30 days of fanfiction meme (days 25-29)
Jul. 29th, 2011 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaLJ is back up sorta, have some content. Lots of content.
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.
28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?
I picked fiction writing as "my" art - I was very young at the time - partly because no one else "owned" that one in my family (poetry and memoir yes, but not fiction), partly because you could practice it with the least overhead/equipment and the most alone time. Want to dance? You have to buy shoes and rent a studio. Want to make a film? That requires dealing with actors. XD; I'm much more mature about trusting other people's expertise now, as a grownup, but at base this is the kind of person I am. Discussing WIPs (mine, yours) is fun. Actual collaborative writing is more a Does Not Compute than a Do Not Want. One day I would have to sit at the end of a table and watch people write collaboratively, and then I would understand what that even means.
I've tried collaborating with artists but it's always petered out on my end. I've also occasionally received art after the fact - fanart - and that's absolutely lovely, but not the same thing as collaboration.
29 – What is your current project or projects?
I finally feel like I can write, these days, but I have shockingly little time to do it in. XD; I am going to do my best to beat the stuffing out of the Madoka story by the first week of August! Was actually going to post the first bit to carnet but LJ DDoS etc.
To be honest probably most of my ideas are origfic at this point, because I've been marinating in large fandoms I don't really feel the need to write for. All the WIPs are origfic, except for the Madoka and the GitS. One thing I've been thinking of doing - and I know I've talked about this - is a straight rewrite of The Blind Banker to make it not stupid. XD;;; As a Genuine Chinese Person(tm) I have a slight leg up on this one, I guess. My other options for Sherlock are to do "Scandal in Bohemia" which I clearly won't because it'll ruin the upcoming canon for me, and Inception-universe fusion AU even though I don't read Inception fic. They're all massive-scale concepts, is the problem. It's more tempting to go "fuck it" and write about Charles and Erik eating sandwiches or something.
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.
28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?
I picked fiction writing as "my" art - I was very young at the time - partly because no one else "owned" that one in my family (poetry and memoir yes, but not fiction), partly because you could practice it with the least overhead/equipment and the most alone time. Want to dance? You have to buy shoes and rent a studio. Want to make a film? That requires dealing with actors. XD; I'm much more mature about trusting other people's expertise now, as a grownup, but at base this is the kind of person I am. Discussing WIPs (mine, yours) is fun. Actual collaborative writing is more a Does Not Compute than a Do Not Want. One day I would have to sit at the end of a table and watch people write collaboratively, and then I would understand what that even means.
I've tried collaborating with artists but it's always petered out on my end. I've also occasionally received art after the fact - fanart - and that's absolutely lovely, but not the same thing as collaboration.
29 – What is your current project or projects?
I finally feel like I can write, these days, but I have shockingly little time to do it in. XD; I am going to do my best to beat the stuffing out of the Madoka story by the first week of August! Was actually going to post the first bit to carnet but LJ DDoS etc.
To be honest probably most of my ideas are origfic at this point, because I've been marinating in large fandoms I don't really feel the need to write for. All the WIPs are origfic, except for the Madoka and the GitS. One thing I've been thinking of doing - and I know I've talked about this - is a straight rewrite of The Blind Banker to make it not stupid. XD;;; As a Genuine Chinese Person(tm) I have a slight leg up on this one, I guess. My other options for Sherlock are to do "Scandal in Bohemia" which I clearly won't because it'll ruin the upcoming canon for me, and Inception-universe fusion AU even though I don't read Inception fic. They're all massive-scale concepts, is the problem. It's more tempting to go "fuck it" and write about Charles and Erik eating sandwiches or something.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-29 06:04 pm (UTC)Hell yes! I'd love to see that. Blind Banker makes me wince every time.
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Date: 2011-07-30 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-30 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 10:34 am (UTC)On the other hand, I would read the crap out of any fic you write involving sandwiches, or indeed any kind of food. I may have a bit of a thing for food in your fic. :D