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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Shelina: I Miss April, How About You?


I Miss A to Z April, How About You?

So you had this fabulous daily blogging regimen and then April comes to an end and you’re exhausted from the hectic life that is daily blogging. But your jazzed at the idea that you could do it and no one caught on that you had no idea what you were doing. You figure, going down to two or three blogs a week will be easy in comparison. You’ve balanced a full life and your blogging life at   last. A week or two passes and you start losing steam. You're barely getting out a post a week. Why?
Business Calendar & Schedule
( Business Calendar & Schedule (Photo credit: photosteve101)

You stopped writing daily.

That’s the easy answer but it’s the truth. If you wrote every day like you did during April you wouldn’t be here now, thinking, what happened? So if you’re in a blogging funk the easiest fix is to do exactly what you did for April. You don’t have to hit “publish” everyday, but you should still create posts everyday or close to it, if you want to hold on to your momentum. What I did for April was planned my posts for the month and then I had something to work from during the month and I was able to keep ahead of my posts by a week or two. That was one of my easiest blog months ever, because I planned ahead. I've gone back to that. I don't have all them blogged and scheduled yet but I have them planned out and I know what I want to say and how. It's given me more time to work on some other projects that I've been wanting to get to: editing two finished novels, my YouTube channel and a new blog concept coming out shortly. I even did my first giveaway. Don't worry it's not to late to fix things.

Writing Exercise:

If you’re a blogger or thinking of starting a blog, try to get ahead by a month you’ll feel the comfort and stress free feeling of being on top of your blog giving you more time to focus on giving your readers quality content and timely responses.


Just in case you missed my A to Z posts under the theme "Get Writing" you can download them in book form here.

Shelina – these are great words of advice! Thanks for being here to share.
~Tina

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Tasha Beren on Fan Fiction

First of all I'd like to say thank you to the A to Z blog for hosting my post and especially to Tina from Life is Good for organising the blog hosting.

I survived the A to Z challenge this year and it was great fun taking part, I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. Although I've only been on Blogger for a little over a year and interacting with the professional writing blog community, I have been blogging one way or another for longer than I'd care to reveal and today I would like to talk to you about one of my loves: fanfiction aka fanfic.

Please don't groan and run away, fanfiction does not begin and end with 50 Shades of Grey, I promise :). If you are not familiar with 50 Shades of Grey and wonder why I mentioned it, it is because the books originally started out as fanfiction for Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.

I thought it might be helpful to define what fanfiction is first, so there are no misconceptions.

Very simply put, fanfiction is fiction written by people about a universe and/or characters they did not personally create, of which they are a fan.

It can be a fictional universe, for example Harry Potter (to the left is some fanart for one of my Harry Potter fanfics called Gold Tinted Spectacles), or it may use real people, for example The Beatles. Usually this fanfiction is written for the consumption of other fans for free, with a few notable exceptions (this link goes to a superb article with a list of fanfics you probably never realised were fanfics).

There have been a lot of misconceptions in the media recently about fanfiction and 50 Shades really hasn't helped. Fanfiction is not all about the porn. As I have mentioned before on my own blog, the fanfiction medium is definitely not afraid of sex and explores sexuality and sex in many and varied ways, but fanfiction is not just about that. There is a whole subgenre of fanfiction called Gen which has no relationships and no sex in it at all. Something the media never seem to mention in their reports about it. (Of course there is Rule 34 - if you can think of it, there is porn for it, but that goes for everything as well as fanfic ;)).

I have been a writer all my life, scribbling in notebooks all through my tweens and teens and even before that, but I did not really spread my wings with writing until I found the internet, fandom and fanfiction. One of the greatest things about fanfiction is it brings people together with shared enjoyment and, in my experience, the community is a fun, nurturing and vibrant place to explore writing and concepts and, well, just about anything you want to explore. During my stay in fandom writing fanfiction I cannot begin to explain what I have learned, everything from how to be a better writer, to social tolerance, feminism, racial awareness and so much more.

Ideas are very powerful things and the fanfiction world is full to bursting with them in easily accessible, easily digestible packages. I also firmly believe that anything that encourages reading, writing and creativity has to be wonderful.

Admittedly, I am quite glad there was no internet when I first started writing, because all my really big disasters are very firmly in drawers never to see the light of day again. I will admit I have one story in the depths of that drawer where my lead female character was totally a self insert and a Mary Sue (female character who is best at everything, saves the day, marries the hero etc) and ended up with Wesley Crusher. I've always fancied the characters with brains :). My shame is locked away, but the youth of today is writing their own first terrible fiction and throwing it straight onto the internet.

Now I'm not saying they shouldn't, everyone has to start somewhere and there are people out there who love reading such stories, but I am very glad no one can ever dig up mine from Google and laugh as loudly as I do when I occasionally glance at it. I do have one piece of advice for all would-be fanfic writers, however: find yourself someone to read it before you post it to correct any hideous errors. In fanfic land we call these people beta-readers and they are very wonderful and very helpful.

I, myself, am mostly a slash writer when it comes to fanfic. This means I write mainly male/male pairings, although I have been known to write het (male/female) and ménage (threesome or moresome). This does not mean all my fiction has sex in it, just that most of it has relationships of some kind. I usually write fanfic because I'm a shipper, this means I ship (want to see two or more characters in a relationship) when they are not together in canon (the official events of the universe). I have also made it my goal in life to write at least one vampire story in every fanfiction world I choose to play in. My pairing du jour is Loki with just about any of the Avengers and if I tell you my Harry Potter pairing of choice is Harry/Draco you can probably tell I enjoy pairing the bad guys with the good guys.

