Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Blog Survey

I discovered this set of useful questions in a Problogger post:

  • What was the reason you came to this blog?
  • Did you find what you were looking for?
  • What else would you like to see at this blog?


    • I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.
    Tags: blogging
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    • 51 comments
    ...go 7 levels up... Expand
    fayanora

    fayanora

    October 8 2008, 13:38:26 UTC 12 years ago

    Writing can be fun. Sometimes it is an emotional dump.

    Oh agreed! My main character in my Traipah novels, Nokwahl Vii'ah'dah, has things in common with me. Well, she was raped as a child, and I have never been raped, but she and I have suffering and strength in common. Though she's doing better than I am: I envy her!

    Sometimes it is an emotional pump :D For long stuff I find it hard work. I have the attention span of a gnat at times and I have to work at it to keep working.

    I generally have a very poor attention span, too, but if I am "in the zone," which happens more in my Traipah stories than any other stories, I can write 10 or 20 pages at once before getting tired. I become posessed of manic energy and single-mindedness when I'm in the zone.

    As to how my thinking affects my writing - I've had many comments over the years as to how visual my work is. I've also got a slightly odd way of writing, both in the way I structure my paragraphs and my turn of phrase.

    I haven't had much constructive critique of my fiction, but in my non-fiction, it seems I have a tendency to write in... what was the phrase? Ah yes: second person. Which is odd, because I didn't even know what second person WAS until she said that and I looked it up. I also tend to be overly verbose, apparently.

    But as a visual thinker, I'm totally fascinated to learn how other people think. My hubby doesn't think visually, but he can't seem to describe how he thinks in a way I can visualise to understand it :D So thanks for babbling on :D I dare you to babble more.

    Hubby... he. *Thinks* Would I be right to assume you're female, then?

    You might find this funny: normally, online, I assume new people are female unless I find out otherwise, but use genderless terms in relation to them. In your case, however, I assumed you were male. No idea why.
    gumnut

    gumnut

    October 9 2008, 12:16:39 UTC 12 years ago

    I've only ever derived one character from myself and that was for a fun role playing exercise. When I picked the character up and moulded it into its own universe and prepped it for writing a novel, I removed most of my character traits from it. I've never really been able to put whole chunks of me into a character.

    However, having said that, I could be lying or misinterpreting, as I have put single aspects of myself into individual characters. One of the useful things in my brain is its logic circuits. I can be very logical in certain situations. But I also have a very whacked emotional side that can go own its own little trips. I've found it useful to throw the logic into one character and the emotion into another and then pit them against each other in a buddy type relationship. Makes for good arguments and great banter. Also shows just how whacked my brain can get.

    The Zone! Oh, tell me of a writer who doesn't worship The Zone. When you can find it, it is bliss. when you find it and are interrupted, it could be cause some crime ending in -cide. Love The Zone :D

    Second person? You use a lot of 'you's? Interesting choice and a difficult challenge. I'm a bit boring in that my natural voice is point of view third person. I like to ride around in my characters' heads.

    Overly verbose? I've been accused of writing hyperbole. But I'm proud of the way I write. I know it is at least decent. Perhaps you should ask someone for some feedback? It can be very useful.

    Yes, I be female and don't worry, you're not the first person to think I'm male. Apparently apart from writing very visually, I also write like a guy. Which isn't surprising since my main genres are sci-fi and action adventure. I like blowing things up, racing cars and spaceships, that kind of thing. But at the same time I can be an emotional sop at the drop of the hat, so the female part of me still has na influence. If I ever publish, I'll use my initials and my surname like J.K. Rowling did, cos apparently guys don't like reading female authors and I write some male stuff.

    Nice speaking to you. Would you like to friend?

