The Great Divide

I’ve come across another interesting prompt via The Daily Post today:

When reading for fun, do you usually choose fiction or non-fiction? Do you have an idea why you prefer one over the other?

Right off the bat, no question, I prefer fiction, and I know exactly why. You see, while there are parts of human history that I’m interested in (I’m fainted by cultures like the ancient Egyptians, for example), when I’m curling up with a good book I’m looking to escape reality. I don’t want to read about the real world – that’s all around me all day, every day. No, I want to read about worlds that don’t exist.

On that vein, I’d like to take my response a little deeper: when I read for fun I choose speculative fiction, for all the same reasons that I love to write it. I enjoy myths and legends, epic adventures and monsters. I don’t want to read about regular people doing ordinary things; I want to read about magic and supernatural creatures.

I was always the kind of kid who lived in her own head, imagining the world as so much more than it is, and I’ve become an adult who does the same. Every day I’m surrounded by industry, politics, people talking about their ordinary lives, and the media trying to shove celebrity lives and not-so-reality shows down my throat. When I get a chance to relax and enjoy a good book (or show, or movie, or game), I want ghosts and demons, mermaids and fairies, parallel worlds and space battles. I don’t want common events; I want a goddamn anthropomorphic raccoon wielding a laser gun that’s as big as he is.

This. This right here. How can you not want to know the story behind characters like this?

What about you? Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction? What are your favorite genres or topics? Please share!

Also, a reminder that I am running a contest throughout the month of March. For each comment you post on my blog throughout the month, you will receive one entry toward a draw for a hard-copy of my zombie apocalypse novel, “Nowhere to Hide”! Please note that in order to accept the prize, I will need you to give me a mailing address where I can have the book sent. If the winner drawn did not intend to enter the contest and/or does not want the book, I will draw another name. Please also note that obvious spam/duplicate comments/etc. will not be counted toward an entry…play fair! And good luck! ❤

The Next Challenge

I’ve finally completed the Blogging 101 challenge, and while I enjoyed doing it I am definitely ready for something different. About halfway through Blogging 101 I started to get bored with talking about the blogging process (which I think I’ve pretty much gotten down by this point), and I started to long to write about something different. Luckily for me, while I was working on Blogging 101, The Daily Post featured another awesome challenge called Writing 101.

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For the Writing 101 challenge, The Daily Post provided a prompt per day for 20 days. Each prompt gets you writing about something different – maybe even things you’d never otherwise think to write about, and includes ideas of the fiction and non-fiction varieties. Each prompt also includes a “twist”, or a little something extra to try to accomplish if you so desire. The rules of the challenge state that you can mix and match as you desire (do just the prompt, or just the twist with your own writing idea, or do both) but I’m going to try to do the whole thing every time because I’m baddass like that.

As a final note, since this challenge will involve some fiction writing, if said fiction happens to line up with my need for a Fiction Fragment Friday post, I will totally take advantage of that.

So look forward to it! I start soon!

(Non-)Fiction Fragment Fridays: The 5-Year Diary

I thought I’d do something a little different today, so this is the first ever NON-Fiction Fragment Friday. Aren’t I just so clever?

A while back a fellow blogger (apologies, but I can’t recall who it was) mentioned a little “journal” called the “Q&A-a-day 5 Year Journal“. The neat little book asks 365 questions – one for each day of the year – and provides you enough space to answer each question five times…in other words, the goal is to answer each of the 365 questions once a year for five years. Presumably, as you’re answering the questions again and again (and again and again), you get to see how your thoughts and feelings have changed on different topics. The journal asks questions as in depth as, “If you could spend a day with any dead person, who would it be?”, and as simple as, “What did you wear today?”

Now, my original plan had been to share and answer some of the questions that I’ve come across in the book so far. I had the post written. I had the post scheduled. Unfortunately, I am writing this section of this post at 4:30 am as I wait for the work bus to leave, because I opened the post to add the picture above and found that somehow, AGAIN, half of my post had vanished. So today’s “Non-Fiction” Fragment Friday is sadly going to be more of a suggestion for how you can write some fun and quick non-fiction, miniature-autobiography style.

And in the meantime, if someone (I’m looking at you, WordPress) would like to explain why transferring between the WordPress app on my tablet and the one on my phone regularly makes my posts spontaneously combust. It’s starting to get pretty goddamn old.