I’ve found out that depending on the stories I write, there’s a severe lack of what I could call a “balance of the sexes” in them.

One would probably think that, being a woman, my main characters would be women, or that the secondary characters at least would be. Well, it’s not necessarily true for me. I have an ongoing story where there’s close to no significant female characters in the first part, and the ones who really play a role are behind-the-scenes plotters whose role get unveiled much more later. I didn’t do that on purpose, it’s just the way the characters themselves imposed their presence to me, so to say. I have many female characters leading the way in other stories of mine, so I know I’m not allergic to women—only in this specific story are the main characters male (the females who do appear, on the other hand, aren’t there for romance purposes; creating a female character just to put her in the hero’s bed is something I’ve always, well, have had problems to envision, because it seems so shallow for this poor woman!).

The reason why I mention this is because I once gave the first chapters of said story to read to a friend, and got told that it was weird to see me write about male characters, and not about strong female ones. I can’t remember exactly what was said (and it wasn’t said in a nasty way, it was simply a remark in passing), but I know it sounded as if it was surprising coming from me. I’m not sure if I appeared like a hard-line feminist at the time, or if it looked weird because I had been writing about strong women characters before. I’ve just remembered this today, as I was drafting character sheets for another project.

Is there a problem with a lack of balance of the sexes in a novel? Personnally, I generally don’t care: as long as the characters are well-developed and make sense in their respective roles, I think the author reached his/her goals with them. However, I can also envision that a reader would feel miffed at not seeing his/her own sex represented more in a specific story; one thing many people tend to look for, consciously or not, is “someone to identify with”, and as such, the lack of significant presence of their own sex in a book could throw them off… perhaps. I’m not really sure about that. I just know that until now, I had never really given the matter a thought. Isn’t it a little weird?.

Y Tags: novel | women | writing

This could almost be a story in itself. No, it’s not about writing, but it’s one of these events in life that make you happy that you took action on the day they happened. One month ago, while walking to the mailbox to retrieve the day’s mail, I noticed a pack of huge flies gathered around some tiny thing wriggling on the ground. At first I thought it was a half-dead mouse, but looking closer, it turned out to be a kitten, a very young one—one day old at the most, and I somehow doubt it, she probably couldn’t have spent a whole night outside already. She was still wet from birth fluids, and pretty much trying to get away from the flies around her.

A pen name: here’s one of the little somethings I’ve been pondering, yet never bothered so far to really take a decision about. As a technical writer, I’ve been working under my real name from the start, since it seemed the most logical thing to do, but what about fiction works? What about, well… everything else?

My last name isn’t terrific. It’d sound decent in English, but in French, nobody’s ever able to pronunce it right from the start, and in other people’s mouths, it ends up as some kind of bastardized garble more than anything else. Serves me right to have a name of German origin. I can’t use my boyfriend’s last name, since I’d then irremediably be mistaken for a singer, and one I don’t even like, at that. I’ve been considering taking my grandmother’s maiden name (my mother’s is even worse than mine, albeit still less horrible than my cousins’!), and I must admit that this would mean a lot to me as well as to her. However… I’ve never had very defined ideas regarding this matter, and never chose one. I figure out that I’d better not start piling pen names, else I’ll drown myself in them pretty fast.

Would I really need a pen name? Do that many authors use one, or is it simply a preconceived idea? Does it make it easier to separate one’s works, non-fiction from fiction, or books in different domains of competence? Would it on the contrary be a problem, by creating confusion? Would it be perceived as a refusal to assume my “real identity”, as a rejection of my origins?

Granted, this isn’t essential to my career, and there are moments when I couldn’t care less. I’m simply wondering at times. Is it such a big deal, or shall I better go about it the way I’ve been going until now, by not worrying my head about it? After all, some things are only worth the bother when they come, not years in advance.

Y Tags: name | writing

In today’s post, I’m going to admit a little secret: I seriously suck at finding titles. For someone who aspires to write fiction stories and keep her readers entertained, this is pretty… embarrassing.

Giving good, interesting titles to my stories is something I’ve never been really talented at. Either I struggle with them for ages, or I just can’t find any (I still have no defined title for the series of books I’ve been planning for, er, 5 years now?). If I can base them on other titles, such as making a pun on a song’s or novel’s name, things are easier, but then, of course, I’m certainly not going to plagiarize existing titles for my stories, right? This would be even more pitiful than ending up with a boring title.

Where to get inspiration for good titles? Is there some kind of secret? Is it nothing more than a matter of gathering key thèmes about a story and its events, and mixing everything until I find a combination of words that sounds good (which doesn’t work that well for me—I always find the result somewhat cheesy)? I’m seriously growing tired of giving temporary hackneyed titles to my stories. I haven’t even found one yet for my NaNovel, in spite of already having quite a defined idea of the story’s plot and development, and I need it in three weeks.

Isn’t this a stupid situation? Please, tell me that I’m not the only one to be left facing such struggles with titles, that they’re not as easy to find as they seem to be to an external eye. I’m starting to think that I’m title-impaired. All I want is titles that sound good, neither too cliché nor too complex/occult/pedantic. It’s not asking too much, is it?

Ah, the pain. Why do I feel like everyone else finds terrific titles, and I’m only left with the non-exciting ones and the feeling that “I should have thought of this one!”?...

Y Tags: inspiration | titles | writing

When I write, I can’t do it properly without music—come to think of it, there aren’t many things I like to do without music, anyway. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in this case. In a way, I’ve been quite lucky in my respective jobs so far: in almost all the jobs i’ve done until now, I’ve always had music with me, except when I was teaching. It’s been part of my life for so long that I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t listen to whatever I’d lay my hands on (alright, almost whatever).

One of my long-lasting crushes lie with KAJIURA Yuki. It’s been four years I first stumbled upon her compositions, which at the time was the Noir OST, and since then, not only did I fell in love with her style, but I sticked to it through other, different soundtracks. Whether it is for Noir, .hack//sign, Madlax or Boogiepop, I always find several pieces on each album that really trigger my inspiration. My favorite ones definitely are on Noir (Canta Per Me, Ode to Power, Salva Nos, as well as Intoccabile’s theme, that I can’t find anywhere, only in the series) and .hack//sign (In The Land of Twilight, A Stray Child, Limits, Aura and its “evil”, creepy counterpart). Some of the themes for Madlax are also pretty interesting. I’ve already put a few of Kajiura’s compositions in the radioblog here a few weeks ago, and I’m pondering making a “special Kajiura” playlist someday, if only to give a full-fledged preview of her music. When I prepare my list for NaNoWriMo, I’ll no doubt include some as well.

In general, anyway, OSTs will often be a good source of inspiration and writing music for me; moreover, when the music doesn’t have any lyrics, I can focus better, so it never harms to have a stack of pieces without words lying around.

Y Tags: music | OST | writing | yuki+kajiura