Tag Archives: questions

You Asked…

Beautiful DiseaseY is for questions that You Asked 😉

Last month I asked people to ask me questions that I would answer for letter Q. I’ve cheated a little bit and used them for Q is for Questions as well as I is for I Lied. I still have a lot of questions left over though so I thought I’d cheat again today (just a little, sheesh :-p) and answer a couple more.

Beth asked:

You juggle so many things at once right now. What is your favorite writing-related thing? What fills you with dread (other than rejection!)?

My favourite writing-related thing in the whole world is when someone reads something I’ve written and likes it. I know that sounds a bit cliche but it’s totally true. I treasure every comment and the couple times I actually received emails from strangers saying they liked my work (!!) I got all weepy. Acceptances are a close second on my favourites list, but approval from readers means more to me than approval from editors (sorry editors).

The thing that fills me with dread is the idea that someone will mistake what my characters think and say as being what I think or feel. I’ve got a homophobic character in a recent work, for example. A very vocal homophobe. I worry that people will read that story and think I am using him as a mouthpiece for my own opinions. I guess that’s actually rather unlikely given how vocal I’ve been known to be about gay rights and equality, but the idea remains the same. I don’t want people to think my characters are myself. But, that’s one of those things I can’t do anything bout, so *shrugs* I guess I better learn to let it go LOL

BD asked:

If you could only ever play one position again, would you DPS, heal, or tank?

^_~

This is a seriously bratty question and BD knew it. I have a lot of alts in World of Warcraft because I’m fickle. I want to play one role one week and a different role the next LOL

For those of you who don’t play MMOs, DPS, heals and tanks are the three different roles in a typical game. The tank is the person in heavy armor whose job is to keep all the monsters mad at them so they don’t run around and smack all the other people in lighter armor (the squishies). The tank is the person in charge, they maneuver the monsters, positioning them how they want and leading their group through the dungeon or raid. I tend to have control issues, which is why I like tanking. At the same time, I get frustrated if I have DPS who make my job more difficult and it’s a pretty high-pressure job. That’s great if you’re in a group of your friends who like you and won’t freak out if you make a mistake, it’s less great if you’re in a random group of people you’ve never met before and who have no expectation of seeing you again. That combination tends to make people be bigger jerks than they otherwise would be, and the tank is a great target for all that vitriol if things aren’t going exactly how they expect. If I could only play one role ever again it wouldn’t be a tank. I could get my tank-y fix by soloing with a tanky character 🙂

DPS classes are the damage-dealing ones (DPS stands for Damage per second). These characters are in lighter armor than the tank and their number one job is to avoid drawing the attention of the monsters you’re killing. Their second job is to kill it. Each class has different skills and abilities that they use to buff their party members, kill monsters and offer support to their team. DPS is the lowest pressure position in any MMO because there are more of them in any group so they can pick up the slack for each other if necessary (a dungeon group is 1 tank, 1 healer and  DPS, for example). I like being a DPS because of the lack of pressure but DPS comes with a whole different set of pressure — competition. People run meters that track how much damage they are doing and how quickly and they are very competitive. You don’t want to be the person who is doing the least, let me tell you.

That’s why, if I had to pick one role to play for the rest of my life it would be healing. It was a very tough call because I like DPSing, but I think healing wins. I think their role is kinda self-explanatory. The healer’s job is to heal everyone in their group to keep them alive and kicking. This is obviously a pretty high-pressure position, but it’s not high pressure in the ‘You’re in charge so if anythign goes wrong it’s your fault’ way, nor is it in the ‘Numbers matter above everything else no matter what the extenuating circumstances are’ way. It’s high pressure in the ‘If you don’t do your job people will die’ way and that’s the best possible way. It means you have very finite and obvious ways to measure your success. Is the boss dead? Are at least one of your teammates still standing? Congratulations, you win!

That would be my choice… I think.

Arlee Bird asked:

Why do you blog?

Ooh, good question. When I started blogging on Livejournal in 2002 I think it was partly because everyone else in my circle of friends was doing it, but mostly because of a bit of an exhibitionist streak. Then when I gave up my other job so I could focus on writing (ha! focus. I wish LOL) it seemed like it would be a good idea to have a website that represented me online, as well as a central place to list my publications. Thus, this blog was created. That’s why I started it, but I guess the reason I maintain it is a combination of professional obligation, to connect with friends and readers, and an exhibitionist streak.

So now I’ll ask you, readers, why do you blog? I know most of you do because I follow your links to your blogs every day LOL

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This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter Y. On Monday I’ll be blogging about something that starts with the letter Z. If you know me at all it’s probably not difficult for you to guess that that might be 😉

 

 

Questions

In doing this Blogging from A to Z challenge (which is more difficult than I’d expected) I was stuck for a topic to go with Q so I asked people to ask me questions I could answer. Thankfully people took pity on my pleading and asked me some questions. I answered the first couple on my “I” post (I Lied), and now I’m going to tackle a few more. I’m not going to answer them all though, because, um, well, I may need them for another post later this month LOL

Huushiita asked:

What are some of your WIP that you have? Do you even have any? lol

I have several. It’s actually kinda tricky to set a definite number because I have dozens of poem first drafts in notebooks that are resting before I revise, polish and submit them. If we don’t count them though, or the stuff I’ve started working on and then filed in my “In Progress” folder (likely) to be never seen again I have four novels in various states of done-ness, three short stories in desperate need of attention (two are unfinished and one is in need of serious revision) and two pieces that I don’t know how long they’re going to be when they are done. You could say that focus is not my strongest skill.

