Archive for » August, 2009 «
You all know where I stand on the fanfiction bandwagon. Which is why this article is all sorts of love, even though for half of it its proverbial head is in the clouds.
I can’t tell you how much I love that article for all the love it gives to fanfiction but I think the quality aspect needs to be looked at in a more realistic light. I think it’s awesome that libraries all over the country are having fanfiction contests that promote better quality writing than what’s seen on places like fanfiction.net but the thing is, that’s not the reality of it. Most of what gets posted online is complete shit. I mean, it doesn’t have to live up to publishing standards. That’s way too much. But if fic readers went around trying to pull back in fanfic writers that have gone off the wall with canon, they’d be called flamers and “omg y cant u just enjoy teh storey?”
Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of fanfic writers out there who take pride in what they’re writing. I’d like to think I’m one of them. Granted what I put out there is equivalent of a first draft (albeit re-read and spell-checked), I still make sure my characters are as close to canon as possible, I’m minimal on the plot holes, my OFC isn’t a Sue and so on. I’ll be damned if I put the kind of editing into my fanfic that I do into my original manuscripts (the fic would never see the light of day if that was the case) because that isn’t the point of fanfic for me. It’s fun writing. It’s stress-free writing. I write it to get the plot out and for once I don’t have to edit the shit out of something to make it salable. I just post it online and hope people read it. And they do. Yay!
But yay for that article! Hopefully with all these libraries and schools promoting a higher quality fanfiction (they mentioned the site Twilighted which I think is a little psychotic, if order to submit there you have to be willing to have your work betaed every time uyo submit a chapter and you have to be open for changing your work to make it better, blow me, I’m not aiming to professionally publish, mkay?) that fanfiction, over time will hopefully increase in quality and the sludge will sink from neck deep to maybe waist deep.
And just for those of you that haven’t read my previous posts on fanfiction, I think writing fanfiction is like learning to swim. You’re not going to jump into the deep end the first time you’re at a swimming pool without any kind of flotation device, are you? Probably not. You’re going to have swimmies on your arms and you’re going to start of in the shallow end and slowly make your way down. Once you’re confident that you can keep yourself afloat, you’re going to remove those swimmies. Fanfiction writing are the swimmies. You get to learn the basics of writing with someone else’s characters and world. Once you’re confident you have what it takes to do everything from scratch, you move on (or if you’re like me, hang onto fanfiction when you need to get away from the original stuff). I think it’s a great writing exercise if you use it for that purpose.
And why the hell is Harry Potter considered a kids’ series when compared against the more “adult” Twilight? WTF? That little part in the article made the corner of my eye twitch. Yes, the realistic good versus evil fight in all 7 books of Harry Potter is so elementary compared to the “let’s talk it out and have hot cocoa after” climax of Breaking Spawn. Oi.
Can I really consider myself there?
I’ve officially rewritten the first chapter of Earth Shatterer to something much better than what it was before (although it still needs to be tightened up) and from here on out it’s blending in the changes with the rest of the manuscript, smoothing out the creases, fluffing it up a little and then . . . query?
Is that where I really am? Should I be calling this the final stretch? Or the stretch before the final stretch? Is the final stretch the last read through I do to pick off any offending grammatical errors? Just where is the final stretch?
Shenanigans have kept me from working on my manuscript the last couple of nights. Really fucking stupid shenanigans that I actually vented on here about but I made the post private. But it appears all is well again and the weather has finally settled into perfect awesome so the timing’s right to pick up where I left off on . . . Monday? I think it was Monday. It’s been calling to me. It’s time to answer. I feel so Zen right now.
Watching The Lost Boys . . . what the hell were you thinking about, pervert? I was 11 when I first saw it. It was late at night, like midnight or something, and it was on TV and hosted by the two Coreys. And someone with the awesome insight loved that night as much as I did and put it up on YouTube. Oh YouTube, you cesspool, you.
Thanks to Aqua and my wonderful Canadian friend who pointed this video out to me. It’s all sorts of love, let me tell you! Enjoy!
