omg I'm so glad you reblogged this! 19, 32, 40, and any other one you want to answer!
19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?
Oh man, I really have no idea when or why I started writing because I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t doing it! I started reading at three (I have a touch of the ol’ hyperlexia, as is fairly common with autism) so I suppose it must have been after that. Maybe my first year of kindergarten? (Yes, I went twice.) There were definitely bumps; when I was around ten, my dialogue was all “he said, she said” and existed pretty much as islands of quotation marks in the middle of blocks of description (when I say my biggest issue has never been dialogue or narration but the integration of the two, I’m not joking, though I like to think I’ve improved since then).
Anyway, when my dad read one of my stories and pointed this out, it led to something that my parents still joke about to this day: an opening sequence where I painstakingly described every member of a family around a table and their exact relationship to the narrator as they each, one by one, contributed a single sentence (or two, or a fragment of one) to the conversation, before the next person in the circle was introduced. This lasted for like two and a half Microsoft Word pages. Twelve point font, single spaced.
To make up for that (and because you offered :)) — 17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text. (This one’s for i put this heavy heart in you)
When Boyd and Raylan were in the first grade, they grew bean sprouts in science class. Boyd overwatered his, so he swapped out his plant with Raylan’s when no one was looking. Tragically, it died. Raylan knew Boyd switched their plants, but he pretended to think it was the little girl Boyd had a crush on so that Boyd would have to pretend to be mad at her on Raylan’s behalf or else admit his treachery.
Many years later, two-year-old Pemberley dropped an entire scoop of ice cream on the kitchen floor. When Boyd got back with the mop, most of the scoop (aside from what had been directly touching the ground) had disappeared. Boyd obviously blamed the child, and Raylan is a horrible person who let him believe this lie. But Pemberley ratted on him, and Raylan has never lived down this shame.
40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.
This poem has been attributed to Margaret Atwood, but the page where I originally found it has disappeared off the internet and I’ve never been able to find any other proof of its existence aside from a woefully unsourced livejournal post. It’s very beautiful, either way.
You Heard the Man You Love
You heard the man you love
talking to himself in the next room.
He didn't know you were listening.
You put your ear against the wall
but you couldn't catch the words,
Was he angry? Was he swearing?
Or was it some kind of commentary
like a long obscure footnote on a page of poetry?
Or was he trying to find something he'd lost,
Then suddenly he began to sing.
because this was a new thing,
but you didn't open the door, you didn't go in,
and he kept on singing, in his deep voice, off-key,
a purple-green monotone, dense and heathery.
He wasn't singing for you, or about you.
He had some other source of joy,
nothing to do with you at all—
he was an unknown man, singing in his own room, alone.
Why did you feel so hurt then, and so curious,
