h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Curiosity is currently killing this kitten...

After a recent work-related crisis I've been evaluating myself and have come to the conclusion that I need to find some kind of pattern to my life. This includes evaluating what makes me want to write for a living, and what makes other people want to write. Maybe I'll have an epiphany, you never know.

So would all those who write fiction please be kind enough to tell me:

1. What genre do you predominantly write?
2. In what format do you write (short story, novella, novel, screenplay etc.)
3. How many projects are you currently working on?
4. How long you have been working on your current project?
5. What were you like as a child (imaginative, artistic, sporty...)? Did you like to be alone? Did you make up stories for any toys/treasured objects?
6. Have you any external triggers which make you write?
7. Which author (if any) finally inspired you to write, and why?

Please help a poor lost writer make her way back from introspective insanity....

Kitten

I've never writen a book, but I would love to know why you feel writing is for you.

-- DoctorMO --

I'm still trying to figure that one out myself.

To tell the stories that seem to generate randomly inside my head. To exercise the evil elements in my character which don't get let out much. To... fulfil an urge, I suppose, to live out my dreams, to be free, to speak with other tongues than my own. To philosophise, to imagine, to maybe make other people think about what they're really doing for once.

And to let out the little people screaming in my head

Kitten

I've written four novels (unpublished due to them not being terribly good) and some series for the press, and there's more stuff in the pipeline. But the question was 'why write?'.
For me, the answer would have to be that it's the only thing in life that keeps calling me back for more. I also believe that it is this very condition which keeps me from finding anything else I'm vaguely good at. So it's a compensation thing. The thing that makes me want to write has effectively stopped me from making a living at anything else. It *has* to pay. Or it's back to the factories for bread an butter money.

One of my friends he is a writer, he has wrote 32 books all based on the same liitle fairy kin, they are unique because the plot is as you say about learning and kindness rather than murder and politics. I love them, but then I would, I'm bias.

Best advice, just write what you have, do some short stories to start off with, get a feel for writing and let rip with whatever you have lurking inside you. (give up a few years of your life if your writing more than one book )

-- DoctorMO --

outmage, at least you can get a project finished...

I have *dives into her files to check the statistics* no less than six 'in progress' projects vying for my attention, which is extremely disheartening... but I have found one which I am burning to get down on paper, or at least into AppleWorks

But tell me - what genre do you write for? Any kind of press training or anything like that? (the insatiable curiosity of a trained journalist working its evil way to the fore here...)

Mmmmm....books... reading.... writing

1. What would presumably be described as 'cosy old English' writing, inspired by assorted spy and thriller writers in the 1950s and 1960s
2. Lots of short stories with a temperamental novel knocking about.
3. One, if you don't count the novel.
4. Couple of weeks
5. Certainly imaginitive, impressionable and prone to story telling. Quite introvert as well.
6. Beer???
7. John Parker

B

The pressures of having to put food on the table force most people to get jobs that they don't necessarily like, even some that make them downright miserable. I think the reason why some jobs do this to people is because they are completely pointless. Pushing numbers around a screen for 8 hours a day serves no one but the despots at the top and, when you take a wider perspective, has not the slightist historical significance. In other words, a lot of people feel like they are wasting their lives. After all, we all have ego's and we all want to leave our mark somehow.

And what better way to leave our mark than to write? Of course, this is not the only reason that people write, a lot of people feel they have something important to say or simply a good story to tell. All three of these independently are enough of a reason to pack up everything and start writing, but a combination of all three is probably the most common motivation. It is certainly true of me.

I say go for it, writing is one of the most worthwhile things you can ever hope to do with your life. Pack up work (if you can), do your research and write!

Good luck!

1. sci-fi, fantasy, sort of reality based horror and suspense thrillers (at the moment a real story about my experiences in temp agency)
2. short stories, novels
3. one. always. coudn´t cope with more and start mixing ideas and plots...
4. I am still on the first draught, so it´s just about 6 weeks or so (full-time)
5. quite extroverted, loud, imaginative... (I do have serious doubt if this has anything to say at all)
6. No! If you need these leave it...
7. Actually almost every author I have read. I am fascinated by the way they use language to bring their stories to life. Not only with right words but grammar, rythm and all that... But foremost, I love the stories

Are you already writing for a living? Have you evefr actually finished a novel or short story?

In my experience, writing is nothing more than really hard work. You have to think of things and get them down on paper, so everyone understands what you are trying to say. It also has to be interesting, so the readers keep on reading and all that...

Not easy...

Chili (hopes that his book is soon going to be published)

In answer to your questions:

1. No particular genre. It's just whatever the idea happens to be.
2. I'd like most of my ideas to be novels, ultimately. 2 are likely to be collections of short stories. I'm also working on some Stargate SG-1 fan-fic.
3. My list of 'Story ideas' contains 10 'titles'.
4. Off and on for some time, but not long enough to get anything coherent.
5. As a child I spent most of my time alone. I was definitely not sporty or artistic. Imaginative? Maybe. Yes, I did make up stories that I made my dolls act out.
6. No.
7. I can't think of any author who 'inspired' me to write as a general thing, although three of my projects could be described as inspired by the works of certain authors. The authors were James Thurber, William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson - if you really want to know.

1. Any that takes my fancy
2. Short story
3. 0
4. N/A
5. As a child I was very creative but I seem to have lost most of that now. I still have a very vivid imagination and writing is the only medium I let that completely loose on. I was never good at art or sculpture
6. This is the main question. I write for the fun of it. Although I find it's a good way of dealing with problems. Mostly, it's emotions that prompt me to pick up a pen, and the main characters in my story are a version of me and how I feel at the time. (Both good and bad feelings)
7. No author inspired me to write, though I have (like many people) authors I admire and adore.

