Blogging About Writing, Part 2

I'm back with another 10 of these questions because I can!

11. Do you believe in the old advice to, "kill your darlings?" Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

Well, originally I thought it meant specifically killing favorite characters I created and the answer would be, no. I rarely kill off any character I liked creating, because I might want to use them again some day. The one time I really did it, I wrote the story with two endings where they only all died in one of them, and most survived the second one.

But apparently it actually means to more generally kill of pieces of your writing that you might be really impressed with, but don't fit what you're writing, for whatever reason. The answer to that, is probably also no. I'll find a way to make it work if I like it enough.

12. If a genie offered you 3 wishes, what would they be? No wishing for more wishes, or all your works in progress get deleted.

To win a lottery so I could acquire enough money I no longer needed to work. Then I can spend my time doing what I want, like writing. To be physically the age I was 20 years ago, but not mentally. So I have more time of being physically capable of doing things I want to do. Third wish, um, well, it's either to remove enough greenhouse gas from the atmosphere to offset the global warming pattern (and move the excess gas to Mars because I'm curious what would happen), or for a sort of dictionary that I can vaguely describe the meaning of what I'm looking for, and it automatically finds me a word that means exactly that.

13. What is a subject matter that is easy for you to write about? One that is incredibly difficult?

Biology-related topics are pretty easy, or what you think about when you're on your own. I'm good at fight scenes and snappy dialogue. What am I not good at writing about? How much time you got? Describing architecture, clothing, food, music. Romantic love.

14. Do you lend books to people? Are they scared to borrow from you? Do you know where all your lost books are? Will you ever get them back?

My dad has a couple of mine, and Alex has all my Dark Tower books. No, they aren't scared. Obviously I know where they are. I will get the books from my dad eventually. At the latest, when he dies. I don't really care if I get the others back from Alex. I read them, that's good enough.

15. Do you write in margins of your books? Dog-ear pages? Read in the bath? Do you judge people for these things?

I dog-ear pages with passages I like, and then I the outline passages because sometimes I go to the dog-eared page and wonder what the hell I thought was so interesting the first time through. I take showers, which are not conducive to reading. I don't care what you do with your books.

16. What's the weirdest thing you've used for a bookmark?

A Chinese buffet fortune cookie fortune. I usually have bookmarks around, so improvisation is not required.

17. Talk to me about minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me lore, history, detail that won't make it in the text.

What did I say about killing darlings in question 11? If I went to the trouble to come up with it, I will damn well reference it somewhere in the story.

18. Choose a passage. Tell the backstory. How you came up with it.

From Sept. 30, 2008, "Middle-Aged Professorial Guy: Plethodon corrodious, the Dissolving Salamander. They measured 1.4 meters from nose to tail, and excreted a slime from their skin which first rendered their victim stuck in place, be it to the ground, a chair, another person. Then, as the slime reacted with the air, it ate away at the victim, until they melted into a lump of decomposing organic matter. This was most commonly created by the males, who then built the piles into nests, to entice females to lay their eggs there. When they emerged from the Potomac River on the eve of Andrew Jackson's 1828 inauguration, they caused quite a stir all along the Atlantic Coast."

I was drunk when I wrote this. OK, that's a lie. That entire post came about because I was working that job in the boonies and we caught a shrew we couldn't identify. So we needed to take it back to the office. The guy I was working with cut the top off an empty Vault soda can, dumped the shrew in, covered the top with some mesh screening and duct taped it in place. We drove to the office, i.d.'ed it, and I drove the shrew back to the woods and let it go.

While we were at the office, I envisioned trying to explain to our coworkers why we had a shrew in a soda can. Then I pictured some Abe Simpson style geezer going on a spiel about some ludicrous reason and things snowballed from there. I added the Professor guy because there were bits I came up with I didn't think the old lady would know, but I wanted to use (see also, my answer to question 11). We were dealing with salamanders that got really slimy when they were wet, and while the slime helped them slip from our grasp, it would make your fingers stick together after. So I modified that.

The thing about Andrew Jackson was because it was all the rage in comics at that time to do stories that said notable historical figures were involved in weird science or mystical crap. I know Fraction had some creator owned book about Tesla like that (Five Fists of Science), but I was probably mostly thinking of Atomic Robo.

19. Tell me about your writing journey? Where did you start? Why? Were there bumps? Where are you now and where are you going?

I am unclear on what this is supposed to mean? Why did I start writing? Well this blog started because there were opinions I had that were bugging me, and I needed an outlet. Something with some level of permanence. Writing stories is the same thing. I had ideas I wasn't seeing elsewhere, so I did it myself.  Like Dr. Doom, I always find it necessary that I have to save the world. Bumps? I dunno, not really. I have a lifestyle that allows for time to write, and sometimes offers experiences that can be incorporated into my writing. I'm not going anywhere. The only goal is to write well enough I'm reasonably satisfied with the final product.

20. If a witch offered eternal happiness with your true love or the ability to finally finish, perfect and publish your dearest WIP, which would you choose?

The second one. I need the ideas out of my skull. Besides, you gonna trust a witch not to screw you over on eternal happiness with your true love? How many babies did you sacrifice for that?