Friday, April 01, 2011

A is for Alternate Realities

My development as a writer was definitely informed by my environment. In particular, the hobbies and interests of my family since as the youngest I was a sponge observing some very headstrong, peculiar, and intriguing people (imagine You Can't Take it With You but in a 70s suburban setting). We are all readers and entertainment hogs for television, movies, and...anything else you can think of that is at least mildly entertaining. Everything from crossword puzzles to Walt Disney World.

As such, my interest in speculative fiction has very deep roots. Dad loves science fiction. Mom loves the fae. And my brother has been a real Bigfoot hunter. Our dinnertime conversation would range into topics such as ghosts, reincarnation, and debates about what the future might hold. So no one was particularly surprised when I started writing science fiction in my teens. While other girls were most likely dreaming about the perfect prom or the perfect wedding, I was contemplating the distant future, other worlds, and the implications of human behavior carried out to its logical extreme.

Granted, those early novels were barely disguised Star Trek and Dune fan fiction, but they set the stage for the type of writing that I would be interested in pursuing for years. And all those dinner conversations set me up with creative alternate realities to pepper my fiction.

Blog post for the April A to Z blogging challenge.

9 comments:

  1. Speculative fiction isn't my usual genre to read, definitely not to write. I admire writers who can create these alternate realities.

    KarenG

    ReplyDelete
  2. Speculate on. We all create our own translation of universes w/in or stories, whether we're using something specific as a basis, recreating history, or coming up with something altogether different. If you set your scene and create your world well, the story almost creates itself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sometimes the only way to escape is by creating an alternate reality! I don't have the chops for writing or reading it, but I wish I could.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great post. That sounds like a fun past. I don't remember conversations but I'm pretty sure it wasn't anything like that. My sister was creative and we would make up games but parents not so much. My stepdad is a reader though and he did like buying us books so we could read too.

    Alternate realities are more fun (dark, creepy, insane, etc). ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you for coming by Karen, Erin, and Candyland! I didn't expect such quick visits for the A to Z Blog Challenge (at least I suspect that's where you came from) and look forward to checking out your blogs, too. Apparently A is for AWESOME start to a challenge!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Dawn! We were apparently posting comments at the same time!

    Some of my favorite memories are games that my creative, bigfoot-hunting brother would make up to play. We had a dice-based football game that I still love. (My teams are the Miami Mice and Orlando Mouseketeers. My game cheer for both teams is, "ARE WE MEN OR ARE WE MICE? WE'RE MICE! WE'RE MICE! WE'RE MICE!")

    ReplyDelete
  7. were can I get one of those WIP little dingy doos you have on the left side of your blog?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey there...er, um, Read My Books. What should I call you?

    You can get the WIP little dingy doos at http://www.languageisavirus.com/nanowrimo/word-meter.html. I love 'em (except for the part where they don't seem to increase on their own, magically completing all my writing tasks).

    Thanks for coming by all my blogs! :)

    ReplyDelete