Post by sb on Feb 6, 2011 0:39:00 GMT -5
This has very little in it about writing. I waited until the last minute to do it, got seriously distracted by both normal and abnormal drama in my life and almost changed my mind about posting. There's not much to it. I cheated on the questions, too.
Mosaic Questions:
1. Where do you live? I live in Virginia. My back yard drops hard and directly into woods and a wide shallow stream; it is completely private and totally beautiful. This is a photograph of the creek a little west of my house: it runs from west to east with several drops and small waterfalls. I can hear the rushing water from the bedroom window. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to live here but it's been lovely.
2. What do you do for a living? I already did it and now I'm not doing it. I have a little family money, so with any luck (HA HA) I can continue not doing anything. I spend a lot of time looking out the window and thinking and dreaming and taking care of two kids and fighting various stupid battles I usually lose.
3. Non-sims hobbies: I don't have hobbies. If I could afford to ride again, I would, but that is such an all-consuming passion it doesn't seem to fit in the 'hobby' category. A couple of years ago my mother told me she could not believe I had given it up. I still can't believe it. I can't get too close to it; it's like a lover I can't see or speak with ever again or I'll go back, and I can't go back.
4. Weather: Rain. I love rain so much that I spent time researching the rainiest places on Earth to see if was possible to live in one of them. Not yet, it's not. I haven't entirely given up on the idea though.
5. Favorite drink: gin and tonic, very cold. I was going to skip the whole favorite color/food/drink deal but I like the picture and I do like Bombay Sapphire (and I needed something to put here).
6. Vacation: right now, Assateague Island. It would be flat and cold and empty and stunned with wind. In another month I'll change my mind and want to go another place. I like variety even if I'm just imagining going somewhere. I've been to a lot of places so I have a big book of vacation imagination.
7. Favorite book: I tried to come up with something because this is, after all, a writing forum. I can't think of any. I loved fairy tales when I was a child but none in particular stand out (ok one about going around the church widershins and ending up someplace awful, I remember that one). I usually paid more attention to the illustrations than I did to the story and ruined more than one book by 'improving' them with crayons.
8. One of my favorite things in the world: seduction
9. If I had one wish: escape
10. Something else about me: I love flowers, particularly fragrant flowers like peonies, Stargazer lilies and old Bourbon roses like Souvenir de Malmaison and Zepherin Drouhin. I used to grow them, but it was a lot of work and I got tired of it and dug them all up. Some of the peonies refused to die, and one of the climbing roses keeps coming back, too. I don't try to save them.
11. Another thing about me: I would have quit years ago if it were not for Gayl. We run through dark tunnels together. I'm not sure what I provide to the team but I'm glad I got to come along.
12. One word to describe me: closed
Non Mosaic Questions:
1. How did you start writing? I needed stories for my toy horses and the horses I drew obsessively all over everything. Giving them names wasn't enough. I never had a moment when I thought I wanted to be a writer. I enjoy whatever it is I do, but I have no ambitions and will probably drop it eventually. I do love it though.
2. How do you like to handle romantic relationships in your story? Do you have a general approach, or is the approach tailored to the characters? I thought this was an interesting question. I don't understand it though. Romantic relationships are like every other kind of relationship: it depends on the character and the situation. I'm a cynic about romantic relationships so I have to be careful not to destroy all of them. If I wasn't writing with Gayl, there wouldn't be any happy endings (which would be as boring as having every relationship end happily).
3. Have you ever written something that you really wish you could change when you look back at it? Yes. I went back and changed it retroactively although nothing afterwards worked exactly right.
4. Do you usually create backstories for your characters? Yes. Otherwise we don't know who they are.
5. Why did you start creating and posting sim stories? I was bored to death with the game. I kept wishing there was some way to combine SC4 with TS1 and TS2 so that something would actually happen, other than people getting pregnant and dying. I saw the sims stories on TSR and maybe the exchange, don't really remember; I didn't care for them until I stumbled onto Decorgal's Adventures in Dating. I was absolutely enthralled; I could relate to the story line, the characters, and I loved the sets although I never wanted to make movies. I stumbled along for a while using some of the premades and getting lost in the tall tangent grass until I met Gayl. Then everything changed.
6. If it were possible, would you engage in romantic relationships with your characters? Oh hell yes. Since the work is a collaboration, many of the characters aren't really mine. Even if they were, the answer would probably be the same.
7. What is your favorite quote? yippee ki yay mother f**ker.
8. Is there anything else you would like to add? There probably should be a lot more. I would not be doing this except for Gayl. The collaboration has been one of the most remarkable experiences in my life.
Oh yeah, there is something else. I guess I'd better explain again about why one of the major characters has my name. A long time ago, when I was still happily married, I put her in there as a sort of joke: she was the girlfriend of a character named after my husband. I got tired of the relationship: the male character was too perfect. They had nothing to do but sit at the breakfast table eating cornflakes and smiling at each other. Once his flaws came into play, it was like dropping a bomb into the middle of the story. Everyone around him changed and began to interact in ways we had not anticipated. She was there to stay. Is she me? Well obviously, in some ways. Would I do the things she has done? No. And in finding ways to understand her behavior, she became a great deal less like me than she started out to be. If I had to do it all over again, I would have given her a different name. Too late now.
Both Gayl and I enjoy what we do. We're going to play. We have a few readers, not many, but they seem to understand what we're doing.
Thank you so much, to everyone here who has given us support and help and the opportunity to meet a group of astonishingly talented people. My personal wishes for all of you: write what you want and if you want to get it published, don't stop until you get what you want.
