." He had a reason--that will be in his version of the story.) Emmett and Rosalie are perfect for each other because they are both such physical people. But some characteristics skirt the line between "strong trait" and "superpower." Carlisle's compassion-motivated self-control is really so incredible that it almost crosses the line into "superpower."Now, the number of vampires with extra-special abilities (who were "special" when they were human) is disproportionately large (there is a bigger percentage of "special vampires" amongst ALL vampires than there are "special humans" as a percentage of ALL humans). There's a reason for that, too. When vampires are choosing companions, they are drawn to the most special and beautiful of humans.
13) I want to know what Bella's uhm... special talent/power thing would be, if she was to become a vampire in the end. So it's like either a strong physical aspect or persoinality trait enhanced? I can't imagine what the hell that would turn out to be for Bella. Not going to get an answer, I know, but it's a question I keep coming back to.
13) IF is the key word there! Let's not get ahead of ourselves!!
14) If your vampires have such good hearing it almost seems like they would have been able to hear James on the other end of the phone. Or was Alice just trying to give Bella some privacy talking to her mom and didn't listen?
14) Alice was distracted. She heard Renee's voice in the beginning and then tuned it out to concentrate.
15) How fast can Edward (and all your vampires) type?
15). Very fast.
16)We wanted to know if you actually believe in vampires, Stephenie. Do you?
16) No, I don't believe in vampires. Moreover, I don't WANT them to be real...unless we're talking solely about the Cullens.
17) Do vampires ever drink each other's blood?
17) No. Vampires don't have blood to be drunk. Even when they're full from drinking someone else's blood, that just gets absorbed into their stone-like flesh. It wouldn't flow out for another vampire, even if she/he bit into her/him.
18) Someone told me you started letting your mother answer your emails, Stephenie. Is this true or was she mistaken?
18) For a while I let my mom sort my emails for me. She would put them into files depending on the kind of answer they needed and how urgent or entertaining they were. Then she got overwhelmed by it, and even working together we couldn't keep up. So I had to go to the form letter so that I could write again. I still try to answer a few emails a day, but it makes me really sad to have to pick and choose who I'm going to answer. And so then I avoid my inbox out of guilt. But I do read everything. It takes me an average of fifteen minutes to answer one email--that's an hour to do just four, and so you can see the dilemma.
19) Bella's room is on the second floor of her house, right? Well how does Edward just climb a building to get in through her window? Is there a tree next to her window he climbs up or something?
19) He scales the front of the house. Climbing is a snap when you can lift several times your own body weight with just your pinky finger. The lip of the wooden siding is more than enough leverage. He doens't use the front door at first because he hasn't seen her use the key yet, and he doesn't want to leave a broken door as evidence. He guesses (correctly) that she's unlikely to have a lock on her second story bedroom window. (Bella's room is on the second floor, and her window looks out over the front yard). Little hint in the text that no one has ever (to my knowledge) caught: on page 141, Bella opens her window for the first time since coming to Forks and is shocked that it moves so easily and quietly. She doesn't know that Edward oiled it after the first night he came--when it made noise and he was afraid it would wake her.
20) Why is it harder for a vampire to restrain from eating 'food' than it is for a human? The first time Edward saw Bella, he freaked out. But.... if I had to sit next to a bag of Swedish Fish for an hour, it wouldn't be THAT hard to refuse to eat them.
20) It is not "just food" for them. They are, in essense, predators. Their hunting instincts are stronger than our tame hunger. They respond to the presence of prey the same way a lion would. If the lion is not hungry, it would ignore the limping zebra. But if it was very hungry, and the zebra hobbled onto the scene...the reaction would be swift. Fresh blood is much more difficult. Alice compares them to sharks on page 414--they frenzy when there is blood flowing in the vicinity.
And Bella is a special case, above and beyond the usual bloodlust. When Edward compares her to heroine, he's not joking. Her blood to him is like a hard drug to a desperate addict.
21) If Rosalie still disliked Bella by the end of Twilight but was actually messing with Bella's hair by the prom outtake, which happened before the prom even took place, what happened to make Rosalie soften up a bit? 21) Didn't I put this in the note? That outtake was written before I'd really developed Rosalie's character (she was still Carol back then). Rosalie didn't have any problem with Bella in the rough draft--or much of a personality, either. It was only later that her personality came into focus for me. Suddenly I realized that Rosalie didn't like Bella at all, and then I completely "got" her. It's funny, because it was as if Rosalie had always had this problem with Bella, but she'd just been hiding it from me. Yes, my characters are WAY too real to me. :)
22) Why could Alice and Edward control themselves when Bella had been hurt by James and was bleeding quite a bit, I assume, but not when Bella just got a simple paper cut (assuming they were included in the six vampires from the excerpt)?
22) I'm not going to answer questions about the teaser. Hence the "tease" part of the word...
23) Do the Cullens and Hales ususally attend school dances, or where they just going to the prom on the behalf of Bella?
23) They were mostly going for Bella. Extracurricular school activities are not the norm
for the Cullens. Rosalie loves the chance to dress up and show off, though.
24)This is not meant to be offensive in ANY way, shape or form, but do gay vampires exist? What if someone changed a human, intending them to be their permanent companion or something and it turned out they were... er... well, gay?
24) If someone was to bite a gay person, that person would still be who they were before, so they would still be gay.
25) And also, will the whole series have an official name, or is it just going to be called The Twilight Series or whatever?
25) Good question. Wish I had a good answer! Right now the powers that be are calling the Twilight Series because they haven't come up with anything else. I haven't thought of anything good, either.
26) This may seem a bit random but do Edward or any of the other Cullens/Hales like to ski? For some reason it seems like a sport they'd like cause it's so... fast.
26) I imagine they enjoy skiing a lot. I'll bet Emmett prefers snowboarding, though...
27) Would a vampire's hearing be good enough to be able to hear someone/something in a sound-proof room?
27) That would depend on how close the vampire is, how loud the sound inside the booth is, and what the booth is made out of, etc. But it would be possible.
28) How fast can Edward (and all your vampires) type?
28) Very fast.
29) Since you said v.'s could type very fast, can they read really fast too? Could they read a 500 pg. book in an hour or so? Less?
29) I can't give you a page-per-hour statistic, but they can read very, very fast. Plus, with their photographic memories, they remember every word.
30) If you had any piercings would they heal up when you were turned into a v.? If so, could you get your ears (or anyplace else, for that matter) repierced, or would your skin be too hard or whatever?
30) If the piercing was fully healed, the hole would still be there. However, if you didn't have earings in at the time, you probably couldn't get them back in (think about how the skin presses together when there's no post in there separating the hole. When you're hard as rock, the skin isn't going to reshape around the post again. Does that make any sense at all??) You could not get repierced or a new piercing after you were a vampire. The needle would break off against your skin.