fahye: ([tmhs] time has stopped dead)
Fahye ([personal profile] fahye) wrote2008-07-27 09:54 pm
Entry tags:

time has stopped dead

Nicked from [livejournal.com profile] octavius_x:



What's the last thing you wrote?
This little Tempest ficlet.

Was it any good?
I am quite fond of it for a rush job, yes.

What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?
Either my First Ever, Awesomely Awesome Mary Sue Fanfic, or Quindlemire, my epic half-novel from my teenage years.

Write poetry?
Occasionally!

Angsty poetry?
Mmm, a couple a long time ago. Not really any more.

Most fun character you ever wrote?
This is probably just because he's fresh in my mind at the moment, but: the Master is great fun. Though I've had some amazing times writing Lucifer as well.

Most annoying character you ever wrote?
UCHIHA FUCKING SASUKE.

Best plot you ever wrote?
Hands down that would be Crying Call, in which I pulled a complicated series of alliances and sabotage missions and crises and interweaving threads out of my ASS while I was writing what I thought was a nice simple Good Omens/Firefly crossover. HAH.

Coolest plot twist you ever wrote?
I'd like to think it was the end of Fortuna Fugit.

How often do you get writer's block?
Unable-to-write-anything-at-all? Not very often. Unable-to-write-the-thing-I'm-meant-to-be-writing? PRETTY MUCH CONSTANTLY. This is why I'm always working on a million things, and why I can be halfway through something epic and end up writing drabbles in a completely different fandom instead.

How do you fix it?
The easiest way to fix general writer's block is to get drunk. I tried not to indulge in this too often even when alcohol was readily available to me instead of being generally unaffordable, as it is now. Otherwise I read books or fic that have the tone that I am aiming for in whatever I am writing; my failsafe is a handful of fics by [livejournal.com profile] pogrebin and [livejournal.com profile] spikeyboots that can usually get me producing something. As for the other type...I can force myself to write, if I have to, but I usually hate it and this usually shows in the writing. I don't know how to make my brain concentrate on one thing when it wants to think about another.

Do you type or write by hand?
Type. Sometimes I can scribble scenes by hand if they're clear in my head, but my writing method is so completely nonlinear that I need to be able to dart around a document and pull things around and leave myself reminder dot points or definitions or quotes, etc.

Do you save everything you write?
Yes.

Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?
I imagine I might! I have a few fanfics that have been on the go for AGES that I'd still like to finish, and I still quite like the basic concepts of a lot of my old-old-old original stuff.

What's your favorite thing that you've written?
Oh GOD. I don't know. I was immensely happy with Fortuna Fugit, and recently I have been very proud of Triage. But I think my favourite thing I have ever written is Daddy's Gonna Buy You A Looking Glass, oh man, what does that even say about me as a person. But I love it. I LOVE IT. I really think I nailed the characterisations, and I got to explore a delicious mix of ideas and theories and future-projections, and the prose works without being too heavy.

What's everyone else's favorite thing that you've written?
I...don't know?* Going by sheer volume of comments, Benevolent Sibling or Turn Your Sail.

Do you ever show people your work?
Yes!

Who's your favorite constructive critic?
[livejournal.com profile] schiarire, because she knows both me-as-a-person and me-as-a-writer SO WELL by now that she a) can pick up on when I'm being lazy or falling into bad habits, and b) isn't afraid to be blunt.

Did you ever write a novel?
I've written half of one? And I have the rest of the plot all planned out and everything. Quindlemire was written between the ages of 13 and 18 and it's probably pretty dreadful as far as writing goes, but I adore all of my characters and my light-hearted plot and who knows, maybe one day I will overhaul it and drag it to completion.

Have you ever written fantasy, sci-fi, or horror?
Lots of the first, and a couple of things that probably fall within the second, but not the third.

Ever written romance or teen angsty drama?
My early fanfics were kinda like that. Although I have been known to write love stories, you know, even recently :D

What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?
Errr. I don't much like horror but I could see how it might be fun as an experiment. I will never write just romance.

