Really.I love Brian.
31-Oct-03
So, my friend Brian and I are the most antagonistic towards each other, but we’re also great friends. Brian’s the guy I’d call if I needed bail and couldn’t reach my husband. We’re very close, very good friends.
But if you’re ever playing a competitive game with us (and, trust me, every game is competitive if we’re in it), you really only have to wait for the two of us to destroy each other, and just walk in to wipe up whatever’s left. We antagonize each other, debate, argue, etc. etc. etc.– even when we completely agree. The wrangling is truly a thing of beauty– something along the lines of an old married couple and a pair of siblings, except we’re not related and have never been romantically interested.
So, last night, we were talking about writing, and Brian (who reads about 90% science fiction, including that dreck R. Jordan writes) said that he felt science fiction was a crutch to writing real characters. Which kind of blew my mind, because science fiction is one way to tell a story, one way to isolate something you want to talk about. There are very few interesting science fiction stories that really need to be sci fi, but when you have a limited number of stories in the universe, you tend to find other ways of telling them.
We had, I kid not, about an hour’s long debate over this.
About 26 hours before I start writing my sci fi novel for NaNoWriMo.
Hmmm…. yeah, usually Brian and I debate to spark new ideas and bend our minds in different directions. But last night, I just wanted to strangle him because, all I really needed was for him to say “Sounds great, Steph– have a lot of fun with it!”
In any case, it’s just over 12 hours to the start of NaNoWriMo, and Australians and NZers have already started. I’m very excited, but also feeling tremendously underprepared– not for NaNoWriMo, but for tonight’s Halloween party. Perhaps I should just admit that NaNoWriMo preparation interferes with my ability to prepare for Halloween, and figure out a better schedule for getting them both done next year.