Oh hey, why not...

[marnanightingale]

From tanacawyr

Ask me one question - any one - about my writing, then post this in your LJ so I can satisfy my curiosity about yours...

("Are you out of your flippin' mind?" does not count -- and the answer is Yes, anyway.)

Comments

[melusina]

Do you use an outline?

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Nope, not even rough notes.

I start somewhere, wherever I've got, and I write a draft, and that's pure gutting through, just making myself keep figuring out What Happens Next, then I go back and fill and tweak and change and move and delete and reconsider...

So I guess that first draft is the outline, but it's really more this very very compressed version of the story and then Skud and Cat say ok, ok, I know what you're getting at but UNPACK UNPACK UNPACK and poke me with sticks until I do.

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

When you reread your older stuff, or think back through past stories, what themes do you notice that you keep coming back to, and is that by choice, or just part of what drives you to write?

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.

"Love doesn't conquer all. Or anything, sometimes. But that isn't what it's for."
"Sooner or later, EVERYTHING ends in tears."
"Love is a succession of everyday basic decencies, courtesies and kindness."
"Every love is different. And it's all important, even if it's measurable in hours."
"Perfect and beautiful are not the same thing"

And ... both. Working those things out is what makes me write. Making them a part of the stories overtly, that's conscious choice.

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

Lovely answer. MAkes me a little scared, but eager to read more of your stuff. Perfct and beautiful are not the same thing." is my favorite.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Scared? Use more words?

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

I just get the feeling that you're the kind of writer who'll break my heart. :) Which is the kind of writer I like.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

I try not to dole out the pain gratuitously; hmm.

I guess I think of all of those as kind of hopeful statements. Cause, you know, once you accept that it's never going to be perfect, it's easier to see how it's good.

If that makes any sense.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Also, now that I've figured out where I have seen your name of late -- I think it's likely to be mutual; I'm enjoying your BSG.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Given all the work you must put in on your fic, do you ever think of filing the serial numbers off and selling it as profic?

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Not filing the serial numbers off, no.

These stories are very much a group production, for one thing -- and the huge efforts others go to for me is very much on the understanding that this is fannish production, being done for pleasure and for free -- the way we write is very communal, these are as much Skud's and Cat's stories as mine, even the ones with my name on them alone. It's not a structure that would work as a means of making profic, I don't think.

They very much belong to their present universe and characters, for another.
And giving them away is very much part of the process and the point.

Writing some original stuff with the understanding from the beginning that it is for sale - I ponder it, once in awhile. Not, as yet, very seriously.

I've had some non-fiction published -- not a lot -- and done some professional editing and proofreading, and my efforts are sort of going there right now. As professional activities, those are a better fit than fiction to me.

[litalex.livejournal.com]

Do you need to be attracted (intellectually, sexually, whatever) before you would write him/her? Or: would you voluntarily (i.e. not for bets, exchanges, special projects, etc.) write a character you find loathsome?

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.... good question. In the romance genre, which is very much where I've quite firmly been so far, I think likely no, aside from just having them as a minor character. Horatio AGGRAVATES me, sometimes hugely, but when I write him I like him better, 'cause I focus in on the parts of him I do like and find some sort of balance there.

I did write Barbossa once, by request, but even him I don't find wholly loathsome.

For the future, well, we'll see what happens...

[litalex.livejournal.com]

Love your icon.

So, anyway, how come there isn't more Sparrington? I was checking the backlogs for that community and saw that a lot of the, well, old-timers have more or less left. :(