People write fanfiction for numerous reasons, too many to list here, but most of all I think the majority of people write it to have fun and enjoy themselves in a warm and friendly community.

Amazon have just announced Amazon Worlds where fanfic writers can earn money selling their fanfic for the few American TV shows they have licensed. Personally I think this is a grab to gain content cheap without paying professional tie-in writers and is a truly horrible idea. I wouldn't touch it with a fifty foot pole. I also believe that moneterising fanfic in any way is asking for trouble because when money becomes involved so do lawyers and they always try and spoil people's fun. /Climbs off soapbox

Some fanfics stick closely to canon and read like another episode from the series, book or film. Some diverge so far they are known as AU or Alternative Universe where recognisable characters are placed in new circumstances, for example the characters from X-men First Class as regency ladies and gentlemen (very popular since both leading men have played regency characters) or, closer to the original, Erik and Charles meet a different way, causing a different outcome to the film. Some people also use the term Alternative Reality, but there is much debate even within the fanfiction world over which one means what, so a lot of people stick to AU.

One of my favourite sub-genres is the crossover where the author takes two or more universes and crosses them together. As with rule 34, if you can think of two universes, someone somewhere in fandom has probably written that crossover. N*SYNC meets Harry Potter is by far not the strangest. I love a good crossover (although there are some truly terrible ones out there as well), because I adore stories where characters are confronted with situations they just have no way of comprehending. I enjoy writing them too and the one I am most proud of is a Harry Potter/Anita Black crossover called Black Magic by Moonlight where I plonk Harry and Draco in the middle of Anita's preternatural St Louis.

There is such amazing creativity in fanfiction and all the media seem to be interested in is the sex or the authors/creators who have a rabid hatred of it. I honestly cannot understand the professionals who try and vilify it. If someone wanted to write fanfic of my stories I would be utterly overjoyed. I wouldn't read them, so no one could try and accuse me of copying them, but I would still be totally flattered and glow with happiness that they existed. I have never understood the idea of 'MINE, you can't play!' when people have been doing it for centuries and you can't demand people experience your work exactly the way you want them to. Reading and writing is an individual experience and that's the amazing thing about it. Fandoms that have fanfic tend to survive a very long time.

If you would like to dip your toe into some fanfic the best place to go is Archive of Our Own. It's run by a non-profit group called the Organization for Transformative Works and is very well set up and monitored. You don't need an account to read, you will just be asked if you wish to proceed if you click on a link with adult content. Most of my fanfic can be found there under my fanfic pen name Beren.

Are you a fanfic writer, if so, what do you write? If not, have you read fanfic, did you enjoy it? Also, if you have any burning questions about fanfic I would be most happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the post.

Natasha Duncan-Drake
Blog | Twitter | Tumblr | Livejournal | G+ | Wittegen Press Author Page

About the Author: Tasha started writing as a pre-teen and has never stopped. She used to be a software engineer and database designer before she decided to follow her dream to be a writer full time. With her twin sister she created Wittegen Press, a small e-Book press for publishing genre fiction. Her books include novels in the contemporary fantasy, crime and horror genres as well as many short stories and novelettes in every genre from sci-fi to romance. When she's not writing she's usually reading, watching vampire movies, baking or polishing her Photoshop skills.

Monday, June 24, 2013

MaryAnn Millington: Fitting In

From our beginnings most of us are trying to fit in, in one way or another.  Sometimes within our family dynamics.  Often at school where clicks are around every corner.  Usually at work, trying to fit in to the office politics.  For me all of the above is true and after all these years I feel like I am still trying to fit in.

Back in November of 2012 I started my blog on a whim, really trying to get some exposure for my Etsy shop.  My intent was to feature my designs and maybe some HOW TO, instructions.  Well something really crazy happened along the way.  I found I loved to write.  So instead of featuring my items I was writing about my life and then one day in February, I  fell upon the A to Z Challenge.

I immediately asked myself:
Can I really find something to write about everyday?
Where do I fit in to the writing world?

So, my quest to fit in returned but I decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it.  There were suggestions on the A to Z blog to pick a theme which would make it easier but I could not really think of something that I was interested in to write about everyday.  So I just decided to wing it.  I started making an A to Z list of topics that would correspond to the letter hoping that would help my thought processing going forward.  I even wrote a few ahead of time, thinking this would give me a good head start. At first it did help but in the end, as is my way, I just blogged about what just came to mind a few days before or sometimes the day before.  It certainly was brain taxing at times.  Midway through I was ready to throw in the towel but I just kept going and was happy and proud to finish.  I even started an everyday May challenge but by day twenty I got blog block and decided that I had, had it.

I totally enjoyed visiting others like PoketheRock and Pigeonhousehandmade but as I visited other blogs the burning question for me was still where do I fit in?  I am certainly not an author or want to be one.  I am a crafter but I love to also write so I really do not fit in there.  I love home decor and like to sometime display my home improvements but I am really not part of that group.  I have grown children so I am way past how to keep your children busy during summer vacation blogs.

So the question returns Where do I fit in?

Still really not sure but I am having fun writing, meeting new people and learning lots of new things along the way.

MaryAnn, you fit in right here with us: The alphabet loving, April Challenge folks! So glad you joined us in April, and thanks for being here today.
~Tina