I’ve been writing this blog for six months, and to celebrate, i’m sharing a few writing-related facts about myself. Hope you enjoy!
Thirteen Things About K R Green
These questions are nabbed from various interviews, with the original post (and a few questions) from The Eloquent Page.
Q1. What is your favourite word?
I have two, and they both sound like gibberish but have solid meanings.
– Tmesis, which is the term for adding a word inside another: abso-blimming-lutely.
– Lemma, the official term for “meaning give to a word”. The lemma of dog is a member of the canine species which has been domesticated.
Q2. What is your least favourite word?
I know I have a couple, but I actually don’t think I can name them. It’s more about context or words that bothers me. Having said that, I hate the spelling of “dammit”. It’s damn it. Not dammit. I tried to write damnit, but I’ve given up facing the red squiggly lines on word processor programs, and just write “damn it” each time.
Q3. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
I think I’ve tried bits of everything I’ve thought I’d like to do. I’m not a mother yet, and that’s something I’d like to do for a few decades.
Q4. What is your favourite curse word?
I do like the “c-word”, as people call it. Partly because it’s the same as any other four letter word – it has vowels and consonants and it relates to sexual organs and acts, like most swear words. I’ve heard that it used to mean “wise woman” and it does what swear words are meant to – it adds emphasis. It gets the reaction that “the f-word” used to get. And what’s the point of using a swear word over any other word? It’s to really draw attention to something important. If I’m going to swear, I want it to have the intended effect of attention, else I wouldn’t bother doing it.
Q5. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
I’m hoping all the myths around the Norse Gods are real. Because that way it would go something like this:
K: [looks around nervously] Hi
God: Hi, wench.
K: Can I have a drink?
God: Beer?
K: Mead, if possible. Cider if not?
God: You’re picky, but I like your style. Head on through.
[walks into a massive hunting room full of meat and mead, with girls playing music and guys clapping as people dance and sing.]
I can’t say I believe that will happen, but it would be rad.
Q6. Do you have a favourite fairy tale or well-known story?
Robin Hood’s story really speaks to me. I love the Disney movie from 1973 with foxes. It’s got a nice moral and it’s funny. It holds some fantastic lines of speech too [namely the seven-year-old rabbit’s “Death To Tyrants” line.]
Q7. If your house was on fire, what book would you most want to save from the inferno?
If possible, proof copies of my previous stories and my signed books. Then my two favourite childhood trilogies.
Q8. Name 3 things that always make you smile.
Green tea with jasmine
Being given/buying a new book
Upbeat/fast-paced violin music
Q9. What are 3 things that never fail to piss you off?
People being judgemental (homophobia, racial, the car they drive)
Anyone who uses grammar inappropriately (its versus it’s)
Stories/pictures/trailers that contain violence/cruelty that I haven’t asked to see. (Just because it’s after 9pm doesn’t mean I want to see a horror movie trailer before bed, thanks.)
Q10. You’ve said before that you started out with National Novel Writing Month in 2009, but was that the real beginning?
I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. I’ve actually found a copy of a book I made when I was eight on my grandmother’s typewriter. (see picture)
But the idea that I could write a full story happened in that NaNoWriMo. I re-wrote it twice more before deciding I wasn’t ready to meet the story’s needs. It’s still on a list as a “maybe one day” though.
Q11. Is there a book you love above all others? One that had a great influence on you or your life?
I have a couple of favourite series that I would say “changed my life” or made it what it is today.
‘The Sight’ and ‘Fell’ by David Clement-Davies
‘Silverwing’, ‘Sunwing’ and ‘Firewing’ by Kenneth Oppel (and also ‘Dusk’, a prequel I read years later)
They were the first books where I had really encountered death in a way that I could understand it. Kenneth Oppel’s series was definitely the beginning of my desire to understand nature and my introduction to some of the pagan ideas that are mentioned in some of my stories.
Q12. What’s on your writing desk? (Or in the space where you write)?
Not a lot – I have a desk that is literally only as wide as my laptop and the mouse mat beside it. And somehow it still gets cluttered up!
It generally contains my laptop on it’s fan-pad, a mousepad and mouse, pack of post-it-notes (but never a pen!) and a coaster (often with a cup of herbal tea on it).
Then on the floor, leaning against the desk legs, are my two files of writing notes.
Q13. Other than writing, what would you say your interests or expertise include?
Mental Health / Domestic Abuse / Suicide Awareness (work experience = these are important to me)
Neuroscience (MSc in the subject, so I guess that counts)
Palaeontology (dinosaurs, rawr)