Questions for a Sunday morning

I don't read The Valve regularly, so I found these questions, originally posted there by Miriam Jones (aka Scribblingwoman), via Pharyngula, and while they were posted a few days ago, they're kind of interesting questions so I thought I'd toss out some answers.

1. Do you compose on the computer? Why or why not?

Yes, I do. I talked about this a little in the comments to Mel's post here, but I'm always happy to repeat myself. I compose on the computer because at this point my typing speed far outweighs my handwriting speed, and because the product is much more easily manipulated. When I first start writing, my main priority is getting words down on the page, in whatever order, in a great big mess that I can then work with to see what's worth keeping. I do very little composing in my head; I have to write things down to figure out what I'm actually thinking. If I have everything figured out - if I know what I think - I have very little motive to write at all.

2. Does carbon paper make you nostalgic?

No. Not at all. I really only remember using it for a couple of term papers in high school.

3. Do you have a stationary and/or a pen fetish?

Yes, absolutely! I prefer only to write with fountain pens, both modern and vintage, which I collect (although I do sometimes favor .5 mm mechanical pencils for writing comments on student papers). I prefer fountain pens with medium-to-fine nibs. In a whole nifty variety of ink colors. I go through phases in ink color; for a while it was fuschia and lavender, now I'm leaning toward blue-black and turquoise. I have about 30-35 different colors of bottled ink sitting in my desk and various boxes, and own something like 150-200 pens (depends on how much you want to count the cheapies). I'm also obsessive about my stationery; I take notes in junior-sized Levenger Circa notebooks, Rhodia notepads, or large-sized ruled Moleskine notebooks. I like 5" x 8" pages because it seems like a manageable amount of information to scan at once when I'm going back through my notes. I also use index cards, mostly for lesson plans but sometimes for other note-takng.

Of course, the whole pen/stationery fetish sort of conflicts with the composing-on-the-computer habit, but there's always note-taking (which I keep trying to computerize, but haven't managed to do so very successfully yet), and revising, which I always do on printouts of my work rather than on the computer.

4. Do you remember the first “grown-up” book that you ever read?

Hmm. This is tough, actually. I know I read various things my mom had floating around - popular novels, many from England in the 50s and 60s, actually. One of these was Anya Seton's Katherine, for which I blame my career as a medievalist. I also remember reading this, although I thought was younger than the publication date suggests. I read whatever was in our house when I was growing up and didn't really think much about whether the book was "adult" or "young adult" or what.

5. What embarrassing book from the distant past brings back a flood of recognition?

Oh, that would have to be Judith Krantz, Scruples  (the first of hers that I read, but not the last!). Really embarrassing. Or, of course, the classic - Flowers in the Attic! What a horrible book. And yet, rereading the opening pages at Amazon.com, I can remember every line. Gack.

6. Are you a scholar, or a critic? Or neither?

Hmmm. Seems sort of presumptuous to declare myself either, and I'm probably missing the fine distinctions between the two, but I would say say scholar. Historians don't do the critic thing very much.

7. When did you decide to become a scholar/critic/neither? Did you decide?

Well, I decided to go to grad school after working on my senior thesis, when I found that I liked immersing myself in old books that no one else had taken out of the library since they were acquired (which was frequently the early 20th century). It probably didn't hurt that I'd been reading about people like Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots through high school. As for why I ended up a scholar and not a critic, well, I can't really say. Except that my passion was to figure out what it would have been like to have lived "back then" (and still is, though I have a much more realistic idea about what we'll ever be able to know).

8. Has blog writing affected the way you write in other venues? The way you read?

Reading blogs hasn't so much changed how I read as what I read - I read about a much wider range of current issues than I used to. I'm not a newspaper reader, so I get an interesting and helpful (though obviously selective) filter of current news through blogs. Blogging has also provided me with a space where I can write quickly, without worrying about revision (sorry, my poor blog readers!), and where I can be a little more creative or relaxed than in my academic writing, but I haven't done enough of the latter while blogging this year to say that blogging has changed my other writing. I will say that since blogging I e-mail much less, as most of the people I e-mailed with regularly read the blog.

