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Q: "Did you try sending your manuscript to publishers?"

Z: "Not really. At first I tentatively sent out a synopsis to a few of the publishers but I was well aware that they would not likely be interested in publishing it."

Q: "Because of it's size... 800 pages?"

Z: "Well by then I had already thought of breaking it down into a series... but I imagined that it would be the writing style and subject matter that would not interest them for mass publication. I had somehow already convinced myself that I would self-publish it. That is why I realized I had to break it down since I could not afford to print it any other way than one volume at a time."

Q: "Did you take a certain numbers of chapters from the start of the book to make up volume one (floating-point)?"

Z: "I wish it were that easy. Actually the original story was written in an unusual way: each short chapter - following particular events in the course of one of the central character's lives - were interspersed with chapters pertaining to those of other characters as the story advanced. The structure was designed so that the reader was continually changing perspective to reveal how the parallel events of their separate streams affected and were effected by each of the other characters. This made for a fascinating story, but it also made it very difficult to separate the chapters pertaining to an individual character from out of the mix without destroying the fabric of the tapestry I had carefully woven."

"Once the original story had been deconstructed it was a challenge to restructure the chapters. It took several agonizing weeks to figure out the best way to create a suite of interrelated volumes that still retained the suspense and resonance of the original draft and also each made sense as separate self-contained stories. The other problem was that information - previously communicated in the original sequence of chapters - was now missing and had to be re-manufactured in a way that merged seamlessly with the original content."

"Ultimately what happened with volume one was that I completely rewrote the story of Jurgen Ernst once the chapters pertaining to him had been sequenced. I didn't change the story at all - but I added information, enhanced the existing situations and, I hope, perfected my ability to craft the writing itself."