Writing Meme Day 29

[erastes]

29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?

I am sure that many other people have posted the same answer here, but in my case I think about writing all the time.  If I’m not consciously thinking about plot or characterisation, or (usually in bed or during commutes) acting out scenes (*cough* yes even those) in my head then there’s kind of a sub-routine running in my brain at all times, picking up dialogue heard on the street, noticing people holding hands, looking at what people have in their supermarket trolleys, listening (as this morning) to a programme on China and wondering how I could fit a story around the building of the Great Wall.

I think I was always an observer. The nosiness about the supermarket trolleys/baskets for example has long been a game of mine—my mother taught me to play it. You watch the basket in front of you and try to assess what kind of person they are, how they live, what their story is. Try it. It’s a lot of fun. Although don’t judge me for the box of wine and six boxes of cat food, will you?

But no, to the second question. I take things from real life and pop them into my historicals – I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard anything that reminds me of my books, which—knowing some of the characters, even the so-called heroes, is probably just as well.

Got my edits for Tributary. Erk. Noble ask to remove as many “was” words as possible. Goodness there’s a lot of them!  :)  I also  love an editor who ADDS semi-colons. Normally I have one who takes them out!!

Comments

[tiggothy.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you play the supermarket game too! Now I *know* other people do it, it doesn't seem so egotistical to wonder what people are thinking of me :-)

I used to try & confuse people with it though, when we lived over the back from Waitrose - it's easy to do when you can do several trips (as opposed to my weekly trip now I live in the sticks) e.g. I'd get flour & gin on one trip, and yeast and a lime on another. If I'd got them at the same time you'd have known I was making bread & drinking gin (& tonic, though would have to be inferred) :-)

Now I've just made myself sound *really* silly, haven't I?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

LOL - i love it that you are playing from the other side, even though probably the only other person playing is me!

Saw a SO HOT bloke in Tescos today buying one bar of chocolate and his basket had 12 bottles of washing up liquid in it. And that was all. Very odd.

[tiggothy.livejournal.com]

Maybe he's a science teacher or technician at a local secondary school - there's a bunch of chemistry experiments / demos which use washing up liquid

...or maybe he just needed lots of lubricant?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

i think he was a farmer

[beckyblack]

You mean there are people who don't go around with little scenes playing out in their heads the whole time? Weird.

Oh, wow, "was", my most hated word. I read about avoiding using "was" too much and decided to see how often I used in the thing I was editing right then, which was about 11k long. So I did a search and replace to turn every "was" into "****". Well it made an unspeakable number of replacements. I then went through and reworded as many of them as I could. I think I learned more from editing that one piece than I learned from any other bit of writing I'd ever done.

My current "exterminate on sight" word is "that".

[tiggothy.livejournal.com]

When I was 14 I had an English teacher who forbade the use of the words "nice", "small", "big" and a couple of others which I can't remember now.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Heh - yes, one of my teachers hated "nice" too.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Never having had a lesson in writing, I had no idea about was and that - I shall definitely be looking for them now, it staggered me how I can take out 99% of the thats and the sentence doesn't alter in the slightest. Sometimes it's necessary, though.

[beckyblack]

If my experience is anything to go by you won't have to look for them now you're aware. They'll dance on the page waving their serifs and then jump up and smack you between the eyes. ;-)