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[Error: unknown template qotd]Bread and milk. Lots of scope for variety (assuming you're allowed different kinds of bread, optional sugar/seasonings sprinkled etc.), I'm fond of bread, and according to E.Nesbit -- who was pretty shrewd about a lot of things in the adult world -- it is the best supper in the world (even if not the nicest...)
Writer's Block: Born to do it
17 April 2011 10:31 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]Probably writing (I note that most other people seem to say this -- perhaps not surprising in response to a prompt entitled 'Writer's Block'! -- but that was actually my original reaction).
It's hard work, difficult to motivate yourself and dispiriting when it goes badly, but on the plus side it can be done almost anywhere (unless you're one of these computer-dependent modern people who can't handle a pen and some random scraps of paper for text input...), and you get to live some wonderful or possibly harrowing experiences at the same time as your characters. After all, what other profession offers the combination of playing God and being a voyeur?
(I would say that it's the only job that offers omnipotence, but even fictional characters have a nasty habit of getting ideas of their own or else flatly refusing to co-operate with the requirements of the plot!)
It's hard work, difficult to motivate yourself and dispiriting when it goes badly, but on the plus side it can be done almost anywhere (unless you're one of these computer-dependent modern people who can't handle a pen and some random scraps of paper for text input...), and you get to live some wonderful or possibly harrowing experiences at the same time as your characters. After all, what other profession offers the combination of playing God and being a voyeur?
(I would say that it's the only job that offers omnipotence, but even fictional characters have a nasty habit of getting ideas of their own or else flatly refusing to co-operate with the requirements of the plot!)
Writer's Block: Going down
15 April 2011 03:52 am[Error: unknown template qotd]This goes back to the old (at least for me) question of 'would you rather know in advance that you were dying (and hence have time to tidy up loose ends, say goodbyes, etc.) or would you rather die without knowing it (and hence without the fear of anticipation)?' Or even more specifically -- and macabrely (and yes, this question has come up, fictionally at least) -- if you were in the position of asking someone else to kill you, would you want them to take you by surprise so that you didn't know it was coming (or at least when), or would you want them to wait until you gave the specific command, so that you were in complete control?
The answer in the crashing plane scenario is fairly clear-cut, I think: you don't wake someone you love up with the pleasing information that they are about to die, simply in order to gratify your own needs.
The answer in the other cases... depends on the person in question. In my own case I think I'd probably rather not know, because I can imagine so vividly the instant of utter terror between the irrevocable knowing and the happening: as someone once wrote about execution for murder, compared to most natural deaths, hanging (at least in the 20th century evolution: the 17th century version wasn't an exit one would wish on one's worst enemy) was actually a fairly good way to go. The dreadful thing about being executed was not the actual instant of death: it was the three weeks of anticipation.
The answer in the crashing plane scenario is fairly clear-cut, I think: you don't wake someone you love up with the pleasing information that they are about to die, simply in order to gratify your own needs.
The answer in the other cases... depends on the person in question. In my own case I think I'd probably rather not know, because I can imagine so vividly the instant of utter terror between the irrevocable knowing and the happening: as someone once wrote about execution for murder, compared to most natural deaths, hanging (at least in the 20th century evolution: the 17th century version wasn't an exit one would wish on one's worst enemy) was actually a fairly good way to go. The dreadful thing about being executed was not the actual instant of death: it was the three weeks of anticipation.
Writer's Block: Soul together
3 April 2011 12:15 am[Error: unknown template qotd]No, not at all; I worry enough about what people are thinking anyway, without having all my worst fears confirmed.
[Error: unknown template qotd]One of my own fictional characters, Danik von Schelstein, has been known to come and 'encourage' me (or simply subject me to scorn) at moments of physical exhaustion into behaving as he would have done, i.e. back straight, throw your heart into it, and never let your weakness show! Unfortunately he can't actually help physically due to being in the wrong universe... but the admonitions do actually have an effect...
[Error: unknown template qotd]A nice slice of fresh bread (or two, or three, or...)
Why? Because it's a nice slice of fresh bread... mmm, warm, chewy, tasty...
Why? Because it's a nice slice of fresh bread... mmm, warm, chewy, tasty...
[Error: unknown template qotd]I generally keep them and don't use them: I have unwanted books and films dating back several years at the end of my bed, which I will get round to giving away some time...
[Error: unknown template qotd]I'm not sure I have a limit on books; I just wait until I've forgotten the details and/or get an urge to read a particular story again.
With films, I think my limit is probably about three or four times: "Titfield Thunderbolt" and "A Night to Remember" are the only titles I can call to mind that I have seen four or more times.
But as going to the cinema, for me, generally starts off with an hour's hard cycle journey (and the prospect of another, uphill, journey to tail the evening), I do actively note and mark out as "don't need to see" films that I remember having watched before -- in this context I would point out that the two above regularly appear on television, which is why I have seen them so many times!
I don't do this with books, since I have thousands to hand that can simply be taken off the shelf ;-)
With films, I think my limit is probably about three or four times: "Titfield Thunderbolt" and "A Night to Remember" are the only titles I can call to mind that I have seen four or more times.
But as going to the cinema, for me, generally starts off with an hour's hard cycle journey (and the prospect of another, uphill, journey to tail the evening), I do actively note and mark out as "don't need to see" films that I remember having watched before -- in this context I would point out that the two above regularly appear on television, which is why I have seen them so many times!
I don't do this with books, since I have thousands to hand that can simply be taken off the shelf ;-)
Writer's Block: Unplugged
22 November 2010 08:56 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]Only a week? I do that regularly!
How much can I get? :-D
How much can I get? :-D
[Error: unknown template qotd] Like a lot of the other posters here, I take the opportunity to tell myself the latest episode in one of my long-running stories... but I'm usually going to bed so late nowadays that failing to get to sleep is not really a problem!
(Example: it's currently ten to two in the morning and I'm not in bed.)
(Example: it's currently ten to two in the morning and I'm not in bed.)
[Error: unknown template qotd]Well, I'm about halfway there already... lots of brains and no money!
So super-smart, definitely. It's much more fun this way - after all, you don't need all that money, because when you're thrown back on your own resources you never get bored...
So super-smart, definitely. It's much more fun this way - after all, you don't need all that money, because when you're thrown back on your own resources you never get bored...
[Error: unknown template qotd]Sherlock looks pretty promising. Doctor Who is actually looking worth looking forward to again... although neither show is likely to have a new episode for some time...
[Error: unknown template qotd]I dreamt I met someone again whom I haven't seen since I was twenty. It was just as awkward and tentative and uncomfortable as it would have been in real life -- not wishful thinking at all -- and yet somehow, everything seemed to be coming out all right.
Then I woke up... and caught myself trying to get back into the dream...
Then I woke up... and caught myself trying to get back into the dream...