How many writing projects are you working on right now?
UM. Twelve? And that's not even everything that's in my 'Fannish WIP' folder, just the ones that I actively intend to finish. And that doesn't even take my original fics into consideration. I kind of hate my brain sometimes.

Do you want to write for a living?
...I'm going to say yes, because I think I'd rather be an author than anything else, but I don't think it's very likely. I haven't got the attention span for it. And I don't want to just write, at this stage in my life: I want to learn about how people work, and then maybe fix them for a while, or do something big and grand in the field of public health. And THEN write.

Have you ever written something for a magazine or newspaper?
Yes. I had a short article published in the Double Helix science magazine, I had a lot of poems published in the Junior Times section of the Canberra Times when I was in primary school, and I had a scifi flashfic accepted by an online zine once.

Have you ever won an award for your writing?
I was a finalist in a writing contest in primary school, and I came third in a short story competition run by a local bookshop a few years ago. Never won anything for fanfic :D

Ever written something in script or play format?
Yes. It's not very good.

What is your favorite word?
Solipsism. Cadence. Dominion. Zenith. I HAVE LOTS MORE.

Do you ever write based on yourself?
Yes, quite frequently, though it's not like I sit down and decide to do it. I just borrow bits and pieces of experience and opinion and slot them in when they fit, like most writers.

Which of your characters most resembles you?
One whose story only exists in my head at the moment, so she probably doesn't count. Um. I don't have enough original characters for this question to work very well. Probably...Sophie or Lucifer. HOW DEPRESSING.

Where do you get ideas for your characters?
I. Er. I don't know? Sometimes I have to construct their basics quite deliberately and then they reveal themselves to me gradually (Kenneth and Sophie) and sometimes they just pop up fully-formed (Anna and Will!).

Do you ever write based on your dreams?
Good lord, no, I can never remember enough of my dreams for that to work. Besides, my dreams tend not to have plots.

Do you prefer happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?
Hmmm. I don't think I've ever written a cliff-hanger as a proper end to anything; that's just sloppy, really. I like happy endings, or at least satisfying endings.

Have you ever written anything based on an artwork you've seen?
Well, I pretty much constructed the Silver City plot on the basis of an Anselm Kiefer exhibition?

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
YES. Well. By 'concerned with grammar' I mean 'concerned with how it sounds', which is sometimes but not always the same thing.

Ever write something entirely in chatspeak?
No.

Does music help you write?
YES. I can't write in silence. I have a main writing playlist called 'Suture' because I put it together for that fic, but now I use it for most things, and I keep adding to it. If a story has a very particular mood or if I want to write it to maybe two or three songs on repeat, it gets its own playlist.

Are people surprised and confused when they find out you write well?
What, in real life? Er. I have no idea. It doesn't really come up.

Quote something you've written.

Tony swayed across the room, inwardly congratulating sober-Tony on buying such a wonderful white shaggy carpet thing. It felt good between his toes. His -- toes.

"Jarvis, where're my shoes?"

"I'm afraid I cannot provide you with that information."

"What? Does that mean you don't know, or is this one of your, oh, Mr Stark is drunk and he's unwittingly triggered one of his own security clauses but instead of telling him outright I'll just be a giant silicon pain in the ass about it --"

"Had a bit of trouble with the word 'unwittingly', didn't we, sir?"


(from my Iron Man WIP, as a reminder to myself to finish it one of these days)

~

*I am really curious now! Tell me, dear flist: what is YOUR favourite thing that I've ever written?
sophistry: ([PotC] blow you back to me)

[personal profile] sophistry 2008-07-27 02:58 pm (UTC)(link)
/da;lkjfsals; Iron Man snippet. *_____*

Favourite thing you've written: off my head, it is (predictably) a tie between Crying Call and Turn Your Sail - the former just because it is FUCKING AWESOME, and the latter because it is the perfect intersection of 'fic by you', 'canon I know/adore', and 'providing so-very-much-needed-oh-my-god emotional closure'.

...Great, now I want to go read it again and also listen to 'Up Is Down' on repeat for like 36 hours.