    Nutty
    (it has been a long day)
    ysabetwordsmith

    Hmm...

    ysabetwordsmith

    October 9 2008, 15:51:38 UTC 12 years ago

    Some of my characters have things in common with me -- some of them more than others. But none of them are what I'd call like me, or similar to me. I've been bemused by sources that claim all of a writer's characters are just aspects of the writer. Not only are my characters not all like me, they aren't even like each other! Even the ones in the same culture sometimes show strident differences (yay, plot tension).

    Sometimes I'm delighted to find ways that my characters work in harmony with me. Sometimes they do things that I wouldn't have thought of myself, but can apply in similar situations and work better than what I was doing before. Other times they do things that I would never do; not always wicked things, but also good things that are outside my capacity or style, or just plain alien things. I cherish that divergence. It keeps me from being too limited or repetitive or predictable.

    I change voices, too. Third-person is probably the most common for me, but I've done a fair bit with first-person and bifocal (alternating between two viewpoints, either 1st or 3rd). I've done second-person occasionally. "Goldenthread" is a combination of first and second person: that is, the narrator is telling the story, but speaking directly to "you" while doing so, not as if you're a distant observer but as if you're right there.
    fayanora

    fayanora

    October 11 2008, 09:06:12 UTC 12 years ago

    I've only ever derived one character from myself and that was for a fun role playing exercise.

    All of my characters have something in common with me. (Yes, even the villains.) It's really the only way I can come up with characters. For 10 years of my childhood, the only person I could relate to was me. Even now, I filter relations with other people through the filter of how things relate to me. Not egotism, just... I don't know any other way to be. Even compassion and empathy is mostly through the filter. Sometimes I can feel a person's emotions but not understand their reason, but unlike a friend of a friend, I don't need to understand the reasons.

    When I picked the character up and moulded it into its own universe and prepped it for writing a novel, I removed most of my character traits from it. I've never really been able to put whole chunks of me into a character.

    Yup. And I've never been able to make a character that didn't have *something* in common with me. Oh, I've tried. Never succeeded. All my attempts yield flat, shambling, mindless, soul-less creatures. Which would be good for a zombie character, but not people. So, since I don't know how to give characters soul any other way, I give them a piece of mine. How big that piece is depends on how much I like the character and what their role in the story is. But all of them have at least a sliver of my soul.

    However, having said that, I could be lying or misinterpreting, as I have put single aspects of myself into individual characters.

    Misinterpretation seems the answer. I don't generally "mary sue." Most of the time, unless someone knows me REALLY REEEEEELY well, they can't tell there's a piece of me in the character. And often, I obfuscate the pieces of me I put in by changing the details. For example, take Nokwahl, my main character in my novels. Like me, she has a lot of experience living through pain and psychological issues/damage. But her symptoms are different from mine, how she deals with them are different, and the cause is different. My problems were caused by being bullied and by my reaction to the bullying, which was to withdraw into a fantasy world of my own making. *Her* problems were caused by being raped as a child, something I have never experienced. So she has what, to me, is a big piece of my soul in her, but it expresses itself differently. Of course, it helps that I have a rather flexible self image.
    fayanora

    Continuing

    fayanora

    October 11 2008, 09:09:51 UTC 12 years ago

    One of the useful things in my brain is its logic circuits. I can be very logical in certain situations. But I also have a very whacked emotional side that can go own its own little trips. I've found it useful to throw the logic into one character and the emotion into another and then pit them against each other in a buddy type relationship. Makes for good arguments and great banter. Also shows just how whacked my brain can get.

    I have more than one kind of logic. One part of me is very skeptical of everything, but can be convinced of things that seem whacky to other people if it's given the right evidence. I call him Alex. Though when he's in a grumpy mood, he doubts everything to some degree or another.

    I guess I am very balanced, really. Kinda. Balanced in a wonky way, like a tightrope walker that slipped and can only stay balanced if hunched over, but balanced. Emotions I can't deal with get automatically shunted away to some dark corner of my mind, and I have The Filter which examines the things I wish to say and do, and either approves or denies them. And I'm quiet and still have a tendency to live inside my mind to varying degrees. Which allows me to act balanced, even if in truth things are all wonky. If I let those shunted emotions gather in the corner too long, they can build up pressure and be unhealthy.

