Or: Like you didn’t know that.
But this post is about writer quirks, not just general quirkiness. Thanks to Erica for the inspiration!!! (Because, seriously, no ideas today.)
1. I cannot write kissing scenes around my mother. I like kissing scenes, but I have to be alone in the house to write them. I write better alone, anyways, though.
2. I get really picky with my music when I’m writing. My current “listening” playlist is two hundred and fifty songs long, but when I’m writing, certain scenes demand the “right” song. I call it mood music, and I’m working on a playlist so I don’t have to flip through 20 songs to find one for the scene I’m working on.
3. The “right” songs might not end up on the book playlist, though. To be on the playlist, I have to connect the song to the book in some way. Lyrically, emotionally, whatever. Also, I can’t listen to songs from one book’s playlist while I’m writing another.
4. I get a little weird switching from characters. I have one character that makes my sense of humour a little… erm… more PG-13, another that makes me a little depressed. Which makes me sound insane, but what can you do?
5. No one sees the first draft. Ever. I had a couple friends who read the second draft of Berserk as I rewrote it, but no one sees first drafts.
6. I always have twitter open, unless I’m in my room where I don’t usually have internet. If I don’t have twitter open, I’ll play solitaire. I get bored really easily and it helps me think, I guess, to have something else to do between words.
7. I rarely edit as I write, or I get stuck in an infinite loop of things not being good enough to move on and I never finish anything.
8. Most of my stories start out as vampire stories in my head. Then I usually realize that the characters aren’t vampires. I don’t even understand this one, really.
9. If I’m not really careful, I end up with a lot of character whose names start with the same letters. M, N, C, and A are my worst ones.
10. I write longhand a lot. Like every day. But I can’t draft that way.
11. I work best if I focus on one project at a time. Otherwise I get a little twitchy.
12. Doing dishes or cleaning can help me figure things out that are bothering me, and even if they don’t, it usually helps relax me.
13. I like my chapters to be 2500 words long, or around that. Currently in Spyder, the chapters are all over the place, from 2100 to over 5000 (OVER NINE THOUSAND!), so that’s bugging me a little. There’s nothing wrong with long or short chapters, of course, but I like mine to be around 2500 words. (I actually did once have a 9000 word chapter in one of my first drafts, but that’s just because I forgot to, you know, start a new chapter.)
14. I have double-spacing issues. I’ve posted about that before.
15. I am bad at titles. Usually it’s really, really obvious why I named my WIPs what I did. My newest one (the one I’m not allowed to work on yet, haha) is the first that doesn’t have a one word title and I’m not so sure I wanna share it on here yet.
I think that’s a good number, right? What are some of your quirks?
Also, seriously, do you guys have any requests for posts? Because… I’m blanking lately on things to post. So if you do, let me know!!
Peace and cookies,
Laina
