It's that time of month, busy like a bee, it slipped her mind. No pocket watch or calendar could save Humpty Dumpty.....
Welcome to the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Every month share your thoughts about writing prompted by a question.
If you would like to know more and join this enhancing group. go here
This month the question is :
Of all the genres you read and write, which is your favourite to write in and why ?
When a child , I loved stories involving people I could relate to. As I grew up my favourite characters just got older with me.
Now I enjoy all ages for my protagonists, read fiction and non-fiction about children and adults.
The genre never really mattered as long as the characters felt real and belonged to whatever universe they evolved in. I began writing with poems and non-fiction : descriptions, impressions, thoughts.
I started reading science-fiction very early on and it grew on me as I learned maths and physics, also as I took an increasing interest in the Universe. As I read, I started to write sci-fi stories too and still enjoy writing them. They are less outer space now and more anticipation.
Historical fiction was always fascinating too. It was a trip into the past : I learnt a lot and this genre fulfilled my itching for time travel.
When these two genres are combined, I am in Heaven. However I have never written a story about time travelling : I choose a period in the present, the past or the future and stick to it. My characters on the other hand are free to time-travel in their minds : to reminisce, discover new aspects of a forgotten period or visit a faraway culture.
Fantasy and magic come next as a reader. As a child Dragons and Ghosts, later I discovered J.R.R.Tolkien at 14 and entered a whole new dimension. However I have never written a story with anything fantastical about it. The closest I get is 'eerie' or 'unexplained'.
In Poetry, the narrative poem is my favourite read. My own poems explore the narrative, the contemplative and the reflective. Sometimes they can take on a dreamlike quality and appear as fantasy but they are rooted in experienced truths.
Mysteries and Crime are all-time favourites. I started with the Famous Five when learning to read but quickly preferred Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood, the Treacle Pudding or other Wishing chair type stories. My late sister stuck to the Secret Seven and the Naughtiest Girl, who was, for her, along with Dorothy Edwards' My Naughty Little Sister, what she had to live through every day with....me ! For my part I would get lost in the land of "Do-As-You-Please' !
Arthur Conan Doyle then took over with Crime. My writing has not explored mystery or murder as of yet. I suppose a weekly diet of Hitchcock humbled me as to my ability to create meaningful suspense ! However the great film Director introduced me to Daphne Du Maurier. A strong female voice that I could identify with. In the same vein, Jane Eyre was The Revelation amongst the Brontë Sisters' work. To succeed in emulating these all-time greats would be quite an achievement indeed !
Finally, at 17 I discovered John Irving. And my ultimate goal as a writer was now clear.
Theatre is never far away : Shakespeare, Marcel Pagnol, Sartre and Jean Cocteau; Thorton Wilder, Brecht, Tom Stoppard, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett. Although I was incapable of writing a play, my mastery of dialogue was poor, at best, I have dabbled in this genre...without success. Hence my hitherto unwritten novel !
Science Fiction
C.S. Lewis
John Wyndham Arthue C. Clarke Ray Bradbury
Isaac Asimov Kurt Vonnegut
Georges Orwell H.G. Wells Aldous Huxley
Historical Fiction
Jean Plaidy
Robert Merle Lian Hearn
Philippa Gregory Dian Gabardon
Carlos Luis Zafon
Fantasy and Magic
E. Nesbit
Enid Blyton Penelope Lively Susan Dickenson
Barbara Euphan Todd Aiden chambers Elizabeth George Speare
J.R.R. Tolkien C.S.Lewis Terry Pratchett
J.K.Rowling Philip Pullman Lev Grossman
and most recently, fellow writers Yvette Carol Lisa Fender
Crime and Mystery
Enid Blyton Arthur Conan Doyle Michael Crichton
Jo Nesbo Paula Hawkins Elizabeth Georges
Stieg Laarson Karen Giebel Agatha Christie
Poetry
Keats
Coleridge Wordsworth Robert Burns
Shakespeare Rimbaud Baudelaire
Ted Hughes Gerard Manley Hopkins Sylvia Plath
Kenneth Koch Billy Collins Carol Ann Duffy
and most recently, Tamar Yoseloff Rebecca Gethin
Collections Fiction
John Irving H.E Bates Robert Merle
René Barjavel Umberto Eco Bernard Werber
Boris Vian Kafka André Brink
Jostein Gaarner David Lodge Robertson Davies
Margaret Atwood Carol Shields Margaret Forster
Paul Auster Pat Barker Kasuo Ishiguro
Henry James Shakespeare Charles Dickens
Mark Twain Jack London John Steinbeck
F. Scott Fitzgerald Sartre Camus
Graphic Novels ( over 300 in our bookcases )
Belgian School French School Italian School
Argentine Windsor Mc Kay J.B. Frost
Peanuts MAD artists
Thank you for reading. Please feel free to comment, give your input, ask questions and I will be sure to reply.
Have a lovely week End.
