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1. What do you write, how often do you write, and how long have you been writing? I write fiction because all I read is fiction, and I vomit purple prose because of my traumatic childhood spent being taught how to write by public school teachers. In the last month or so, i've been writing every day minus Mondays and Thursdays, averaging about 1.5-2.5k words a day. That's picked up very recently thanks to Thunderdome and Textbroker, and over the last couple of days i've probably been averaging more like 3k. I've been writing, if you count teenage fanfiction, since I was about twelve. Now I write at the level of a thirteen year old and i'm extremely proud. 2. If you write professionally, do you also write as a hobby, or vice versa? And if so how do the experiences affect each other? I guess i'd consider Textbroker professional, if only because it pays. Honestly, my hobby writing seems to be affecting my professional writing negatively, since i'm trimming down my word economy. On Textbroker you get paid by the word, so that can be a problem. Even so, at this point it's the difference of a dollar, so i'm dealing with it. Other than that, i'd say writing professionally can be very helpful to hone your craft - it's selling out a bit, sure, but you start treating it a lot more seriously when it's the thing putting bread on your table. 3. What sort of training/education have you received that influences your writing? Between experience and education, which is more important for writing? This might sound strange, but i'd say the closest i've come to writing education would be playing MUDs. MUDs, or Multi User Dungeons are text-based online roleplaying games, so it's basically playing a tabletop game session that never ends. They range anywhere from expecting a name and a description to requiring a very elaborate backstory. They attract weirdos, sure, but i'm weird as hell so i've always been a big fan of them. Playing those games got me used to writing, even if they did encourage a lot of bad habits. What really got me into writing was when I was playing through a scene with other people and thinking "this would be way better if it was just me controlling everyone". It was a pretty meandering road, but I think it's the only one that could've led me to taking writing seriously as a craft. 4. What is your proudest moment as a writer? Or, alternatively, what do you hope to accomplish as a writer? Through some fluke, the first page of one of my stories happened to be really good. I was giving it to a co-worker of mine because she wanted to use it for an animation, and since she hadn't turned up it was just left on the table. The first page was about the brutal aftermath of a war, and a lone survivor crying in the ashes. My manager, a war veteran, sat down at the desk i'd left it on and started reading it, and then he found me and said "Only someone who's been in that situation could write that." Then he and I read the rest of it on our own time, since I hadn't read it in a while, and literally right at the start of page two it went to poo poo but hey, first page ruled. 5. Who do you look up to as a role model for writing and why? If you have no role model, then why not? I really, really like Terry Pratchett's writing. My grandma and I would go on camping trips when I was a kid, she'd just bring a big trunk full of all the Discworld books, and we'd sit there in the woods and just read for two weeks at a time. She passed away some years ago, but when i'm finally financially independent I plan on going on those little camping trips myself and doing the same thing. Partially in her memory, and partially because the Discworld series kicks rear end. I still actively try to avoid his style, if only because I want my own voice to take root, but it's a tough temptation to resist. 6. If you can only give one piece of advice to aspiring writers, what would that be? If you're in your teens, don't write if you don't have a story to tell. If you don't have any life experience, it's just a much better idea to go out and do something than it is to smash your head against a brick wall. You might find that writing isn't for you in the first place, and that you have some other skill that you don't even know you have. And if you come back and you really do want to write, then you'll have done enough that you have a platform you can really speak from. I only noticed that this thread achieved it's purpose when I was halfway done, and at that point it was just an excuse to type some more words. I hope my keyboard's a masochist, because I guess I am.
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Dec 17, 2015 02:31
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 14:14 |
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