Blogging About Writing, Part 1

I saw this list of questions about writing on tumblr, and I'm a little bored, so here we are. I think technically you're supposed to encourage people to ask questions they want answers to, but nerts to that. There were 40 questions (really a lot more than that) and I'm not doing all that in one go, so I'll just take it 10 at a time whenever I need a post.

1. What font do you write in? Do you care, or is it just the default?

I think Blogger's in Arial. My Microsoft Word is on Calibri. Either way, it's the default setting.

2. If you had to give up your keyboard and write by hand, could you? If you already do, a) are you a wizard, b) pen or pencil?

Yeah, although I don't know how it would get on the internet where anyone could see it that way. I write some stuff by hand now, when I really want to get it down and there's no computer handy. While i have been accused of being a robot-wizard, I usually write in pen.

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

These days, I work on stories as the last thing I do before I go to bed. If it's cursed, it's because then I'm rewriting things in my brain when I should be sleeping.

4. What's a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

I don't know what they're looking for here. "Exaggerate", because I usually misspell it on the first try?

5. Do you have any writing superstitions?

No.

6. What is your darkest fear about writing?

I'm going to die before I write everything I want to, although that's tied to larger issues with mortality independent of writing.

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

When I get a nice bit of dialogue, or a good descriptive paragraph down on paper. The ones that make me feel pretty slick. I'm still fond of, 'Sentiment's for the guys who can afford it. I'm just cheap.' from The Ink-Stained Trail.

8. If you had to write an entire story without action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

When they say "action", do they mean fighting and car chases, or anything more than sitting in a chair talking? I've probably written a few of both. The one about getting out of the damn airport, most recently. I'd probably prefer to write without dialogue. I don't want to do the equivalent of a movie about two people sitting in a room talking for 90 minutes. Like Sergio Leone said, it's gotta have tanks!

9. Do you believe in ghosts? I just wanna know.

Sure, why not?

10. Has a piece of writing ever haunted you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Ghosts, superstitions, curses. Cripes, it's over 2 months to Halloween. Anyway, I don't know what haunted means to the person asking, but with other people's writing, I've read some opinions that were so stupid they wouldn't leave my mind. With my own, not so much, unless we're counting my annoyance when I re-read it and see typos.