Open Thread: Oracle Hotline
Jun. 6th, 2014 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mithen posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
superhero_musesWho is your favorite current writer--the one who, no matter what their new book (or comics title, or fanfiction) is, you'll read it--and why?
I'm going to give an odd answer here: there's a writer in the Sherlock fandom named Atlin Merrick who I'll read just about anything she posts, for a few reasons. One is that she has a gift with words and turning a beautiful phrase, a skill I admire greatly. Also, she's been writing all Johnlock and nothing but Johnlock for years now, and yet her stories are always fresh and surprising and touching. She has a gift for finding a new facet or angle to a very well-mined pairing that I (as a person writing the same pairing for nearly a decade now) admire a lot.
Also--and this is not a reason for reading her stuff, but it blows me away--she is the best responder to feedback I have ever seen. Her "thanks for reading this" messages (and she has to write a lot of them) never sound rote or routine, she always sounds freshly overjoyed that someone enjoyed her stories. I know as a writer that I always am freshly overjoyed that somebody enjoyed something I wrote, but sometimes I fear I don't express that clearly enough. I aspire to be as graceful at receiving kind feedback as she is. :)
(I really meant to talk about a published author, but no one leapt to mind immediately, so my mind jumped here instead!)
Writing time has been sparse but productive when I had it, which is good. Plot is moving along, AUs are AUing, I'm really wanting to write something set in canon next but gotta clear off the fun and distracting AUs first! How about you?
I'm going to give an odd answer here: there's a writer in the Sherlock fandom named Atlin Merrick who I'll read just about anything she posts, for a few reasons. One is that she has a gift with words and turning a beautiful phrase, a skill I admire greatly. Also, she's been writing all Johnlock and nothing but Johnlock for years now, and yet her stories are always fresh and surprising and touching. She has a gift for finding a new facet or angle to a very well-mined pairing that I (as a person writing the same pairing for nearly a decade now) admire a lot.
Also--and this is not a reason for reading her stuff, but it blows me away--she is the best responder to feedback I have ever seen. Her "thanks for reading this" messages (and she has to write a lot of them) never sound rote or routine, she always sounds freshly overjoyed that someone enjoyed her stories. I know as a writer that I always am freshly overjoyed that somebody enjoyed something I wrote, but sometimes I fear I don't express that clearly enough. I aspire to be as graceful at receiving kind feedback as she is. :)
(I really meant to talk about a published author, but no one leapt to mind immediately, so my mind jumped here instead!)
Writing time has been sparse but productive when I had it, which is good. Plot is moving along, AUs are AUing, I'm really wanting to write something set in canon next but gotta clear off the fun and distracting AUs first! How about you?
no subject
Date: 2014-06-06 03:13 pm (UTC)Fanfic, I'll always go for Heartslogos and you. Both of you create the best stories. *happy sigh*
Writing has gone pretty well for me. I still need to get on the edits for the novel I just finished but I'm currently rewriting the story I'm posting first drafts of on Wednesdays. That's a challenge. I'm finding it hard to get any enthusiasm for the edits because I know everything that's going to happen. Normally I cycle, write a bit, go back add detail, go back add depth, go back check for plot holes and grammar, write-cycle, write-cycle, so I always have the lure of something new and exciting to write. This editing after the full draft is done thing is HARD!
Which is why I have a short story that bloomed out of nowhere yesterday that I need to work on too. *rueful laugh* Distraction is a thing, it really is.
Good luck on your writing--hope it goes well!
no subject
Date: 2014-06-10 12:14 pm (UTC)That's always been my problem with that kind of editing, in fiction or in non-fiction, as well--without the lure of a potential surprise I just kinda lose spark altogether. It makes perfect sense that a short story would then show up and demand some creative attention! :)
I realized a couple of days ago that I had not actually decided how a big reveal was going to go. @_@ Have had to sit down and think about that one a bit...
no subject
Date: 2014-06-13 02:46 am (UTC)Unfortunately I cannot answer this question honestly without sounding syncophantic. Because there's only one writer ever who has fit this description for me and, well...*whistles innocently*
no subject
Date: 2014-06-14 09:23 am (UTC)