{"id":695,"date":"2015-07-28T19:46:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T02:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/?p=695"},"modified":"2015-07-29T20:05:16","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T03:05:16","slug":"questions-to-ask-this-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/questions-to-ask-this-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions To Ask This Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In June, Brenna posted <a href=\"http:\/\/brennalayne.com\/2015\/06\/19\/the-top-ten-questions-never-to-ask-a-writer\/\">10 questions never to ask a writer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been meaning to write a response, and well, because I&#8217;m a turtle, here I am a month later. I wanted to write 10 questions I love being asked. Or, well, we&#8217;ll see how many questions I get to. I have a slight aversion to the listicle format. So it might be 10 questions. It might be 5. Brenna also posted <a href=\"http:\/\/brennalayne.com\/2015\/06\/26\/the-top-ten-questions-to-always-ask-a-writer\/\">10 questions to ask<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jillbertini\/19976585386\/\" title=\"Dahlia\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3679\/19976585386_f44cf74938_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" alt=\"Dahlia\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>If you run into me at a party, or on the bus, or in the cafe, here are some questions you might try asking:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Who are your favorite writers?<\/b> The ones who open my mind in a hundred new directions, starting with Madeleine L&#8217;Engle, Ursula LeGuin, and Nicola Griffith. If you want more current names, go check out my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/user\/show\/33597-jillbertini\">Goodreads account<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><b>What kind of stories do you write?<\/b> Not in terms of genre, because apparently what I think counts as within a genre others don&#8217;t. <\/li>\n<li><b>What inspires you?<\/b> This is waaay better than &#8220;where do you get your ideas.&#8221; Who knows where ideas come from. The idea market.<\/li>\n<li><b>What book are you recommending right now?<\/b> Why thank you, I thought you&#8217;d never ask. <i>Lies We Tell Ourselves<\/i> by Robin Talley is phenomenal. It&#8217;s about two young women in the south dealing with the impact of desegregation. Also, <i>Letters to Zell<\/i> by my friend Camille Griep. It&#8217;s a retelling of the fairy tale princesses, investigating love and what it means to stray from the story lines that have been plotted for us.<\/li>\n<li><b>What do you think of going to conventions?<\/b> Nevermind. I lied. I don&#8217;t want to answer that question.<\/li>\n<li><b>How do you find community and support for your writing?<\/b> For me, it&#8217;s been a slow process. I tried in my twenties and didn&#8217;t find people, so I gave up for a while. Then I tried again in my thirties and got closer, but still not close enough. My most recent attempt has been far more fruitful, although I have a feeling this is going to be life-long process. There are tremendous people I&#8217;ve met on Twitter in particular, but going to workshops, going to cons, and going to local readings have helped me feel less alone, too.<\/li>\n<li><b>How&#8217;s your writing going?<\/b> Brenna said she doesn&#8217;t like this question, but I like it. I&#8217;ve specifically told my friends to ask me, because it helps me. I don&#8217;t use it to self-flagellate, as I know many artists do. It&#8217;s like a reality check. Am I writing? Yes. Then the writing is going well. Or even if it&#8217;s going frustratingly, it&#8217;s still good, because I&#8217;m making the effort and trying.<\/li>\n<li><b>What can I make you for dinner?<\/b> Seriously? That&#8217;s so sweet that you offered. Do you clean houses and do laundry, too?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Okay, I made it to eight. That&#8217;s as arbitrary as ten. And that&#8217;s what I got for you for now.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/button100x23.png\" style=\"border:0px; width:100; height: 23; \" alt=\"Share Button\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Reddit\",\"Print\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Questions%20To%20Ask%20This%20Writer\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In June, Brenna posted 10 questions never to ask a writer. I&#8217;ve been meaning to write a response, and well, because I&#8217;m a turtle, here I am a month later. I wanted to write 10 questions I love being asked. Or, well, we&#8217;ll see how many questions I get to. I have a slight aversion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/button100x23.png\" style=\"border:0px; width:100; height: 23; \" alt=\"Share Button\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Reddit\",\"Print\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Questions%20To%20Ask%20This%20Writer\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[154,13],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-questions","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":700,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}