The Answers to Your Questions: Contest Results - Home For Fiction

May 6, 2020

No, in case you thought this post contains answers to all your (existential) questions, I’ll disappoint you. It only contains my answers to the questions you asked me for the Home for Fiction contest we recently had; contest results, in other words!

I got quite a few questions – thank you all! – perhaps even a bit more than I expected. In case you missed the whole thing, the contest worked so that you could ask me a question related to my writing, the blog, etc., and then I would pick the five most interesting ones to answer. From these, I’d randomly pick three that would win Amazon gift cards, valued at $10, $20, and $30.

Well, as I said, it’s contest results time! Before we proceed to the answers, a couple of notes:

Since I shared the contest page with friends and acquaintances online, I inevitably got questions from people I already knew. This did not affect my choice of questions…
… and as for the Amazon gift cards, the process was entirely automated. I coded a JavaScript-based name picker to randomly get three names. If you’re interested in its details, the code is available at the end of this post.

With these in mind, let’s take a look at the contest results!

Home for Fiction Contest Results

Note: The wording of some questions is edited for clarity. Moreover, some very similar questions were combined (in those cases, everyone who asked the question in… question – sorry, couldn’t resist – entered the drawing).

Question 1: What’s the Weirdest Thing You Had to Google while Researching?

Question asked by Anthony S., Peter, and Vicky.

I bet a lot of authors can relate to this question – three of you asked me about it! I’m sure we all research all kinds of weird things or scenarios for our novels, and I’m not sure my pick is the weirdest, but there’s a funny twist in it.

Self-evidently, my novel Musings after a Suicide required a lot of research on suicide: methods, timings, legal proceedings, etc. All this went well, and I found a lot of the required information.

Then at some point I noticed that I’d started getting ads on suicide prevention, the meaning of life, and even… “Jesus can help you” kinds of things.

I cleared the browser cookies and history to get rid of these ads, and decided to change my strategy. Nowadays I use an incognito window with a VPN when researching.

Question 2: What Is the most Difficult Part of Your Artistic/Creative Process, and how Do You Grapple with It?

Question asked by Angela.

I’ve never suffered what’s called a “writer’s block” or the “blank page problem”, for the simple reason that narratives form in my head in very clear, elaborate ways much before I even think of putting them in words.

However, this introduces a different kind of problem. I’m not sure if it’s the most difficult part of my creative process, but it’s certainly the most frustrating.

I’m sometimes finding it really hard to find the motivation to work on creating a complete novel, because the idea has already materialized.

In other words, as someone who doesn’t really care about audience reception (let alone sales), once a complete story has materialized in my head, that’s almost enough for me. The operative word here is, mercifully, “almost”, because there is still enough motivation left to want to see a more… permanent record of the narrative.

This has had some positives, too. It has probably turned me into a writer who isn’t really interested in long, boring descriptions or fact-based literature – I hate Hemingway’s prose; that should tell you all you need to know.

Affect and symbolism are what I care about, because I’m too uninterested in anything that deviates too much from the narrative abstractness already created in my mind.

Question 3: Do You ever Want to Throw up Your Hands and Say Awfuggit!?

Question asked by Vera.

How could I not pick a question phrased like that? 😀

As for my answer: All the fugging time.

The reasons vary, but it mostly boils down to others’ hypocrisy and idiocy and my own nihilistic tendencies. When you combine these, it’s very tempting to think “what’s the point anyway” and not bother.

Of course, art is about fulfilling a need. This means that although I often say awfuggit, I have so far always returned, wanting to create something new – be it art or code; or something in between.

Question 4: What Was the most Embarrassing Moment of Your Writing Career?

Question asked by Maria and Anthony W.

Interesting question, which will require some analyzing. There is a separation between something embarrassing happening in public and something embarrassing happening in private.

In other words, it’s one thing to have an embarrassing moment at, say, a public reading or other similar occasion, and entirely an other to be embarrassed about something only you know.

Now, you might think the former is worse, but it’s not. Of course this is subjective – and I must say, nothing embarrassing ever happened to me in public. In any case, I think embarrassment you have to live with in your own head is worse, precisely because it’s not public.

If your voice shudders during a lecture, if you forget what you meant to say, or even if – to take a more extreme example – you lose control of some bodily functions, the very fact that it’s public means you are forced to face it. Not to mention, you can also get support. Just Google “Gary Lineker infamous moment” and you’ll realize that even horrifically embarrassing moments can be overcome.