1. Fiction: whatever works best to tell the story, though predominately fantasty. Poetry: free verse.
2. Have finished a couple novel-length pieces, working on two others, have a few short stories done, and lots and lots of poems (normally very short - I like succinctness in poetry, no Whitman rambling for me. ).
3. Uhhh... two novel possibilities, rewriting a short story... when I get the time, that is.
4. One for 3 years, one for 2 years. (I have had to take huge breaks due to uni work).
5. My parents say I was one of the strangest, most creative kids they've seen. I once flipped a small rocking chair over, covered it with a green blanket, dumped all my toys on top of it, and called it a Christmas tree.
6. I don't have external triggers for fiction, but for poetry a lot happens due to things I see (not events, but physical light doing something weird or a cup being empty or something), and that'll spark off something totally unrelated.
7. No author inspired me to write - before I began to write, I was perfectly happy to just read other people's books without need to write my own. I will often get ideas from other authors (in the past I've taken heavily from Peter S. Beagle and Anne McCaffrey, and those stories won't get published for that reason), but my actual inspiration comes from this pencil drawing I once saw that inspired my first longish story. It was in a book of fantasty art, and it was a unicorn standing in the field, looking back over her withers at you - how can one not want to tell her story?

Thought I'd answer my own question! now I've had time to think about it...
1. Fiction. Surreal black comedies being a favourite of mine, it tends to come out in my writing. Anything but romance, really.
2. Generally novels, although I have plans for a themed book of short stories and an unfinished screenplay in the works.
3. I've finished numerous short stories and have a folder full of eminently forgettable poetry. I'm currently at the planning stage and preliminaries of novel which I may have to split into several parts. ideas i've put on back burner amount to five.
4. Work in progress is still in gestation stage, only three months old.
5. A bit of an outsider as a child, shy, imaginative, always drawing and making up stories for things.
6. Not really. I'm more prolific when I'm miserable, but it tends to be junk and brain-dribblings, rather than coherent writing.
7. All the authors I've read, especially the bad ones. I get really bad tempered if I'm reading a book with an interesting premise but below-par writing (and I'm really talking about obvious stuff like basic grammar, literals, inappropriate use of language - which the proof-readers obviously didn't pick up either ). I tend to think, 'I could do better than that!' and then go off to stare at my PC screen for half-an-hour.

I feel the need to create/write "because it's there".

Alas, every inch of my body has the "procrastination" gene.

1. What genre do you predominantly write?

Predominently Sci-fi but a few reality drama as well and a little comedy

2. In what format do you write (short story, novella, novel, screenplay etc.)

Have done sketches, and am currently working on a stageplay and novel

3. How many projects are you currently working on?

See above plus my hootoo stuff.

4. How long you have been working on your current project?

2-3 years and 1 year

5. What were you like as a child (imaginative, artistic, sporty...)? Did you like to be alone? Did you make up stories for any toys/treasured objects?


Imaginative, sporty.

Alone at times but also part of a group. MAde up my own worlds

6. Have you any external triggers which make you write?

Sometimes yes but generally just the need to get hte story told

7. Which author (if any) finally inspired you to write, and why?

Douglas Adams and Arthur C Clarke really

1. Nonsense
2. Nonsense
3. How many fnurbles fit in a Jibblewicket?
4. Since
5. Yes (to all except sporty)
6. Yes but I cant condone that sort of behavior on a BBC website.
7. DNA, Spike Milligan, Jules Feiffer, U183682, U188966 amongst others

1. What genre do you predominantly write?

Poetry, political polemic ( mainly on behalf of Tibet )and documentary prose ( 2 unpublished books, one on surviving childhood sexual abuse, one on Tantric sex!) Two novels and a comedy screenplay floating around in my head for years now, as well as a documentary historical book. One play, written and performed in college.

2. In what format do you write (short story, novella, novel, screenplay etc.)

Chiefly poetry, ( and nonsense verse, eg here on Hootoo.)

3. How many projects are you currently working on?

Whatever comes up as unavoidable.

4. How long you have been working on your current project?

Being a full-time potter, the brain goes into trance-mode, a fertile field for word-arisings. So "current project" can be whatever arises, like the recent spate of childhood related poems posted on Hootoo.

5. What were you like as a child (imaginative, artistic, sporty...)? Did you like to be alone? Did you make up stories for any toys/treasured objects?

As a child, widely recognised as a total pain in the neck, with a "demonic inventiveness", "imaginatively naughty"( I was later informed ) for getting into mischief ( set fire to the house once, unintentionally. It was an experiment, honest. ) Lots of time spent alone. Don't know that I liked it. Always painting, drawing, modelling ( five generations of eccentric artists in the family ). Writing came along rather later, but always loved reading. Always loved learning new skills, and seem to be happiest making things, though it doesns't much matter if its a pot, a picture, a poem, a mess, a meal, or whatever.

6. Have you any external triggers which make you write?

External/internal, same difference. Poems lurk like fish, one has to wait for them to surface. Occasionally a specific external will directly produce a poem. Political situations make me write polemics, but that's a bit different, isn't it?

7. Which author (if any) finally inspired you to write, and why?

The writing arises as an itch that demands scratching, or else it doesn't arise, so it's not so much about other authors. But sometimes reading another writer ( like reading a poem by hootoo writer "Abroad/biddycalledBen" ) will set me off in a new direction.

Gawd, what a load of stuff. Hope it helps/informs. Never knew I took meself so seriously. Never really think of meself as a writer, but I seem to be doing quite a lot of it. Maybe that's the best way.