9. Do you still read blogs or other webpages even if the design/print is unappealing or difficult to read?

Yeah, if I like the content. I do most of my reading through Bloglines and only click through to make comments. While on the one hand the design of a blog colors my perception of it - kind of like adding to the author's voice/persona in my head - on the other, reading via Bloglines really makes it about the content and not whether I just like the way the blog looks.

10. Have you ever bought a book because of the cover/design? Which book(s)?

Well, I've ended up buying books that I originally picked up just because of the cover. The most recent example that comes to mind is Augusten Burroughs, Dry (which has a striking cover that looks like it's been left out in the rain). But I'm sure there are plenty of books that I picked up due to the cover that I've put down again as well.

11. Do you think these questions are irrelevant?

Clearly I think they're relevant enough to take the time to answer them - but given that my alternatives are grading or writing a conference presentation and I only got about 5 hours of sleep last night, I'm not sure how much weight you should give to this...!

Comments

[meg]

Hey, where do you buy your bristol cards? Last I checked, the Exacompta folks you linked to don't sell their stuff online. (Plus I don't want the pastel pack, but that's another thing.)

I buy several boxes whenever I'm in Europe (three more weeks!), but I'd rather not bother if there's an alternative.

[RageyOne]

I have a pen fetish as well! My favorite is pens that write in color. None of that lame black and blue stuff for me...give me green, purple, maroon, gray, etc.

[Laura (geekymom)]

God, I was just thinking about Flowers in the Attic the other day because I saw that V.C. Andrews (who's really dead, I think) has a new one out. I read those books strictly for the sex appeal. I was 13, what do you expect? :)

I think what you said about blog design is interesting. I read through bloglines much of the time and sometimes I'm surprised by someone's design if it doesn't fit their content. Sometimes what I think about their content changes as a result of the design. Worth thinking about more.

[ianqui]

Re: 10--I went through a phase where I would pick up books at a very discounted used bookstore. Unless I wanted something specific, I would specifically always look for the publisher Vintage, because I really like the aesthetic of the book. They were usually good, too, but it was at first based on the image.

That's how I buy wine sometimes too.

[Phantom Scribbler]

I used to buy Vintage books just for the book design, too, Ianqui. Good thing they have a good group of writers there, too -- I only struck out a few times.

My mom gave me Flowers in The Attic to read when it came out -- I was around nine. Traumatized the hell out of me, I must say.

I had a pen fetish for years -- fine nib, boxes of colored inks. But I never owned more than 10 or 15 pens. And eventually I felt pretentious walking around with ink stains on my fingers all the time. (Ooo, look at me, I'm a writer! See the ink!) Maybe if I wasn't so inept at filling my pens, I would start using them again...

[Nels]

Oh, can't wait to see what you think of Dry. I keep thinking I need to write an article about that book, especially as it compares to his first book.

[jo(e)]

Flowers in the Attic? I haven't thought about that book in years and years. Still makes me feel creepy .... amazing how many details from it I still remember.

[Anastasia]

eeewww flowers in the attic.

my sister and I both had a big vc andrews fetish. if my mother had ever bothered to read one...

[Advice At Your Own Risk]

I think I read just about everything VC Andrews wrote by the time I was 16. I'm LOL @ Anastasia's comment about her mom because I remember thinking the same thing. Then, I found out that my Grandmother had read them all... which both cracked me up and made me sort of ill. ;-)

[yankee transplant]

Pen and stationary obsessed? Me, too! WBBHA gave me a "writing" desk and a new fountain pen for my birthday this year. I love green ink. My father wrote with a fountain pen and used green ink.

[Zh.]

Gracious. V. C. Andrews. I remember checking those out from the library and reading them. My friend had to borrow my library copies of them because her mom wouldn't let her check them out. Oddly enough, it was my supposedly sheltered friend who would explain the finer points of the dirtier bits in the books to me because I guess that I was oblivious and naive back then. I'm still pretty oblivious.

[panasianbiz]

I stumbled across your blog while I was doing some online research. I am also someone who likes to compose on the computer, although I do sometimes handwrite first when I am working on something like a poem as opposed to an essay or article.