CMN: This must be a phenomenal experience for you as a writer.

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KT: (Pause) It certainly is a big experience. I’ve been so busy since I’ve started writing and it’s great.

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CMN:  I’m surprised at your hesitation, explain it.

KT: A question was found, if it was a defined _ exciting life. I haven’t had a chance to stop to think if it’s exciting or not. You get so busy that you’re just concentrating on the fact that you’re living in that world. Because, every writer writes differently, everyone accesses something different in themselves to get through the day. The way I do it, I write books very fast. (Karen points at her book). That took me two weeks. I only had two weeks…

KT: That’s normal for time, with the media industry. I was lucky I had that long. My colleagues (may) have two days. It’s just the way…you want the latest possible script and the movie comes first. Because it cost so much more to produce so if that new script comes in there, you go with that script. Having said that, it’s not tightly based on the script which is nothing of the dialog in there, but there are key things that change the movie that make the novel look extra normal. So, the way I like to do a book, a journal fashion is to take a variety and say, this is the real world, these are real people and I want to follow each character through. I do “point of view characters”. I’ll explain it as more as the technical boring stuff. As I type…“third person,” very third type person, but in multiple characters. That means I only see what the character sees, I feel only what the character feels. A lot of writers do type third person but they normally have one maybe two characters. I went for broke and I’d do it on 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. So you’re literally hip hopping. If you can read, that’s quite demanding and I got some very smart readers, I really have. They can follow those “heads” around. You get all different view points of what situation and complete fundamentally. It poses a question for me, if you believe what’s true? I don’t know.

CMN: What is it like when you leave that world, because you have another project?

KT: Totally disoriented for a few days which is when I do my paper work. I clear all my receipts…’cause I don’t look much around me. Then I strike back into the next one. Sometimes, I’ve done two books at a time. One in the morning and one in the afternoon and then I can switch from one book to another quite easily and I find that they cross little over each other. But, some time when I really get stuck into it I say don’t look into anything else.

CMN: Where does this talent come from…genetics? Do you have an uncle, an aunt, your mom, your dad?

KT: I come from a very, very blue collar working class family. I didn’t grow up reading books, I don’t like reading books, I still don’t. I was raised on TV, radio, comics, and movies.

Whatever made me be a journalist makes me a writer; it’s curiosity. It’s quite interesting because the reactions I get to the book are the questions I pose in the book. Which are real world questions; they’re the only ones I know what to ask. I think I’ve had more reactions from people about issues, big issues in the world that come with more consequences that I’ve ever had as a journalist, that’s what is so great. You really think that you’ve got a handle on the real world when you’re a journalist, but, fiction I think is a more accessible way that people touch and consider really unpleasant subjects.

CMN: Do you consider news as an important factor, contemporary news, when you’re writing?

KT: It’s hard to say. I’m steeped in news; it’s so much a part in the way I think. I honestly can’t tell. I certainly don’t draw parallels... What I do see is when I write these, I say, I’ve seen that before. That’s happened before. History repeats itself. History always repeats itself and the only thing that changes is the people; much why technology has ways of screwing each other up. But, these stories are no different to the conflicts of 5,000 – 10,000 years ago when we had pointed sticks.

CMN: Now about you. Are you married?

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KT: Divorced, multiple times.

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CMN: (laughter) You seem happy about that.

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KT: Well, yes, I’m single now.

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CMN: And you like being single now?

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KT: Lets put it this way, it’s very hard for men to cope with my career. It’s very hard for someone to find someone who sits down and works days solid and I mean nights as well. You might need to edit and I keep a notebook by the side of the bed, so I can write at times and I’ve got one of those pens with a light bulb. You try explaining that (laughter).

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KT: You never could talk, never could talk, and I’m actually a quite trying person to live with. So, I don’t know. Maybe, the right man who could tolerate…

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CMN: What do you do for fun?

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KT: Fun, what’s that? (laughs)

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CMN: What do you do for fun, outside of writing, which is a passion for you? What do you do outside of that?

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KT: I don’t do anything else.

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CMN: Do you go out with girlfriends? Do you go out…

KT: I tried going out, a friend of mine, Reynolds, she’s wonderful. She’s been trying to get me to go out for a year to go to one of these far-away weekends. She says, “why you keep putting’ off, you need it! I’m not going to come to your funeral!” (laughter) “But it’s true.”

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CMN: You’re a pleasure. I’m keeping you from your fans.

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KT: I have a privilege of being in the right place at the right time and with the right attitude and the right skills to do a job that most people would kill for. Although I say it’s a job, after a period or time that you go through the same gripes as you do in any office job, that there are people you wanna strangle and pick me a line. ‘Why am I doing this?’ Why don’t I go back to the newspaper?’ But, I recognize it for the privilege it is and there are people in this world doing real jobs, like my friends who are fighting, risking their lives every day. They’ve got real jobs and I do not have any rights to bitch about tiny jobs because I sit on my back side, safe, writing fairy tales and getting paid far more than they are, and I think, that’s what’s wrong with the world. I sober myself; I think every morning with that, ‘that’s what people do for a real job’. You are lucky, shut up and do the job. So, I do.

As we walked out of our private enclave into the narrow hall, Karen shared one of her secrets with Cable Muse Network, “…and allot of coffee.”   She reached for the coffee prepared by her “handler.”

Star Wars: The Clone Wars feature film, premiered August 15th. The animated TV series that will air on the Cartoon Network October 3rd.