It's Well Written Wednesday today, and even though I should be doing my goals post--it's September and aside from jumping for joy that summer's over, I'm up to my neck in goals...--I'm going to talk about something else. Something writing related. 

I briefly, with what felt like utterly no success at all to me, tried the Three Day Novel challenge this holiday weekend. And I looked at my calendar for the next couple of weeks. And then I decided to spend a couple of hours just messing about on the internet. Because. 

Shush you. 

Anyway, I stumbled on this post on Mental Floss, about the best parents in fiction. With full understanding that clicking on something on Mental Floss is about like falling into the pit that is TV Tropes, I read it anyway. Parents in literature are definitely a soft spot for me. I deeply identified with Elizabeth Bennett as a young woman for a whole lot of reasons I'm sure my lovely parents would rather I not admit to. I loved books about orphans, and children who strike off and go their own direction. 

I have parental issues. I was writing in something approaching a professional way for about five years before I realized I was worse than Disney. My characters almost never have parents. Generally, they've been dead quite a while. They were utterly unfit, they didn't care, I could keep going but you get the point. I realized if I ever got published I was probably going to have something to explain there. My dad's an avid reader, and my mother's been a psychiatric nurse since almost before that was actually a thing. 

Here's the thing. I was a difficult child, for all of us I think. Oh, I didn't run off and drink or do drugs. I didn't get suspended from school or pick fights. I was shy, and withdrawn even with them. I don't think I ever actually liked to be touched, and I have trust issues that exist in my head so far back I'm not sure it's possible for them to be anybodies fault, even if those always worked that way. Which they don't. 

I seriously doubt anyone who tells me they have a perfect relationship with their parents. How can you? We're not little seed-podlings. It's no different than roommates assigned by a computer. If your parents have done their jobs right you should disagree on all kinds of things, because you should have learned to think for yourself. And in doing that, since you didn't have their experiences growing up, all kinds of things have to change. If you're any age between 12 and 40 and you can't tell me one thing about your parents that drives you absolutely insane you're lying to someone. For your sake I hope it's just me.

So that list I linked to, of all the great parents in literature. It's a little idyllic for my taste. I like Mr Bennet, who is so engrossed in his books he misses things he really shouldn't and makes crappy decisions because they mean he gets peace. I even like Mrs Bennet, despite her drama and hysterical tendencies--in small doses. I like Narcissa Malfoy because let's all agree, without her Draco Malfoy would have turned out even more screwed up than he did. 

Parents are people too, outside of their job as parents. They should be in fiction too.

ppssst. Come back Friday. We're talking about TIME TRAVEL. 

So here on my normal blog, I talk about Science-Fiction on Fridays and originally at the start of the week I was going to do that on the Art of Procrastination too this Friday. Maybe find something interesting to talk about in regard to what it takes to get into the SFWA, or something else that tied it to publishing.

But midnight starts the annual 3-day Novel Challenge. I'm taking the weekend off from being a publisher. Until midnight on Monday I'm just a writer. I like to talk about writing. And cheese. And occasionally sheep.

Someday on here I'll go into the whole story of why we're called Golden Fleece Press. Or maybe Kate will. One of us will happily drag you into the fabled land of crazy with us eventually, don't worry. When we do, why I've mentioned sheep when I'm going to talk about World Builder's Disease will suddenly, miraculously, make sense. You're welcome.

I have fully realized, type A, un-treatable World Builders Disease. Like it needs a national day of recognition, it's so bad. So I should understand the impetus to draw a map of your fantasy kingdom, or tell me the full five-generational family tree of your main character. I should have gobbled up those pages of genetic coding in Jurassic Park, instead of skimming past them to get back to the swimming T-Rex.

But I don't, and I didn't. I lose patience incredibly quickly with information I don't need.

You think the next thing I say is going to be that you shouldn't do all that, don't you?

Not in a million years. Because that highly-detailed, rich background world hiding in your notebook will leak onto the page in a million other places. In places I want it, because it keeps your world and your characters from being weak card-board cut-outs. So watercolor a full topographical map of your kingdom. Figure out the exact science of gene-splicing your frog-bat. Determine exactly how Frank Idiot the Third is directly related to the Holy Roman Emperor.

Just only tell me the stuff I actually need to know.

This super short post is brought to you by the fact it is 11:28 and I'm already itching to dive into creating a pin-board of visual inspiration I shouldn't have time to look at this weekend.