Now, after all this setup, you might think I’m about to reveal something very embarrassing or unfortunate. I won’t, I’m afraid. In all honesty, I can’t think of anything outrageously embarrassing. If I did, would I reveal it? It depends on whether I would seek catharsis through the revelation.

In any case, I think the most embarrassing aspect (rather than a single moment) of my writing career is when I read much earlier stuff I’ve written; for instance the book of mine that got traditionally published – see details on my relevant post. I simply can’t stand reading a single sentence from it. Not only does it feel hopelessly immature, but also entirely void of artistic meaning.

Perhaps that’s also why it got published!

Question 5: What Is the Stupidest Question You Have ever Received about Your Writing? (hopefully not This One)

Question asked by Francis.

The self-referential, humorous aspect of this question was too good to pass on. Besides, it’s a very intriguing question that allows me to use it as a teaching point.

But to do that, I will slightly deviate from the question. I won’t focus on stupid questions but on misguided questions. There’s a subtle difference.

All authors get stupid questions; some of them outrageously stupid. “So, are you rich? Ha ha, and why not?” “Everyone can write, what makes you so special?” “What do you do? No, I mean really; not as a hobby”.

Sounds familiar? Yeah, I thought so.

Therefore, let’s focus on being misguided, rather than being stupid. The difference is that the person is intelligent, but entirely ignorant of what writing a book involves. This isn’t anything to be ashamed of – stupidity isn’t either, but stupidity has a habit of being accompanied by arrogance, hypocrisy, and malice. We’re all ignorant in many things. For instance, knitting feels like quantum physics to me.

And so, with this in mind, the most misguided question I have ever received was this:

“My life has been so weird, it would make an excellent book. Would you like to write it?”

The person who asked me this was (at the time) a 40-something-year-old man whom I was acquainted with. I knew at least the basic outline of his life, and I can assure you it wasn’t anything more (or less) weird than the life of anyone of us.

But that’s beyond the point.

An “excellent book” has nothing to do with how weird or original its plot is. Some of the best books I’ve ever read had plots that were incredibly everyday and ordinary. Because, guess what: People’s lives are boring, and history constantly repeats itself.

I’m sure someone could take that man’s life story and make a good, or even excellent book out of it. But you don’t need any specific individual’s story to base your book on. Humanity is an echo chamber.

Or, to use an excerpt from Illiterary Fiction:

He is met by a cozy scent – a blend of fresh birch emanating from the shelves and the almond-like fragrance of the old books. A few bamboo floor lamps spread a pleasant, mellow luminescence to the room, and with a bit of imagination – all too easy for a reader – he sees worlds emerging from the pages; Hamlet talking to Atticus Finch, and Victor Frankenstein debating with Lestat de Lioncourt on creation and responsibility. Knowledge, power, ethics, wrath, love, justice, malevolence, savagery, desire, hope, progress, despair, hatred, and untold millions of instances of thought that, like drops of water coming together, form the turbulent ocean of the collective human existence.

Contest Results: Gift Cards

Lady Luck favored Vicky, Anthony W., and Maria. Congratulations! You’ve won Amazon gift cards valued at $30, $20, and $10, respectively.

Thanks to everyone who participated. Let’s do this again! I’ve already notified the people whose question I chose, as well as those who won the Amazon gift cards. If for some reason you didn’t get my email (while seeing your name/question here), first check your spam folder and if my email is not there either, please let me know.

The JavaScript Name Picker

Interested in the JavaScript random name picker? Here it is:

	<html>
<script>
var names = ["Anthony S.", "Peter", "Vicky", "Angela", "Vera", "Maria", "Anthony W.", "Francis"];
var randomSelection = shuffle(names);
document.write('Amazon $30 gift card: ' + randomSelection[0] + '<br>' + 'Amazon $20 gift card: ' + randomSelection[1] + '<br>' + 'Amazon $10 gift card: ' + randomSelection[2]);
function shuffle(a) { // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%E2%80%93Yates_shuffle#The_modern_algorithm
    var j, x, i;
    for (i = a.length - 1; i > 0; i--) {
        j = Math.floor(Math.random() * (i + 1));
        x = a[i];
        a[i] = a[j];
        a[j] = x;
    }
    return a;
}
</script>
</html>

Line 3 is an array with the names of the participants. Line 4 takes this array and passes it to a function (lines 6-15) that shuffles the order. Then, line 5 prints on the screen the first three names of this shuffled array (which, since it is shuffled, returns three random names for positions [0], [1]. and [2]).

It’s a fairly neat way of picking n items from any array in random order, making sure there are no duplicates.