@electricarmchair ( & @katrinnac ) tagged me on some writer-type-questions.
1) Are there common settings (fictional or real) that show up in your writing?
there are. most often it is a dystopia, where just about everything has run down. dirty, littered, ruins, etc. sometimes there are horrible trees. i almost never use real settings - but they so easily could be.
2) Do you plan before writing, or go with the flow?
i am a terrible planner. i typically start off with an idea, most often some sort of strange image that came to me. i try to find out how that image came to be, and go from there. the writing typically carries me. very rarely i will start off with an idea to the end of a story, and i do have to try to plan that out if i want anything i write to take me back to that original idea. just over a year ago now, i took an online short story intensive writing class led by mary robinette kowal, and the biggest thing i took from that class was how to outline effectively. if you need to keep your story in line with your original plan, outline.
3) If you could be a colour, what colour would you be and why?
looking at this question, i first thought that it wasn’t really a writing question. but, thinking about it a bit more, it does spark some creativity. do i pick a standard primary color, and give some poetic reason for it? a color with an interesting name? do i go the route of choosing a color that might be unable to be seen by the human eye, or become a color that does not yet exist? regardless of what i pick, let us say that i am now that color. am i still conscious? do i have any of my senses? or have i simply become a charge that has connected a few synapses in my viewers’ brains? i need more information. am i overthinking this?
4) Do you often and prefer to write sober? Why or why not?
i don’t drink. once, maybe twice, a year i’ll have an alcoholic beverage. i fear what my writing would become were i to attempt it under the influence. it’s bizarre enough.
5) Do you multitask while writing?
sadly, yes. i would get a lot more writing done if i didn’t. there are times where i can be totally focused, and know exactly what i am doing and where i am going with the words. during those times, everything else goes away. if i am at all uncertain, or not liking my draft as much as i think i should, i wander. i think you can guess where i wander to, typically. even listening to music, most of the time, is multitasking.
6) What genre(s) would you classify your writing under?
weird fiction. dark fiction. horror. whatever those are.
7) What do you do more, read or write?
right now, unless you count reading tumblr poetry, i am doing a lot more writing than reading. i do always have a short stack of books to read though. currently reading: clark ashton smith’s complete works.
8) What’s your favorite word and why?
this is an extraordinarily difficult question. i love most words. choosing one at random, “tree”. it is a simple, common word. but what it points to is extremely varied and complicated. also, i enjoy the sound of it. say it out loud. say it twenty times.
an excellent question. i think there are a few reasons.
i don’t remember most of my early childhood, but when i was in ...ehh… second? third? grade, i remember first learning about poetry. one of our assignments was to look at the sky, and describe it using a simile. mine was something simple, like “the clouds are like cotton balls”. my teacher was very proud of what i came up with, and praised me for it. at the time, it didn’t really change anything; i hated writing (in fact, later on i was forced to journal during a summer vacation one year because i was so bad at it, including my handwriting). but, clearly, my first poetry experience stuck with me, and i think guided me to all of my writing pleasures. (no, i do not have the journals. sorry, @thatrandompoet.)
another reason i write - my dad. he is a retired english/history teacher. and he was very good at what he did. it influenced my home life, certainly. but it also influenced my school life for three years, having a classroom that was right next to his. let us just say that every now and then our teacher would have to pause their lesson, for the master orator. (my dad was a teacher that was either loved or hated, there was no in between. again, he was very good at what he did.) ...did i have any choice, really?
i also write to stay sane. (i think all writers understand this.)
if you write in any way, shape, or form, and you have not already been tagged for these questions, consider yourself tagged.
