*backpedaling more than a video of Lance Armstrong on rewind*
Who's your favorite author/poet/writer and why?
While I love both Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King for their sage advice (although the latter gets even more props for having the balls to call Stephenie Meyer a hack), my favorite, without a doubt, is Neil Gaiman. I've read pretty much 75% of his prose/poetry (save for his children's books and a novel or two) and several of his comics (although I really need to go through
Sandman), and his writing style is just... guh. It's amazing, guys. A lot of his work is dark, but it's not emo or Anne Rice dark. It's instead just a casual glimpse into fantasy where it's perfectly normal for ancient gods to live in modern times and wage war against technology gods, and dying? Gruesome, but it happens. He even did a crossover between Lovecraftian mythology and Sherlock Holmes which was utterly, utterly awesome, I think.
And, of course,
Good Omens. Done with Terry Pratchett (who is also an awesome writer, if anyone's ever read the Discworld series), and it's the story of the Apocalypse... told in the sort of irreverent, tongue-in-cheek manner as the first few chapters of
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
On-off-topic: It's interesting to notice that we discuss authors to fave here when at Serebii
they're doing kinda the opposite ...
This just means we're cooler than Serebii. *shot many times over*
Does your culture's iconography (as in: set of cultural, religious, social or economical symbols) play a role in your writing? If so, what symbols and/or meanings do you explore/exploit?
In fanfiction, I really, really try not to by doing a lot of research and constructing my own take on the Pokémon world (as in, making it more of a melting pot than actual Japan), but. *shrug*
I will say, however, that at one point, I tried to make a fancreated region based on Luzon, the northernmost island in the Philippines. I'm not from the country myself, but my family is. It's just amusing to think of an entire league made up of people who are that open and friendly to tourists. (Or, at least, to see what would happen if a foreigner from Kanto would try to go through a league there.) Unfortunately, it never lifted off the ground, but I still have the notes for it. It might end up in the Plot Bunny Farm.
As for original fiction, it seems like all my stories are invariably set in either what is explicitly my hometown or what's based on it. I don't know why other than the fact that I know the area like the back of my hand. Sort of. More than Boston, at least.
What level of involvement do you have with your characters?
Depends on the character. In most cases, they're just tools to tell a story. I make up whoever I need to fit a situation. In some cases, I can relate to them on one level or another. For example, although Rose is based on Yuri Otani (of the anime
Alien Nine), she's a lot like me in real life: very shy and quiet to anyone who's a stranger. Lanette is more like me to friends, polite and outspoken but not entirely warm and friendly to everyone.
EDIT: GAAH! You made me lose the game, dammit! I hadn't lost since June!
It's okay!
xkcd says we don't have to do that anymore!
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Basic inspiration comes from me farting around with ideas while doing mundane tasks, like showering, walking, and working. As in, sometimes, my mind wanders. I can't really help it if it does, but when it does, it draws on all the things I can remember seeing, hearing, and whatnot in order to form an idea soup. The idea soup becomes a plot bunny, and with some hammering out, the plot bunny becomes a story. Characters usually get drawn from other media or from people I've met or just from whatever the story calls for. Situations just roll from the logical conclusions of scenes earlier in the fic. So on and so forth until the end.
But I guess that also means that on a level, inspiration also comes from things I've read, watched, et cetera. Just everywhere in general. For example, ideas for AEM came from a week-long biology lesson/movie showing held at my college a little over a year and a half ago about B-movie biology, or the kinds of science-y stuff they had in sci-fi movies. So, naturally, some of the films in the lineup?
The Fly and
Alien, both of which were big inspirations for the fic. Also, one of the pre-movie lessons? Talked about parasites, including the sacculina. (Fun little guy. Look it up.) And what anime shows did I see for the first time that year?
Elfen Lied and
Witchblade. Fun times to have an idea soup, guys. I'm surprised I could actually sleep that week.
The idea for A Midsummer Knight's Dream, meanwhile, came from a manga that's sadly not been published (past the first volume, at least) in the US. Beyond that, the 90's film
Romeo + Juliet, lots of Shakespeare,
Serial Experiments Lain, and a few other things. Can't remember off the top of my head, but yeah. More idea souping.
