META: Your Loved Ones

[Tom Russell]

The attentive reader will note that my wife's name has been popping up
in my work from time to time: she's editing THE NOSTALGICS for me, and
when Martin needed six female gag characters, Mary and I came up with
three each.  (She's also the one who suggested that Haiku Gorilla get
his own series, written in haiku form.)

As time goes on, I suspect that she will be a greater infulence and
part of my creative work here, as she is in our other creative
pursuits.  This will probably only be to a point, though: she's not a
fan of the superhero genre by any stretch of the imagination, and she
doesn't "get" the LNH, the fourth-wall humour, the non-power powers,
the comic book jokes (a Rob Liefeld reference is wasted if it has to be
explained).  She enjoys my Eightfold work quite a bit, but still scoffs
at ideas like a hero never killing a villain.

And this is fine, because RACC and comic books and the superhero genre
are something of my hobby, and a hobby is, generally, an
individualistic pursuit.  Cultivating solitary interests in healthy
porportion to sharing activities is a key way to prevent any
relationship from becoming too stifling.

Still, I try in my way to get her involved with this part of my life,
if only because I dislike feelings of decompartmentalization.

--

I offer these personal thoughts with the intention of starting a
discussion thread, because RACC is a community and discussion is always
good for communities.  The question of the hour pertains to your loved
ones: your friends, family, signifcant others, colleagues-- the "real
life" people that you care about.

How involved are your loved ones with RACC?  Are they even aware that
it exists?  Do you bounce story or character ideas off of them?  Have
you ever persuaded anyone to join the group?  (I've persuaded Cory
Smith and Anthony Ringwelski, neither of whom stayed for very long.)
Have you showed them pieces of your own writing?  Have you given them
pieces of other people's writing because you think they'll enjoy it
and/or the writing is itself exemplary?  How many of your loved ones
are big on comic books in the first place?

I'm not sure if this will be a useful discussion exactly, as it doesn't
pertain directly to writing.  But it could be an interesting and
fruitful one.  Those of you willing to share, please do.

--Tom