[identity profile] miscellanny.livejournal.com 2008-07-27 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Probably the HCL story. (Not just because of Billy).
ext_23722: ((tv) wonders of the universe)

[identity profile] ariastar.livejournal.com 2008-07-27 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Um, right now my favourite thing you've written is Uncertainty Principles because I am starved for happy Doctor/Master and that one makes me just grin and feel better about life; honestly though my really-favourite is Mendelian Inheritance because it is fucking beautiful and also because I think that's how I ended up talking to you in the first place. (Funny story: I knew you existed, re: Ji, but I read Mendelian Inheritance via a completely unrelated link and was so moved I had to say something. And then I realised belatedly that I'd omgtalkedtofahye! but it was too late by then, by which I mean you were talking back and it was already a spiral of awesome.)

I'm sure I also <3 your non-Doctor Who stuff but my brain does not function on other wavelengths at the moment.

[identity profile] littledust.livejournal.com 2008-07-27 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I have to go with Fortuna Fugit because of ENVY. Wait, my story gets better. It does everything that I've been trying to work on in my original writing: establishing setting and building an actual PLOT as opposed to characters musing & mooning over one another. Then there is the lovely writing. Then there is a POEM and also PICTURES.

It is way too hard to pick an absolute favorite fic by you, but right now take to witness all the gods is pinging me, which probably means I should be locked away. It's just so deliciously horrifying and I would love canon House/Cameron if TV could actually Go There.

[identity profile] ranty-rie.livejournal.com 2008-07-27 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
My favorite has to be Solfege, hands down. Because I love apocalypse and you manage to make everything so pretty.

[identity profile] ryokophoenix.livejournal.com 2008-07-27 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
HOLY SHITE QUINDLEMIRE. MEMORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIES.

I suddenly feel incredibly old. XD
ext_21673: ([hp] break down the sun)

[identity profile] fahye.livejournal.com 2008-07-28 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
I KNOW RIGHT. QUINDLEMIRE IS SO ANCIENT. AND YET I STILL LOVE IT DEARLY.

You are old :D You know that soon we will have been friends for six years? THAT IS A LOT OF YEARS.
ext_42328: Language is my playground (nevermore)

[identity profile] ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com 2008-07-27 11:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Are people surprised and confused when they find out you write well?
What, in real life? Er. I have no idea. It doesn't really come up.


*puts up hand*

surprised, curious, delighted, and somewhat in awe, in consecutive order. Also on occasion, things like 'holy shit wingpron' wandering past my forebrain at odd moments (eg, while sedately eating dinner in your excellent company) may result in momentary disconcertion.
ext_21673: (Default)

[identity profile] fahye.livejournal.com 2008-07-28 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
There is usually so little crossover between RL and LJ life that I forgot you are an exception :)

[identity profile] platypusnoises.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
that's really interesting. i wish every single writer on the face of the earth would do it so i could maybe glean something for my own writing...

i loved Triage, since it was probably the only 0T3 i've ever read that made perfect, perfect sense. i think i avoid a lot of 0T3 because it just sounds like wishful thinking, but this was like an "oh, duh, of course that's how it is" sort of thing. the same goes for Daddy's Gonna Buy You A Looking Glass. if it had been even a little different, it could've degenerated into "oh, it's a big post high school orgy house" (*snerk*) but no. it was just logical. and everyone got to be happy. and nobody had to choose one way or another. but that's just me... also, i wish i followed everything you write for. i'm sorely tempted to just to be able to read everything and have it make sense. hee.

what's on Suture? if you don't mind me asking...
ext_21673: ([dn] never ever after)

[identity profile] fahye.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, man. It's a very long playlist by now. But a few that I write to consistently are:

'Mercy Street' by Peter Gabriel
'Set The Fire To The Third Bar' by Snow Patrol
'Breathe Me' by Sia
'Candleburn' by Dishwalla
'They Live In You' from the Lion King stage musical
'Elsewhere' by Sarah McLachlan
'Small Blue Thing' by Suzanne Vega
ext_12491: (flowers: & blow away)

[identity profile] schiarire.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 01:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Fortuna Fugit & the Turkey Post, predictably, are the ones dearest to my wicked heart.