    There was a period of 2 or 3 years where I was feeling a lot of stress continually, and shunting emotions constantly into their dark corner, behind a dam, or into a pressure cooker (whichever metaphor you like best), doing almost nothing to relieve the pressure and deal with the emotions. Then I found I was a multiple mind and things got worse, oddly. They began manifesting as brand-new, never-before-seen phobias that went contrary to my whole life (I've never been afraid of the dark, even as a child, but during this I was having bouts of intense nyctophobia, fear of darkness).

    It eventually got so bad that a little over 2 years ago, those emotions *exploded* in my brain and I had a psychotic episode wherein I was throwing things around the room breaking them, screaming, and I tried to throw myself down the stairs. It did major and possibly permanent damage to my already-damaged mind, and one of my Aspects has been in hiding ever since. My passion for romance has disappeared because of it. I was a highly passionate soul, writing all kinds of love poems and falling deeply in love. Some of the stress-causers and the eventual trigger for the episode were related to my romantic life, so maybe it's no surprise. But I went from writing love poems every week to now, I can't even remember the last time I wrote a love poem. Hell, the only poetry I can write anymore is nonsense and humor poetry.

    The Zone! Oh, tell me of a writer who doesn't worship The Zone. When you can find it, it is bliss. when you find it and are interrupted, it could be cause some crime ending in -cide. Love The Zone :D

    :-)

    Second person? You use a lot of 'you's? Interesting choice and a difficult challenge. I'm a bit boring in that my natural voice is point of view third person. I like to ride around in my characters' heads.

    In fiction, I am third person omniscient selective. But, oddly, in nonfiction I use 2nd person (lots of you's). I think it's from blogging, I tend to blog like I'm talking directly to the audience. After she told me about the 2nd person thing, I started noticing myself doing it in blogging. Blogging and nonfiction are the only times I use 2nd person.

    Overly verbose? I've been accused of writing hyperbole. But I'm proud of the way I write. I know it is at least decent. Perhaps you should ask someone for some feedback? It can be very useful.

    I have tried finding people who will give me positive feedback, but it's hard. I only like feedback from people I know will be gentle and kind with me, because negatively-given criticism triggers my defense mechanisms to go into "bully alert."
    ysabetwordsmith

    Re: Continuing

    ysabetwordsmith

    October 11 2008, 15:25:13 UTC 12 years ago

    Criticism should be constructive, not destructive. It's not much use if the person is just picking on you. You can't fix flaws effectively if they're described so nastily that your mind shies away from the whole issue.
    fayanora

    Re: Continuing

    fayanora

    October 13 2008, 04:12:44 UTC 12 years ago

    Indeed.
    fayanora

    Last one, I hope

    fayanora

    October 11 2008, 09:10:25 UTC 12 years ago

    (Man, I hate this 4300 character limit.)

    Yes, I be female and don't worry, you're not the first person to think I'm male. Apparently apart from writing very visually, I also write like a guy. Which isn't surprising since my main genres are sci-fi and action adventure.

    I write scifi and fantasy. The world I write my Traipah novels in looks like scifi in most stories, but in the second novel it was a hybrid of scifi and fantasy.

    I like blowing things up, racing cars and spaceships, that kind of thing. But at the same time I can be an emotional sop at the drop of the hat, so the female part of me still has na influence.

    My writing isn't very actiony, usually. It moves along fairly well, and is interesting, but I have a hard time writing action scenes. I have a hard time figuring out how to describe them.

    If I ever publish, I'll use my initials and my surname like J.K. Rowling did, cos apparently guys don't like reading female authors and I write some male stuff.

    Yeah, stupid guys. *Rolls eyes*

    Nice speaking to you. Would you like to friend?

    Indeed!