'Ariel'
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
because I was a little blonde girl in a wheelchair and should have drowned looking up in a rainstorm like a turkey, right?
One member of both my writing groups and a long-time friend still gets teased--it's become apocryphal--about the poem she tried to write about the Heaven's Gate cult, using suicidal turkeys as her metaphor.
Now that I think about it, The Secret Garden was also the first musical where I noticed the sets as something other than just "stuff that makes it look like the place it's supposed to be."
I remember being extremely wary when a child psychologist or similar asked me to tell them a story. I'd always just tell the story of a book I was reading or a play I'd seen, and absolutely refuse to tell anything of my own. I couldn't have articulated why, but it just seemed way too personal to tell to some stranger who was obviously trying to get me to like him.
Since high school, most of what I've written, other than autobiographical stuff, has been things that were set sort of in the real world but with some magical elements -- ghosts or people with magic powers or things like that. A few attempts at YA romance that didn't really go anywhere, though a few of those are still in my "maybe I can figure out something to do with this" file. A few that went more toward the sci-fi end of things, but I haven't been happy with many of those -- I couldn't get the science to work out in a way that served the story, or I couldn't get the plot to work out in a way that didn't totally screw up the science.
I'm *so* tagging "If you replace the talking horses with burned-out detectives, there are some clear similarities." Even if it does make me think Bayliss-as-Mr. Ed. "What kind of society *is* this, Wilbur?"
I'm *so* tagging "If you replace the talking horses with burned-out detectives, there are some clear similarities." Even if it does make me think Bayliss-as-Mr. Ed. "What kind of society *is* this, Wilbur?"You so should. When I first read that, I thought, "Huh, I thought I was reading Anne's post. I never noticed her post ending and erika's beginning," and had to scroll up to the top of the post, to name check.
"What kind of society *is* this, Wilbur?"
can't... breathe...
Wow. This really got me thinking.
The other thing that is a constant theme, both in my reading from childhood on and my writing? Women. Sounds broad, I know (ahem -- no pun intended), but it's women's lives, the daily details, what sets us apart from men, that has always interested me. In the Little House books, which I also adored, it was the chores the girls and Ma had to do just to get food on the table every day. In one of the books, Ma and Pa have to go away for a few days, and Laura and Mary decide to clean the house, including refilling the mattresses with fresh straw. I read that chapter over and over.
The historical perspective on women's lives -- how they've changed, what the limits used to be, what they still are -- have always fascinated me, but even now, I rarely read books written by men. And most of the nonfiction I read has a women's studies bent -- The Girl Sleuth by Bobbie Ann Mason, Hamlet's Mother by Carolyn Heilbrun.
Point being, almost everything I have an interest in writing has to do with some facet of that. I almost never write male protagonists, unless the form requires it (and romance does), and the books I long to write are YA stuff about girls, usually involving some paranormal aspect as a jumping off point or metaphor, and a novel that has to do with the relationship between three generations of women.
What drew me in were the characters--I have always been interested in books as a window into other people's lives and hearts.
This really resonates with me, although I guess I'm simply more interested in a window into women's lives. And now I feel terribly sexist.
I know. The fact that I would ride either doesn't help much.
What drew me in were the characters--I have always been interested in books as a window into other people's lives and hearts.
This really resonates with me, although I guess I'm simply more interested in a window into women's lives. And now I feel terribly sexist.Argh! AmyLiz, please don't agenda yourself out over your artistic preferences. If you were writing horse stories, would you be worried that you were speciesist? If you were a ballet dancer, would you feel guilty for not tap dancing. You know what interests you--gets your mind thinking--your creative juices flowing, and you're able to harness that power. That's a gift, not a moral failing.
can't... breathe...
(also dying over here)
And now I feel terribly sexist.
But why? You're female. When I was bedbound as a kid, my sister Alice would draw exquisite little paper doll characters and act out the scenes from the books for me. Her favourite - considering the name, no big shock - was Alice and Through the Looking Glass. But she also adored Milne and acted out Pooh for me. I was very much a Christopher Robin child, but interestingly, I never saw him as a little boy - I just saw him as a kid. There was nothing "Boys Book of Big Boyish Adsventures!" about Christopher Robin - he could just as easily have been a little girl. "Silly old bear!" is not gender-specific or even gender-inclined, surely?
You guys, I've got too much to write to be thinking about writing crazy stuff like that. Please to not encourage my Ultimate Badfic. Kthxbye.ETA: And I think it's natural for women to read women stories. And it's not like we ever miss getting the guy's side, believe me.