[Kevin] Have you written any other fan fiction besides those on Callisto's Tales? Were these written before/during/after the time you wrote your first Callisto story?

[Tower] Honestly no but I got on the Internet at the same time when I discovered X:WP and Callisto. If I had been on the Net several years back I probably would have written a few 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' stories. However I might be doing a Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica crossover in the distant future but it might not involve any of the regular cast of characters from B5.

[Kevin] When you write, how far ahead do you plan? Do you have the whole story thought out beforehand, just a chapter, nothing planned?

[Tower] I work out a general plot and jot down some points but nothing solid, it's mainly a chapter by chapter thing. Most of the time I'm constantly changing my stories as I write. 'Iolaus and Callisto' is a good example. It started out to be a short story focusing only on them, then suddenly I got hit with inspiration and started adding more characters and altering the plot. Mainly bringing Artemis and Aphrodite into it and adding a lot to the story. It gave me a chance to explain (my way) how Callisto acquired her fighting skills. Plus this story allowed me to try my hand at doing subtext.

[Kevin] How would you summarize who Callisto is, what motivates her, what her goals are?

[Tower] Without a doubt Callisto wants her anger and pain to stop and revenge seems to be the only answer to allow herself to have a normal life. If someone killed my family, friends and burnt my entire town to the ground I would be thirsty for blood too. However (to me) Callisto has no one left to turn to for support but in my story 'Iolaus and Callisto', I had Artemis watching over her in her younger days before and after Cirra, teaching her to fight and trying to fulfill Callisto's desire for revenge against Xena. Artemis thought she was doing the right thing but everything got complicated when Xena unexpectedly reformed on them which pushed Callisto over the edge. Here was the killer of her family suddenly becoming a hero to the population which made her go out using Xena's name while razing villages to try and destroy the warrior princess' new reputation. Callisto would enjoy making Xena suffer for as long as she possibly could which explains why she hasn't killed her when she had all those chances.

[Kevin] When you write your stories, do you prefer Callisto as a mortal, immortal, or Goddess? Do you feel any of those is substantially harder to write for?

[Tower] It wouldn't matter if I wrote her as a mortal, immortal or as a god but doing a Callisto the goddess story would be much more difficult, considering the power she could wield and the type of opponents I would have to throw at her. Lets face it, Xena would not last 3 seconds in a real fight against Callisto and in my book, gods would be able to teleport themselves out from under a pile of rocks. :-)