[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?

[Robert] I have. About five years ago, I used to write Doctor Who fan fiction (oh, the sins of youth). I gave up after a while because I realised that humanity needed to be preserved from them, such was their excrutiating awfulness.

About two and a half years ago, I started work on a Cracker/X-Files crossover with my ex-girlfriend. It wasn't as bad, but it was quite bad. We never finished it, although that's not why we split up (and it wasn't the fact she wiped my copy of "Callisto" either!)

More Sinned was my first piece of fan fic since. It wasn't totally awful, thank God.

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

[Robert] I currently have the overall arc for the next three stories planned out. I know what has to happen at the end of each one to get to the start of the next one. Who knows if there'll be more afterwards. When I get to the end of no. 5, there'll be a such a large number of ways it can go from there, that I'm suffering from "choice paralysis" and can't make up my mind what to do!

I generally mull over various scenes that I want to occur in the story, going over the dialogue a large number of times before I absolutely have to commit them to paper so I can empty my mind for other scenes. Once I've achieved a "critical mass" of ideas in my head, I assemble the plot so that all the scenes can occur, perhaps with some modification. Then I start writing. Linking scenes (ones I haven't thought about in advance). I just write as I need them and then rewrite as appropriate.

The key to all the scenes is that I have to be excited by the ideas. If I'm not, I can't get the story to flow onto the paper so I have to wait until the idea comes along. I've just had to chuck a quarter of the current story because the main plot was boring me senseless. I've got a much more fun one lined up now.

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

[Robert] Callisto is a woman who, as the result of a number of events in her childhood, became both sociopathic and depressed.

What kept her going was her obsession with Xena. The pain that would normally have kept her more or less incapacitated/suicidal is focused by the sociopathy into rage so that she has a reason to live as long as Xena needs to be punished for her crimes. Her real goal in life was to lose her pain _and_ to punish Xena (make her atone), hoping the latter will cause the former (it doesn't).

Anyway, that's the Callisto of ancient Greece. The Callisto I write is of the 20th century, is 2000 years old, and has the powers of a goddess. That gives her a slightly different perspective on life.

[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?

[Robert] Callisto as a goddess is infinitely easier to write for than as mortal/immortal.

Callisto as a mortal is just plain boring. I didn't find the mortal Callisto at all interesting on the show. To be honest, she was very dull in "Callisto" and only slightly less dull in "Return of Callisto". Being just immortal is too limiting. For one thing, Callisto's stuck in a cave. In both cases, if Callisto goes up against Xena (unless you do alternative universe stuff), she has to lose, so there doesn't seem to be any fun to be had there.

Callisto as goddess doesn't have anything to inhibit her expressiveness. If she's angry, she let's it out in balls of fire and so on. She's far more fun as a goddess!

I know some people say that mortal Callisto has dangers to face, the threat of death and so on, that are too easy to overcome if she's a goddess. But, Callisto isn't afraid of death. She is, however, afraid of emotional pain.