In Fact, I Should Be Writing FOR REALS Right Now!

[bloodyrosemccoy]

National Personal Chef Day
Anniversary - District of Columbia Established
Birthday - Ginger Rogers (actress/dancer)
Birthday - Barbara Stanwyck (actress)
La Paz Day (Bolivia)

 

... But instead, I’m going to answer questions about writing!  Which I stole!  From agenttrojie! So there!

 

What's the last thing you wrote?

I’ve been wiggly and weird, and not actually completing anything, since most of what I write is rather long. The last thing I wrote to completion is from a few months back—a first contact story for The Hive.

 

I also wrote a stupid little bit of fanfixion about Doctor Who featuring Doctor!Donna. But I’m not counting that.

 

Was it any good?

That Hive one better be. I sent it into the Captain Crazypants L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest for this quarter.

 

What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?

A book of fairy tales I “wrote” when I was three has scribbles that look like writing, and illustrations that tell the story. However, the first book I ever actually wrote is a space opera from first grade, when we had just finished a unit on The Planets and the teacher told us to write a story about space in these little booklets she gave us. Instead of writing about The Planets I wrote an epic space opera journey involving two astronauts, Sam and Jeff, who went to “the next star” and found aliens based on numbers. This culminated in the greatest name for an alien ever: an Eightlien. And yes, the book is still sitting on my shelf.

Write poetry?

Sometimes I write limericks or silly parody poems. I do write song lyrics in my conlangs.

 

Angsty poetry?

Oddly, I was the only kid in my pretentious high school poetry class who wrote fun, cheerful poetry about things like astronomy and chickens, while the other kids were writing about sliding the silky razor over their skin so they could bleed the black rose petals into the pool of tears. Or about finding their cheating jerk lover’s sweatshirt under their bed. This is even weirder when you realize that that was during one of my most major depressive episodes. I felt like such a cheater—those poor kids were trying so hard to be depressed.

 

Most fun character you ever wrote?

I’m gonna cheat here and say it’s Lucy and the Boys, which is actually three characters, but they’ve got a dynamic, you see. Lucy, Charlie, and Jonathan are a trio of physicists who study things like hyperspace and the complicated physics behind wizardly magic. While they’ve all got their own personality, together they’re a loud bunch of know-it-alls with strong opinions, a lot of knowledge, and a lot of snark. They live in a happy love triangle, although the concept of “fidelity” seems beyond them. Lucy has wizard-like powers and Charlie and Jonathan are more like a pair of Han Solos with their mundane resourcefulness. Also, Jonathan is Deaf.

 

Most annoying character you ever wrote?

See above.

 

Best plot you ever wrote?

My Obligatory Giant Young Adult Fantasy Epic. It fits together pretty well. Now I have to write it.

 

Coolest plot twist you ever wrote?

You cannot has! You’ll have to read it!

 

How often do you get writer's block?

Every day.

 

How do you fix it?

Turning to a different project, switching from a computer to a notebook or vice versa, whining, or reading something that pisses me off. I am motivated by reactionism and spite.

 

Do you save everything you write?

Remember how I said I had that little space opera from first grade?

 

Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?

Often old ideas will pop up in new places.

 

What's your favourite thing that you've written?

Are you kidding?! How the hell am I supposed to pick that? I don’t even remember everything I’ve written. I am liking the Doctors! stories, though. And “Sir Dave and the Dragon” is my favorite thing I wrote from When I Was A Kid.

 

What's everyone else's favorite thing that you've written?

Erm … I’m going to guess the Doctors! In! SPACE! stuff (I have got to get a real title for this project). It seems to really hold people’s interest, although I now wince to go back and read the versions I posted on LJ.

 

Do you ever show people your work?

I seem to have actually posted a fanfic for once online.  I have been sharing the Doctors! stories on a filter here, and more recently I got a story workshopped, which really helped me figure out how to work with feedback.

 

The Obligatory Giant Fantasy Epic has yet to be seen by human eye other than mine. Laregly because I haven’t written it yet.

 

Who's your favourite constructive critic?

