Does anyone here write about insects?

Alex Bravo · Jan 8, 2007

Yes, I know they're creepy crawlers and icky, but is there anyone else that writes about them?

Just curious.

helga · Jan 8, 2007

Ants

I mention ants in my WIP - social structure of ants' community

awatkins · Jan 8, 2007

As a matter of fact, I do.

Have an assignment on my desk right now to write a piece about 'walking stick' bugs.

MidnightMuse · Jan 8, 2007

Oooh, walking stick bugs are so funky! They look like they come from another planet

truelyana · Jan 8, 2007

I love insects

I don't write about them though, I play with them instead

awatkins · Jan 8, 2007

I used to be scared to death of them.

ETA: Oops...meant I used to be scared of walking stick bugs. Now I kinda like'em.

Soccer Mom · Jan 20, 2007

I'm actually planning a middle grade fantasy about a girl who talks to bugs.

I'm fascinated by them.

And I love walking sticks. The best camo ever!

endless · Feb 14, 2007

Actually, I have a mosquito flying around me as I type....
Hey! Is this one of Alex's spies? Or should I say 'flies?'

*giggles maniacally*

I do like butterflies, although they're kinda hard to spread on toast.

Komnena · May 18, 2007

Do spiders count even if they're not insects? I've written some short, very amateurish pieces about encounters with them.
Komnena

Alex Bravo · Jun 23, 2007

Yes, spiders count, as do pill bugs (crustaceans), centipedes, scorpions and other non-insect insects!

Ziljon · Jun 23, 2007

Hey, Alex. I have several insects in my novel, all of them oversized: a dragonfly, a ladybug, two horseflies, two fire ants, a firefly, a damselfly, a wolf spider, twenty carpenter ants, and some unnamed earwigs and preying mantises.

I remember playing with worms as a little toddler, then something happened--I don't know when--and all of a sudden I was a big baby about bugs.

Writing the book has really helped me get over my fear, but I still can't deal with waterbugs. Blech!

-Ziljon (which is the name of my dragonfly.)

shakeysix · Jun 23, 2007

the bug thing

I love insects. Even have a main character named Cicada. At this moment I am watching fireflies in my lawn. They are everywhere this summer because we had a wet spring. Very few junebugs tho. My guilty secret is that i take macro photos of bugs as a hobby--I won grand champion ( a purple ribbon and 25$!) for photography at the Gray County Fair a couple of years ago with a baby grasshopper in a poppy blossom. oops--I think I promised my daughters that I wouldn't tell anyone that sordid family secret--s6

Waterbugs are repulsive, though. I would never take a picture of one.

Komnena · Jul 16, 2007

There's an interesting children's book, titled Spider Boy, about a boy who keeps spiders as pets. Last year we had an interesting spider but I think the mailman may have killed her. She was big, close to two inches long, not counting legs, and brown and had some striking markings. Earlier this year we had a purseweb visit our house.

shakeysix · Jul 25, 2007

sponge bob spiders

i was in south florida last week. my daughter showed me a new kind of spider- a recent immigrant from australia she thinks. they call them sponge bob spiders because they come in sponge bob colors. they have webs everywhere and the spiders look more like little stars than spiders. does anyone know anything about them? --s6

De Lady · Jul 25, 2007

Friend of mine wrote Let's Go Buggy. It's a how to for kids to help them go out and explore their backyards. She did well with it. Fun book.

Komnena · Sep 7, 2007

Outside a local used bookstore I saw a beautiful spider on a chair. She was very big, strikingly black and gold, what my grandmother called a writing spider.

Soccer Mom · Sep 7, 2007

Komnena said:
Outside a local used bookstore I saw a beautiful spider on a chair. She was very big, strikingly black and gold, what my grandmother called a writing spider.

Sounds like an Argiope. Also commonly called "The Garden Spider". I love them.

Komnena · Sep 9, 2007

Your picture is better than the ones I got. There are certain differences. The markings on the main body are very similar. But my spider had more whitish legs with more hair on them, according to my picture.

shakeysix · Sep 9, 2007

writing spider? milk bottle spider

i am in love with the name. never heard of a writing spider. we have brown recluse and black widow here. but nothing as exotic as a writing spider. my grandmother used to have a spider called a milk bottle spider because if we dumped a milk bottle of water down its hole a creepy flesh colored thing would crawl out and glare at us. i haven't seen one of those in years. --s6

Komnena · Sep 9, 2007

There's a superstition that they write the names of people about to die in their webs. It made me a bit uneasy as a kid until I noticed that mostly they seemed to repeat w's over and over again.
Well, if somebody dumped a bottle of water on you, wouldn't you come out and glare too? Mind you, I did worse things to fireflies and june bugs when I was a kid. I almost got in real trouble when I brought home a praying mantis egg case and it hatched in the garage. For a week we couldn't reach for anything that didn't have a praying mantis looking at us with little beady eyes.

shakeysix · Sep 9, 2007

preyed upon by tree huggers

would you believe that i once paid $28 for 3 praying mantis egg cases? i bought them from an organic gardening outfit that must have seen "suck-ah" in psychic letters on my forehead. they were supposed to gobble up ants, hoppers, gophers--all my garden vermin. of course they never hatched. had to go back to hosing the garden down w/ weapons of mass destruction. --s6

Komnena · Sep 13, 2007

I went back to the used book store but someone had stolen the spider's chair. I hope they didn't kill her in the doing but I'm not optimistic.

shakeysix · Sep 16, 2007

monarchs are here

not the old kc baseball team but the butterflies. clouds of twelve to twenty drifting over my zinnias, hovering in the cedars on the creek bank. they usually do make it through western kansas this time of year, in varying numbers. this looks like a good year for them. i want to go to a wilder place to get a better look. maybe at pratt on the ninnescah river. maybe here in my county at quivira, a salt marsh on rattlesnale creek. can't decide. more later--s6 ps--about 11 years ago they were so thick they covered sidewalks. i have a snapshot somewhere of our birdbath smothered in them.

Dragonfly45 · Sep 16, 2007

I never write about insects, but I took an entomology class in college :-0

kdnxdr · Sep 16, 2007

A most wonderful author that tells wonderful things about bugs and nature is Annie Dillard : Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood and The Writing Life. She's wonderful!

kid

Does anyone here write about insects?

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