A Writing MeMe

FaithWriters Blog is hosting a writer's meme today, so I thought I'd join in the fun!

How often do you get writer's block? Whenever I've been away from writing for awhile, it's always painfully tough to get back into practice. Other than that, I'm usually pretty inspired.

How do you fix it? Music is always good, and I like to reread my own writings to get back in touch with my own "voice" as well as characters. I also find that the more inspired I am in life, the more inspired my writing is.

Do you type or write by hand? I type fiction; I write out poetry. :)

Do you save everything you write? Definitely! I learned this lesson the hard way - years ago, I got disgusted with a novella I'd written and deleted it. Now I'd give anything to be able to get it back - the story was terrific and it would be such a great piece to flesh out!

Do you ever go back to an old idea after I've abandoned it? I never abandon everything! Everything is always a work in progress. I forget who said that no poem is ever finished until the poet dies, but I totally agree!

Do you have a constructive critic? The most incredible constructive critic I've ever had was the professor/author who taught my fiction workshop in college, Wayne Karlin. I learned more about writing in general and my own strengths and weaknesses as a writer in the one semester I took with him than I'd learned in all the years before. Now that I'm out of school, I've sort of had to become my own critic, which is a really good skill to develop, but isn't quite as satisfying.

Did you ever write a novel? Yup, several!

What genre would you love to write but haven't? Wow... I think I've tried everything at least a little bit, but I think I've dabbled the least in historical fiction, which kind of makes sense since I don't like to read it, either. :)

What's one genre you've never written, and probably never will? Hm... nothing comes to mind...

How many writing projects are you working on right now? I'm pretty bouncy - I always have a couple of stories in my head.

Do you write for a living? No, I do not, although I do "write to live".

Do you want to? I'd love to use my writing skills for a living, but I really don't want to write for a living. I'm not very self-disciplined and I don't think I've make a very good novelist, for instance.

Have you ever written anything for a magazine or a newspaper? No - but I'd love to!

Have you ever won an award for your writing? No, but I made my professor laugh. :) Not an easy task!

Do you ever write based on your dreams? Absolutely! Some of my favorite stories started as dreams.

Do you favor happy endings, sad endings, or cliffhangers? I favor a well-crafted ending. An ending shouldn't just be something that happens because the writer has run out of things to write about - it should be the logical and inevitable conclusion. I'm actually a fan of ambiguous endings if they're ambiguous for a good reason.


I'd love to hear answers from other amateur writers out there! If you'd like to participate:
1. Copy and paste the following to the comments and replace my answers with your own.
2. If you have a blog, copy and paste these questions and your answers to your blog.
3. Challenge your readers to do the same on their blog.
If you don’t have a blog, skip #’s 2 & 3!