30 Days - days 25-28

[graculus]

A compilation post, thanks to lj:

25 - Music - Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?

It's too easy for me to get distracted if I have music on while I'm trying to write, so I don't tend to do that.

26 - What is the oddest (or funniest) thing you've had to research for a fic?

Things I have researched for fic include, but are not limited to, the treatment of serious electric shock, psychosis medication including side-effects, grave-robbing, World War 2 military rations, Russian civilian aircraft, black US Army regiments of World War 2, post-Civil War dime novels, New Orleans and voodoo, Italian superstitions, street names in particular cities/towns, the layout of the Oriental Institute and US Army Air Force planes of the Pacific theatre.

27 - Where is your favourite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?

I have a desktop and a laptop, so stuff can get written in various places around the house. I have written by hand when I've had no choice and inspiration has struck, but I don't really like it. Too much like being back at school and writing essays? ;)

28 - Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?

Back when I first started, I've co-written a couple of things in the Stargate fandom, but it's not something I can see myself doing again. I've certainly had some very nice artwork based on stuff I've written but it's always been that way round, rather than the reverse...

Comments

[graculus.livejournal.com]

The first one started off as what was meant to be an onlist round robin and never got beyond me and someone else writing alternate chapters from different characters POV - I wrote Daniel and she wrote Jack, which made it much easier to do, but I'm not sure if it really is the kind of collaboration the meme is asking about.
The second was more traditionally collaborative but as the fic went on I was doing more of the work because my co-writer was going through some RL stuff, so it was probably mostly mine in the end.

I can't imagine how collaboration would work now, but that was in the first flush of my love for fic and that particular fandom and so I got swept away with it all. Hence, I don't go back and look at either of those, or any of my really early stuff, because I know it'll probably make me squirm uncomfortably, one way or another. I guess it was just one of those things I thought I ought to try?

[leethet.livejournal.com]

This is the part that amazes me - that anyone can do it at all. I can do round robin (have done) and though it comes out VERY uneven in terms of plot and quality, it can be fun. But ... I just plain don't understand (even though some excellent collaborators have gone to great trouble to explain) how two people can write one character together in one story (or six characters together in one story, but both people write each character, if you see what I mean) and leave everyone creatively content and the story an even flow. I cannot visualize the day to day work. I write Napoleon setting up the storyline at MFU and there's a new agent ... and the other person writes that same scene and we flip a coin on which to keep? Or we simply alternate scenes (how do we know how many scenes there'll be or what constitutes a scene and what if I suck at the kinds of scenes I'm given)? Or we divide up scenes ahead of time based on preferences (again, how do you know what scenes there'll be - and how do either of you match tone and pacing and dialogue and characterization???) or one person writes something and sends it to the other, who changes it and sends it back (this takes forever and wouldn't there be some level of resentment)??? It floors me that this process can come together and be coherent, and I know it can because I've read some excellent and absolutely seamless (as far as I could tell) collaborations.

So how - specifically - did you do the non-round-robin?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I can't remember a great deal about the non-round-robin, as it was 12 years ago. ;)

I think we used to just give each other advance sight of the next chapter, as we were writing alternately both character POV and chapter, in the hope we wouldn't write each other into corners!