itsallovernow | Friday and writing thoughts

First of all, I have posted something for

farscapefriday's birthday. Swing by and say hi, leave a comment, a drabble, a few thoughts or some virtual beer:)

Second, in honor of real people, Happiest of Birthday's to the fabulous

elishavah and way belated, but no less enthusiastic best wishes to

boofadil!!

Last night I heard the best beginning of a piece of writing ever from a friend of mine talking about the poem she'd just written.

"Poetry is becoming a dead language," she said. "Like Latin."

That sentence could start revolutions, short stories, epics and songs and tidal waves. C'mon someone. Take it bring it back with a story attached.

In the writing vein, the writing meme, courtesy of

leadensky and

sophia_helix:

Name one thing you do consistently well:
Establishing authorial voice. My writing has kinks and quirks, too many adjectives and bendy sentence structure and a decided lack of pronouns, but I feel like it's got personality. Like the girl you introduce to your best guy friend who you kind of want him to date. You're not gonna rave about her great tits and ass or her nice eyes. Instead, you talk about her personality, then reap the benefits when he finds out she's also hot.

Name one thing you do inconsistently well:

POV. I can usually stick to one, make it fluid enough to not be omniscient but not be that wandering eye sort of POV, but sometimes I so badly want to say what the other person could be thinking or why they're acting a certain way that I ignore my better judgement.

Also, writing about sex, writing about sex as communication. I think I get it right more often than not, but it's still more often and not always.

Name one thing you do consistently badly:

Proof-reading. I have yet to produce anything that doesn't have a typo, a mis-use of it's or a glaring diction goof.

Name one thing you do inconsistently badly:

Plot. Or dialogue. Or editing. Sometimes I can't shred my babies to ribbons, sometimes I think it's all good and read the piece six months later and want to erase it and start all over again.

Name one thing you don't do well and feel bad about:

I'd love my prose and my stories to have that breathless ease that characterizes my favorite writers. I'd like my audience to be as surprised by my phrasing and metaphor and revelations and moments of pause and quiet as I am by other people. I'd like to have a fully formed plot in my head before writing.

Name one thing you don't do well and don't feel bad about:

Pre-plan. Edit as I go. Make outlines. Take notes. Do any of the work before I write. I know structures in my head, I plan as I go if it isn't pouring forth, but I've yet to make an outline of any sort prior to undertaking a project. I also do not feel at all bad about my never ending sentences or my lack of interest in pronouns in dialogue.

Describe the fantasy story that you'd write if you were the writer you'd like to be:

I'd like to write something textured and rich, something that makes me as giddy as Winter's Tale, as sort of doe-eyed and sighing as Guy Kay's Fionovar Tapestry made me when I was 16 and didn't know any better. I'd like to write something that endures. I'd like to write a space opera that is about the people involved, the people at the edges who are trying to navigate and exist in the complexities of a multi-specied, disgruntled set of places. A story about families and refugees and the fallout of conflict. If I were the kind of writer I want to be, the space opera would feel like film, would feel like a love story with a sense of wonder, would feel like a war story with a thready pulse, would feel like an origin story.