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Q: "How long did this 'editing' process take?"

Z: "When I started in October of 1999, I fully expected to be finished by January 2000. By January of 2000 I had convinced myself everything would be completed by March, and so on... That I naively continued to believe that the story was almost there was the only reason that I was ultimately able to complete it. I was involved in this process of editing and rewriting from the moment I opened my eyes until they would no longer remain open every single day. I ended up cycling my work period around the clock: wake up in the afternoon and go to sleep the next morning, or wake up in the middle of the night and work until evening - any type of combination. Had I known at the start that the book would not actually be sent off to the printers until August 2000, I doubt if I could have kept going."

"I mean, by May I was becoming very burned out. I was living in Vancouver, and although it is a very beautiful city, I realized that I needed a change to energize me. A friend of mine; Ed Ackerman and his wife Veronique, invited me to come out to Montreal. In June I took them up on their offer and moved out there. It made all the difference in the world. Although in a way it was much more difficult to write because we were all very poor and experiencing some unforeseen circumstances in other projects we had decided to collaborate upon, the change of scene and the new faces and language were very stimulating."

"I finally completed the writing by the end of July, but unfortunately I was only able to spend two weeks designing the text layout and cover of the book as I was completely at the end of my resources. The manuscript was sent off to Toronto and I received my first shipment of books about one month later - on September 14th."

Q: "Two weeks is a very short period of time to design a 360 page novel."

Z: "Yes."

Q: "If you were able to do it all over again, would you do anything differently?"

Z: "Hopefully I will be able to redo the entire process again when I edit volume two; 'eternal golden light'. I am certain that I will do many things differently next time around. I have learned so much by taking my writing up to the final stage of publication. And because I have managed to overcome so many internal and external obstacles that I have encountered, I believe it will be an easier and far less painful process. Of course there will be just as many unexpected situations that kind of spring from nowhere - but I will not speak again of the infamous Montreal toner fiasco or the press proofs that a well-known international courier 'misplaced' for a week at what turned out to be a most critical time."