ETA: Apparently answering questions also isn’t my skill. I went to bed and then realised I hadn’t actually answered this question and worse, I knew I’d never sleep until I did.

So, to answer the question you asked (what are some of your WIPs) rather than the one I read (How many WIPs do you have?):

I’m working on Twixt which is a YA novel about a girl who is trapped in the land between this life and whatever comes after. I’m also working on a genie novel currently titled Consequence and I’ve got parts of my brain chewing away on another novel set around Krakatau right before it blows. That story doesn’t have a working title yet, but it does have a lot of awesome. I mean, a monster volcano and shapeshifters erm, that is, secret awesomeness.

On the short story front I’m struggling to work on a rather classically-styled ghost story, an Antikythera machine-inspired piece, and a couple stories about some sexy demons. I don’t know yet how long those last two are going to turn out to be… I’ll have to find time to start working on them some more to start figuring that out. I’m also working on a graphic novel with Danica that has a lot of fun (a lot of challenges too, as you can imagine) which really deserves more of my time than its getting.

This blogging challenge and the poem a day challenge are consuming all my writing time right now, but thankfully the subconcious keeps chewing away on things when I can’t devote all my attention to them LOL Come May my priorities are going to be Twixt and whatever else looks shiny when the time comes 🙂

Do you write with music on? If so, what is your go-to song/band/album? What music do you prefer?

It depends. When I’m writing poetry I prefer to have the radio on low and in the next room, it provides some background noise without actually being influenced by it. When I’m working on fiction, however, it’s anyone’s guess LOL Sometimes I need the low radio (I positively cannot work in silence) and sometimes I like having identifiable music playing. For example, when I wrote the last draft of Shadows my playlist was mostly Taylor Swift, but I also wrote a novel while listening exclusively to King Diamond.

Do you ever get cravings for ice cream from out of nowhere? What’s your flavour of choice?

Nah, not really. Ice cream isn’t my foodie weakness. Right now I’m all about stuffed jalapenos. Om nom nom. I did talk about ice cream in my previous question post though. You can check it out here, iffin yer curious.

Why must you be so damn bloody awesome? <3

I wasn’t sure if I should post this question or not LOL I don’t feel particularly awesome, but saying that feels like fishing for compliments, which I most assuredly am not. If I truly were awesome, I’d have had a super funny response to make to this question, but I don’t, I only have thanks, for making me smile 🙂

Ness asked:

what happened to your newsletter?

It fell victim to a combination of a bit of impostor complex (Who am I to have a newsletter? Does anyone even read this thing?) and a particularly bad depression that forced me to seriously cut back on the number of things I was doing. I’m feeling a lot better these days so perhaps it’s time I considered sending it out again. After all, there are still subscribers there… Hmm… We’ll see, we’ll see…

have you had ‘the talk’ with dani yet?

I honestly thought about making this it’s own blog post, I could talk about it quite extensively. However, I decided that I’d take the lazy way out and just address it here instead, in short form 🙂

Personally, I don’t believe in ‘the talk’. I believe in a dialogue, a continuous dialogue that takes place over many years. Jo and I have always spoken openly with Danica about sex, keeping our answers age-appropriate, of course. She knows she can come to us with any questions she may have (and she does) and receive non-judgemental, correct information in response.

In all honestly, the more difficult questions to answer are not about the biological / physcial things about sex. Much, much harder are the questions about relationships (romantic and otherwise). Emotions are so much trickier than mechanics LOL We try to answer those as openly as we can, giving Danica information, advice or sharing our own similar situations, but then leaving her to make her own decisions and act on them.

you’ve written a lot of things set in aphanasia. do you have more? how many more do you think you’ll write?

I do have more. A lot more LOL And I will write them, someday. Right now, however, I really feel like I need to take a little break from Aphanasia to work on a couple of the other stories that are tossing about in my brain. That being said, even now, when I’m trying to devote all my attention to revising Twixt I’m still occasionally struck with an idea for See The Sky Again, which is another Aphanasian novel I started working on a while back and plan on finishing someday (oh, and I didn’t include that in my count of WIPs. Sorry Huushii, I guess that makes it five novels).

Thank you guys for your questions 🙂 I’m going to tackle a few more in the near-ish future 🙂

 ~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter Q. If you come by tomorrow I’ll be talking about Rejection. In the meantime, don’t forget about Niteblade’s fundraiser. I know I’ve said it before, but we really, truly need your help.