Meme Answers: 6, 9, 15

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Here is the list.

From smallhobbit.

6, 9 and 15.

6: What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to writing?

My pet peeves when it comes to the writing process are commonplace. There aren’t enough hours in the day for home life and proper ficcing. There isn’t a way for the perfect scene or bit of dialogue to be downloaded from my brain to the page at the moment I think it (which is usually in the car or in the shower). Occasionally I get hung up on a point of grammar so if anyone knows of a single solid reference book when it comes to that stuff (commas, sentence fragments, etc.), feel free to drop a note in the comments.



My pet peeves with my own writing I’ve mentioned before. Descriptions of kissing are difficult. My pathological need to tell the reader where everyone is looking at any given moment in a scene. Not knowing (still after six years!) how long my interest in a given plot bunny/idea will last. Waiting too long to tackle something and finding the thrill is gone.

A pet peeve with other people’s fic: the word ‘cum.’

9: If you could wish for a new book from any author, who would it be?

Agatha Christie! Oh, please give me a tight, clever, puzzle-like, fair-play whodunit!

15: What kind of character do you wish you saw portrayed more often?

Poets! Good poets, bad poets, inferior, superior poets, suicidal, non-suicidal, consumptive and otherwise. Give me all of them.

I’m always happy when the detective doesn’t hate his wife, and the wife isn’t annoying.

I don’t need to see myself in characters. As a white woman, I’ve been represented enough. And I’m not really inspired as much as I’d like to be. For example, as much as I like Antiope from Wonder Woman, I know I’m never going to be that strong in any sense of the word. But given that I’ve cut myself off from my biological family over the current US political situation, I am finding the ‘found family’ a very appealing concept. So more of that!

Comments

[smallhobbit]

I sympathise with the inability to write at the point at which the words come into my head.

Cum at once if convenient ...

I agree about Agatha Christie. And having a decent detective's wife.

ETA: And thank you for answering my questions.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

You're welcome! Thanks for asking!

Yes, moments of brilliancy never arrive when you have a pen and paper (or equivalent) and a quiet moment to jot it all down.

Ha, ha! Right! ACD does NOT approve.

Yeah, I'm always holding my breath when I read a new detective. I'm reading George Bellairs' Inspector Littlejohn. We don't get much about Mrs. Littlejohn but then the Inspector slaps a 'hysterical woman' and I have to roll my eyes and sigh.

[misbegotten]

Found family is always a winner for me. To read and to experience. ;)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Ha! You always have the best icons!

And yea for found family!

[jesse_the_k]

Your opinions are entirely correct.


(On occasion I've seen "kum" and it generates a whole-body shiver of disgust.)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I love your icon!

Thank you very much.

Oh, goodness. Kum is a new one for me. Hmm. Sort of like 'kumquat'! :)

[potentiality_26]

Total agreement about detectives and their wives.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Cool! Nobody understand better than I do that marriages is a mixed bag, but this is one case where if it's a detective story I'm not really reading it for the detective's home life and it says a lot about the author if they think they need to have him in a bad marriage when he could just as easily be in a good one. I'd rather Mrs. Detective not be mentioned at all than mentioned in a negative light (she's cheating because the detective's never home or she's nagging or she has some kind of hobby that he belittles or she just doesn't understand him or God forbid she doesn't like his drinking!).

[ilthit]

But there are so many nice whodunits! Not exactly like Christie's, but I do love a mystery novel still.

(I don't have that problem with the detectives' wives, since I only read female detectives written by female writers these days, and have yet to find a lesbian one. My problem is when the detective is more focused on her husband/boyfriend than solving the case. Usually I will drop that series. Violet Carlyle is an exception. The boyfriend is awful but I so enjoy all the rest of it.)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Mysteries FTW! That there be kinds to suit all tastes.

[debriswoman]

Yep, I am all for more poets in novels:-)
And, it must be hard enough being a detective, without lots of domestic strife thrown in...

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Hee!

Yeah, I don't appreciate it thrown in just because.