The writers’ group I went to had a lot of good ones.  Although some of them have really funny pet peeves.  (Mine: apostrophes in fantasy names. You’d better have a damn good reason for those.) I always liked hearing Jerry’s critiques, especially, though Stephen's were good, too.

 

Did you ever write a novel?

To completion? Sure, but not the sort I want people reading.  They seem to have been my attempt to get those First Thousand Pages/Million Words Of Crap out of the way.

 

Have you ever written fantasy, sci-fi, or horror?

What other sorts of genres are there?

 

Ever written romance or teen angsty drama?

Oh. Only if they’re small subplots in a space opera or pirate adventure or something.

 

What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?

Erotica. I’d be awful at it—keep breaking the mood with snide asides or weird analyses or non-sequiturs.

 

How many writing projects are you working on right now?

Lessee. Doctors! is several projects in one, with two novels-that-are-written-like-television-seasons in the works.  And the OGFE is planned out to be four books. On that one—check back with me in 20 years or so.  I’ve also got a lot of random story bits, like Dweiji’s adventures in The Galaxy, accreting like nebulous dust particles waiting to collapse into a protostar.  And of course the ongoing Hitchhiker’s Guides.

 

Do you want to write for a living?

It would be nice, but till then I’ll write while I do whatever else I have to do.

 

Have you ever written something for a magazine or newspaper?

I find that sort of thing incredibly dull, but yes. I write better fake articles.

 

Have you ever won an award for your writing?

“Sir Dave and the Dragon” won some sort of big old district prize when I was in sixth grade.  Check back with me after this quarter of WotF.

 

Ever written something in script or play format?

I can’t even read something in play format.  Short silly blog entries are about as much as I can handle.

 

What is your favourite word?

In English? Currently GARNET. My synesthesia goes absolutely wild over that word—it doesn’t just have a color and texture; it also has a tone (two, actually) and a flavor and a spatial orientation and a hand motion that goes with it. Just thinking it is a pleasure.

 

In other languages? Anything in Hawaiian, Spanish bambolearse and murcielago, ASL llama, Japanese atatakakatta, and Swahili kiboko.

 

Do you ever write based on yourself?

All my characters come from parts of me, so yes, I suppose.  I do have a few characters who are varyingly representations of myself, though—most notably Jane Harriet from the OGFE and Victor from the Doctors! universe. Victor, however, is a bit more of my Sue than an accurate reflection of me.

 

Which of your characters most resembles you?

See above.

 

Where do you get ideas for your characters?

Bastards generally come barging in without asking, blundering around demanding seedcakes and a backstory and making me scurry to hang up their hoods while they carouse in my mental living room.

 

Do you ever write based on your dreams?

I should. Have you ever had Effexor dreams?  That shit is bananas.

 

Do you prefer happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?

Happy endings. It’s my universe, dammit, and I can make the endings happy if I want to.

 

It’s the getting there that may be rough on some people.

 

Have you ever written anything based on an artwork you've seen?

I think everyone does, even if they don’t realize it—that’s the Giant Idea Eggbeater at work.  I certainly have, though—partilles, for example, are based on a beautiful picture of a tripodal penis-shaped monster I found on ConceptArt, though the picture has since been removed.

 

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

Spelling errors = CHAOS, and we cannot be having with that.

 

Ever write something entirely in chatspeak?

Darlin’, I don’t even chat in chatspeak.

 

Does music help you write?

Yes, but then I have to go back through and see if I can guess which song was playing by the mood of the paragraph.

 

Are people surprised and confused when they find out you write well?

It doesn’t normally come up, really.

 

Quote something you've written:

For the first time, as I stood talking to a being whose other body I had euthanized not twenty minutes ago, I realized that what I’d just done was markedly strange. Living in The Galaxy inured one to the bizarreness of the everyday, but sometimes something would break through that veil of complacency and highlight once again how weird it all was.  And the question of the etiquette between a doctor and the patient he’d euthanized earlier that morning was high up on the list of things where the weirdness showed through.

 

“What a way to start a morning,” Lwefir observed mildly.

 

Comments

[crazykawaii.livejournal.com]

What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?
Erotica. I’d be awful at it—keep breaking the mood with snide asides or weird analyses or non-sequiturs.

