Has writing got you interested in things that you weren’t interested in before?

[EmilyMiller]

It’s hard not to be aware of Taylor Swift. But, I was never a big fan. However, since writing Twelve Months, which featured her songs - as a) I thought they fit and b) the person the narrator is based on is a Swiftie / Swifty / Swiftee (delete as applicable) - I have ended up listening to more of her back catalog and got kinda hooked.

How about you?

 

[OddLove]

Not sure if this counts, but I've experienced temporary interest in things. When I gotta do some research about a characters interests I'll often get distracted from writing and fall down rabbit holes.

Recent examples are math for a smart character, dungeons and dragons for a nerdy character, science stuff for a curious character, etc.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yes. Writing erotic stories has opened me up, generally, to the enormous variety of erotic experience. I'm turned on by more things than I was before. I'm in late middle-age and kinkier than ever. I'm also more interested than I was before in what other people find erotic.

 

[Areala-chan]

I have learned an awful lot about cars for my current WIP...

 

[Actingup]

Yes indeed. If the story is driven by the plot, the circumstances, or the place, that involves research. If it’s driven by the sex, that means trying to understand what other people find sexy or not. Any which way, it broadens the mind.

The Taylor example is a good one. If you write a story about a Swiftie but don’t get it right, you’ll be torn apart by the readers. You might as well learn to be a Swiftie in the process.

Although… there are limits. For my current WIP I’m reading research papers on incrst. That hasn’t made me any more inclined….

 

[MrPixel]

My interest in a particular small town and the neighboring big(ish) city was piqued by research for the series I've been writing for the past couple of years. Most recent was a product of doing map research and discovering a hiking trail with "hidden fun" opportunities that happened to be walking distance from the big hotel two of the FCs worked at. I've driven through the town spotting "familiar" locations in the story, including the house the MMC and FMC live in, originally spotted from Google maps. It's a nice town; if we weren't so anchored where we currently live, it would be considered if we were looking to relocate.

Hi, Em!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi, Em!

 

[EmmAgain]

The thought of writing my memoirs has got me interested in my own family history - and the fragility of memory. My three surviving grandparents are nearing the end and I’m painfully aware that, unlike me, they don’t have terabytes’ worth of photos and videos documenting their lives. Once they’re gone, so too is everything else about them that they never shared with us.

Next year, once the baby has arrived, I think I’ll return to the US and see if they’ll let me interview them.

 

[VinnieV69]

I’m kinda in to the whole mind control, hypnotized, story lines.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

The first time I did NaNo is what got me into motorcycle culture. I wasn't planning on writing about one-percenters, but I went down that rabbit hole. It ended up being a bit of a closet story.

Speaking of it, it was my first novel that made the egg crack. I wrote over the span of two weeks during spring, and in summer of that year the egg finally cracked.

I also ended up a cam girl due to research. What I didn't expect was that it was the perfect job for me.

As for kinks go... I guess I solidified my kink for school uniforms and business suits. What I ended up acquiring through erotica is a fetish for braces, which written feels like another spot on the giraffe because I already love all things oral. I remember reading one story on Fetish and feeling quite jealous about the protagonist by just kissing the female lead and getting the sharp surprise.

 

[StillStunned]

Voyeurism.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It’s hard not to be aware of Taylor Swift. But, I was never a big fan. However, since writing Twelve Months, which featured her songs - as a) I thought they fit and b) the person the narrator is based on is a Swiftie / Swifty / Swiftee (delete as applicable) - I have ended up listening to more of her back catalog and got kinda hooked.

How about you?

I researched Taylor Swift's lipstick for a story, if that counts. But I wouldn't know any of her songs if they were played on the radio.

 

[THBGato]

Not really, no. I've researched a few things, but only for greater accuracy. So far I've pretty much stayed in my lanes. Makes sense really as I'm writing the kind of tales I want to read and, strange as it may sound, there's a dearth of stories dealing with the Bristol music scene circa 2005, the role of the Roma in Spanish society, or Kenyan politics (current WIP). Even neurodivergency seems oddly under-represented.

 

[PennyThompson]

Most of the topics in my stories are things I was already interested in before writing, but I did develop a greater appreciation for and knowledge of cosplay!

And don't tell ActingUp but I appreciate some prog rock a little more than I used to, Genesis is okay

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Electric Callboy.

It's a band I found when I searched for "music that causes headaches" for one of my stories.
Though, turns out, their later work isn't half-bad!

 

[TheLobster]

Nothing as exciting as attending Bristol music concerts while cosplaying as Kenyan prime minister, but I did develop a bit of an interest in the craft of writing itself.

I wasn’t much into literature before but right now, for example, I’m reading untranslated Old Man and the Sea, just to get the feel of author’s famous style that is so different from my own.

 

[EmmatheRunner]

Oh, gosh, absolutely, yes.

If all my characters were interested in the same stuff I am, my stories would be immensely boring. Lets go for a run and read a book. Okay, Emma, write ten novels about that....

Most, admittedly, tend to fade away a little after writing, but at least a few have stuck. I had a TV weathergirl once (fictionalised, I mean) and I became interested in how, actually, they can forecast weather, scientifically speaking. I learnt a stupid amount about East Germany for a very lengthy Cold War story that never happened.

At the moment I have a character in my head who is one of these self-experimenter, live to two hundred types. In solidarity I attempted a kale smoothie. It didn't go well.