Mosaic Questions:
1. Where do you live? I live in Virginia. My back yard drops hard and directly into woods and a wide shallow stream; it is completely private and totally beautiful. This is a photograph of the creek a little west of my house: it runs from west to east with several drops and small waterfalls. I can hear the rushing water from the bedroom window. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to live here but it's been lovely.
2. What do you do for a living? I already did it and now I'm not doing it. I have a little family money, so with any luck (HA HA) I can continue not doing anything. I spend a lot of time looking out the window and thinking and dreaming and taking care of two kids and fighting various stupid battles I usually lose.
3. Non-sims hobbies: I don't have hobbies. If I could afford to ride again, I would, but that is such an all-consuming passion it doesn't seem to fit in the 'hobby' category. A couple of years ago my mother told me she could not believe I had given it up. I still can't believe it. I can't get too close to it; it's like a lover I can't see or speak with ever again or I'll go back, and I can't go back.
4. Weather: Rain. I love rain so much that I spent time researching the rainiest places on Earth to see if was possible to live in one of them. Not yet, it's not. I haven't entirely given up on the idea though.
5. Favorite drink: gin and tonic, very cold. I was going to skip the whole favorite color/food/drink deal but I like the picture and I do like Bombay Sapphire (and I needed something to put here).
6. Vacation: right now, Assateague Island. It would be flat and cold and empty and stunned with wind. In another month I'll change my mind and want to go another place. I like variety even if I'm just imagining going somewhere. I've been to a lot of places so I have a big book of vacation imagination.
7. Favorite book: I tried to come up with something because this is, after all, a writing forum. I can't think of any. I loved fairy tales when I was a child but none in particular stand out (ok one about going around the church widershins and ending up someplace awful, I remember that one). I usually paid more attention to the illustrations than I did to the story and ruined more than one book by 'improving' them with crayons.
8. One of my favorite things in the world: seduction
9. If I had one wish: escape
10. Something else about me: I love flowers, particularly fragrant flowers like peonies, Stargazer lilies and old Bourbon roses like Souvenir de Malmaison and Zepherin Drouhin. I used to grow them, but it was a lot of work and I got tired of it and dug them all up. Some of the peonies refused to die, and one of the climbing roses keeps coming back, too. I don't try to save them.
11. Another thing about me: I would have quit years ago if it were not for Gayl. We run through dark tunnels together. I'm not sure what I provide to the team but I'm glad I got to come along.
12. One word to describe me: closed
Non Mosaic Questions:
1. How did you start writing? I needed stories for my toy horses and the horses I drew obsessively all over everything. Giving them names wasn't enough. I never had a moment when I thought I wanted to be a writer. I enjoy whatever it is I do, but I have no ambitions and will probably drop it eventually. I do love it though.
2. How do you like to handle romantic relationships in your story? Do you have a general approach, or is the approach tailored to the characters? I thought this was an interesting question. I don't understand it though. Romantic relationships are like every other kind of relationship: it depends on the character and the situation. I'm a cynic about romantic relationships so I have to be careful not to destroy all of them. If I wasn't writing with Gayl, there wouldn't be any happy endings (which would be as boring as having every relationship end happily).
3. Have you ever written something that you really wish you could change when you look back at it? Yes. I went back and changed it retroactively although nothing afterwards worked exactly right.
4. Do you usually create backstories for your characters? Yes. Otherwise we don't know who they are.
5. Why did you start creating and posting sim stories? I was bored to death with the game. I kept wishing there was some way to combine SC4 with TS1 and TS2 so that something would actually happen, other than people getting pregnant and dying. I saw the sims stories on TSR and maybe the exchange, don't really remember; I didn't care for them until I stumbled onto Decorgal's Adventures in Dating. I was absolutely enthralled; I could relate to the story line, the characters, and I loved the sets although I never wanted to make movies. I stumbled along for a while using some of the premades and getting lost in the tall tangent grass until I met Gayl. Then everything changed.
6. If it were possible, would you engage in romantic relationships with your characters? Oh hell yes. Since the work is a collaboration, many of the characters aren't really mine. Even if they were, the answer would probably be the same.
7. What is your favorite quote? yippee ki yay mother f**ker.
8. Is there anything else you would like to add? There probably should be a lot more. I would not be doing this except for Gayl. The collaboration has been one of the most remarkable experiences in my life.
Oh yeah, there is something else. I guess I'd better explain again about why one of the major characters has my name. A long time ago, when I was still happily married, I put her in there as a sort of joke: she was the girlfriend of a character named after my husband. I got tired of the relationship: the male character was too perfect. They had nothing to do but sit at the breakfast table eating cornflakes and smiling at each other. Once his flaws came into play, it was like dropping a bomb into the middle of the story. Everyone around him changed and began to interact in ways we had not anticipated. She was there to stay. Is she me? Well obviously, in some ways. Would I do the things she has done? No. And in finding ways to understand her behavior, she became a great deal less like me than she started out to be. If I had to do it all over again, I would have given her a different name. Too late now.
Both Gayl and I enjoy what we do. We're going to play. We have a few readers, not many, but they seem to understand what we're doing.
Thank you so much, to everyone here who has given us support and help and the opportunity to meet a group of astonishingly talented people. My personal wishes for all of you: write what you want and if you want to get it published, don't stop until you get what you want.
I thought I should come up with some kind of literary quote, but I'm in the middle of a nasty divorce and decided that's my quote for now. And I'd take you up on the drink!
(Don't ask me to tell you who they are - I've done my best to purge them from my mind!)