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petroniaThough I always meant to compile the posts here when I was done. I'm glad I'm coming to the end of this - it was fun, but I feel as if I've been a massive bore nattering on about myself every day. XD;
25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?
If I really get a good flow going, then the playlist peters out and the tea gets cold. Music is an important element of the thought framework for basically all my stories, but I do my important (curatorial) listening before and after the actual act of writing. Anyway I don't listen to as much music on the computer as I used to. Even when I did it wasn't so much to set the mood as to stabilize it, as one might use caffeine or alcohol or even sugar.
There are some specific stories where I remember an album being a lucky crutch - Brian Eno for the Blind Go fic, notably. I know I've tried "sexy" mood music but IDK exactly what. XD;
26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?
I enjoy research. I wouldn't like to drill down on a single topic to the extent of a PhD, but the scattershot approach inherent to fiction writing is always fun, and I'm more comfortable with finding information than making it up. So, yanno, what is odd? XD; The interior design of a specific IRL boutique hotel in Berlin (Lyonnesse)? The stimulant drug trade in Southeast Asia (Traffic)? Genetic algorithms for solving go games (A Proof By Contradiction)? Italian breath mint flavours (Honour)?
27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?
I actually am one of those people who write best with a pen in a paper notebook at a sunny cafe table surrounded by strangers, with a bottomless drink at their right elbow. Rather, I'm sure the vast majority of my stories made a start on paper, but I have to take the draft to the computer at a fairly early stage, just because the pen isn't efficient for the way I correct and refine and correct and refine. Those of you who've received my postcards would be surprised at what the "creative" handwriting looks like. I also - and I would love to know if anyone else is like this - find it really hard to judge my own product if it doesn't at least look like a printed page. Wordperfect 6.0 (or whichever one was first black Times New Roman on white, instead of white screen text on blue) did more for my writerly ambitions than any factor before or since.
Writing on the computer would be more efficient if there were no Internet. But being on a computer with no Internet feels to me like being in a room with no possibility of air circulation.
25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?
If I really get a good flow going, then the playlist peters out and the tea gets cold. Music is an important element of the thought framework for basically all my stories, but I do my important (curatorial) listening before and after the actual act of writing. Anyway I don't listen to as much music on the computer as I used to. Even when I did it wasn't so much to set the mood as to stabilize it, as one might use caffeine or alcohol or even sugar.
There are some specific stories where I remember an album being a lucky crutch - Brian Eno for the Blind Go fic, notably. I know I've tried "sexy" mood music but IDK exactly what. XD;
26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?
I enjoy research. I wouldn't like to drill down on a single topic to the extent of a PhD, but the scattershot approach inherent to fiction writing is always fun, and I'm more comfortable with finding information than making it up. So, yanno, what is odd? XD; The interior design of a specific IRL boutique hotel in Berlin (Lyonnesse)? The stimulant drug trade in Southeast Asia (Traffic)? Genetic algorithms for solving go games (A Proof By Contradiction)? Italian breath mint flavours (Honour)?
27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?
I actually am one of those people who write best with a pen in a paper notebook at a sunny cafe table surrounded by strangers, with a bottomless drink at their right elbow. Rather, I'm sure the vast majority of my stories made a start on paper, but I have to take the draft to the computer at a fairly early stage, just because the pen isn't efficient for the way I correct and refine and correct and refine. Those of you who've received my postcards would be surprised at what the "creative" handwriting looks like. I also - and I would love to know if anyone else is like this - find it really hard to judge my own product if it doesn't at least look like a printed page. Wordperfect 6.0 (or whichever one was first black Times New Roman on white, instead of white screen text on blue) did more for my writerly ambitions than any factor before or since.
Writing on the computer would be more efficient if there were no Internet. But being on a computer with no Internet feels to me like being in a room with no possibility of air circulation.