DUDE. I would totally read that kind of erotica. I have a hard time reading the real stuff, because the headbrain is too busy... well, making snide asides or weird analyses or non-sequiturs.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

Bastards generally come barging in without asking, blundering around demanding seedcakes and a backstory and making me scurry to hang up their hoods while they carouse in my mental living room.

I live in the Control Room up top. The characters get the rest of the head. It helps with the chaos.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That would work better if I could install some sort of lock on the Control Room. Dweiji, Loke, and Charlie especially have the tendency to barge in and backseat drive.

[10cents.livejournal.com]

"Sir Dave and the Dragon" sounds like such a cute kids book. I don't know if I should be ashamed to admit this or not, but I would totally read something called that.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Murcielago is a totally awesome word, and also a totally awesome Lamborghini car that I drool and wibble over.

And I agree about the apostrophes-in-names thing; there's a fantasy series by James Clemens where he uses Stock Fantasy Concepts and just adds in random apostrophes; Wit'ch, for example, and Og're and it drives me completely up the POLE. Don't read them, I beg of you, they'll make you twitch.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

This is even weirder when you realize that that was during one of my most major depressive episodes. I felt like such a cheater—those poor kids were trying so hard to be depressed.
The truly depressed are rarely as proud of their depression as the naturally happy trying to seem depressed want to be able to be. The truly depressed are proud of how happy they can get away with being in spite of their depression.

My favorite word is "surreptitious". For me it evokes something cold and slimy engaged in a quick and sinous crawl across a wide expanse without anybody noticing.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

"The truly depressed are proud of how happy they can get away with being in spite of their depression"

Not true of all of us! I may have written some clichedly awful poetry about never finding love and spent most of my teen years whining about something or other, but my chemistry was genuinely screwed up at that point and I sincerely wish that someone could have figured that out sooner instead of just assuming I was being melodramatic for no good reason!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I used the word "rarely" in the first sentence to avoid coming off as having an absolutist viewpoint about this, unfortunately looking back I realize that I forgot to make that nuance clear in the second sentence. I got dismissed as being dramatic when I was severely depressed also, and relate to the experience you're describing.

The reason I wish that depressed-sounding poetry wasn't "cool" that people wouldn't try to do just because that's what you do is that it muddles the "signal" with "noise" the way it does. I've had a lot of people put down attempts at cheeriness or positive thinking that I was using as ways to pull myself out of where I was because it wasn't "cool" enough, and I've resented that others would have portrayed the state I was trying to pull myself out of as some kind of achievement I should be proud to be in and ashamed to want out of, because it's more "real", whatever that means.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

*nods* Depression is rough no matter how you cope with it. And I realize that a lot of people refuse to see how ill some of us are because we don't "act" unhappy... it's just tough all around! *hugs*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I guess what I'm trying to say is definitely not "Anyone complaining of being depressed can't really be", simply that only someone who's never been depressed would think that wanting to make good poetry could be enough of a reason to make depression desirable, the way I see it.

[(Anonymous)]

"Does music help you write?
Yes, but then I have to go back through and see if I can guess which song was playing by the mood of the paragraph."

Hey I do that with my sketchbook drawings! I can still remember a lot of the ones from high school.

~Liz

PS: Hello! How are things?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Hiya! Coincidentally, I just got AIM so I could finally chat with everyone.

Still jobless, still not king, working on that. I did get to see the Dude smash some bricks with his fist, which was cool. Also, I was there when my friends got busted for starting a magnesium fire. Once again, I find that I am caught in the middle of flame attacks. How's YOUR summer?

[(Anonymous)]

My summer hasn't been too bad. I got my crazy internship for the fall, been working 40 hours a week with UO food service, and went to Portland with Kyle and Eric to see Eddie Izzard (squee!). No flame attacks as of yet, but on the 4th of July some of the people I was BBQing with were dodging cops so as to not be caught violating parole.
Right now I have 3 weeks off and will be going back to stay with my parents for two weeks. I think Emily is gettin' a bit bored so I'll probably be spending a lot of time with her.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I'll write the erotica sections of your stories for you-- it seems to be the only genre for which I have a genuine knack!