I’m not talking about when it rains I’m all mopey and sad and when it’s sunny I’m all rainbows and brown acid. I’m talking about when it’s so goddamn hot outside that doing anything other than submerging your body in a tub of ice makes you recoil. That’s how I’ve felt the past few days.
See, I live without air conditioning. Archaic, I know, but thanks to deregulation and electric bills that make my soul die, I’m not about to throw a couple of air conditioners in there either. Not to mention that even here, there aren’t too many times during the summer where I’m crying on the inside wishing I had one installed. But there are a few.
Like this past week where we had 6 straight days of above 90 degree heat mixed in with dew points in the 70s. I love choking when all I do is walk out the door. At least in the morning it’s been somewhat cooler but this morning sucked. It was already 80 at 6 am. Ugh.
But heat makes you tired too. And sluggish. And unmotivated. Blah! So I’ve wanted to do nothing more at night than sleep in front of my fan instead of doing my writing like I would normally. At least, at the very least, I finished rewriting the first chapter. That was the major hurdle. From here on out it’s a blending process. And so I didn’t feel like a complete slug when I didn’t feel like working on the manuscript, I was skimming through my Elemental Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures looking for faeries and faery-like creatures for the book. I really need to get my hands on Brian Froud’s books but that’ll have to wait until the paycheck comes in.
So at least I did something while I sweat. I don’t feel totally bad about not having done anything. I did *something.* Granted that something was next to nothing. But it was something. Does anyone else do this? Become totally unmotivated when it’s so hot you don’t even feel like peeling yourself off the floor?
So BBAW stands for Book Blogger Appreciation Week held once a year in September. Every year they hold an awards ceremony in a whole bunch of categories for book bloggers where the community nominates bloggers for each category, the BBAW panel narrows down a shortlist based on nomination criteria they asked for and then the shortlist is put up for voting for a set amount of time. The winners are announced during that appreciation week.
Bites wasn’t around last year for it and I wasn’t thinking all that much of it this year. Yeah, I’m promoting it on my blog and I put in some nominations for certain categories and signed up for the interviews and whatever. But I didn’t actually think I’d end up with anything.
Then I get an email yesterday from the awards panel congratulating me on my nomination for Best Speculative Fiction Blog! At first I thought it was spam because I thought I signed in to my normal email and not my blog email. But I read it, like, a million times and it said the same thing. I’d been nominated. Holy crap!
Now keep in mind I don’t really promote my blog. It’s on a listing site and Book Blips and that’s pretty much it except for me commenting on other people’s blogs. So for someone that doesn’t promote, to get enough people writing my name into a category is absolutely amazing! So I got all of my nomination information together and sent it off.
And then I get another email this morning, again from the awards panel, congratulating me on my nomination . . . for a completely different category! Best Humorous/Funniest Blog! *squee* Not only did people think of me for one category, but two! I can’t believe it! So now I have to get nomination information together and in by Friday night. Eeeee!
I can’t believe it! Now I’m all excited for the shortlist!
You know, I understand that the town hall meetings that the president and his people are putting on can get heated. And I understand people’s first amendment rights to peaceably assemble. And I understand that the second amendment is interpreted as an individual having the right to bear arms, although I don’t agree with it. But seriously, fuckers, don’t bring your goddamn assault rifles to a meeting where the president’s in the building. I may understand that you’re only doing it “because you can,” because you “have the right to,” but use that functioning gray matter that’s left in your head, won’t you? Do you really never want to fly anywhere again? Not to mention have private phone calls?
You’re not doing it simply because you can. We’re smarter than you are, yokels. We’re on to you. Peaceable actions or not, you’re making a very violent and threatening stand on the issue. Yeah, I’m going to be getting my pistol permit simply because I can (I know, completely contradicts my beliefs on the 2nd amendment, but when in Rome . . .) but I’m not going to be stupid enough to bring it to a presidential town hall meeting. Really, is that the only way you can get your point across? By bearing your semi-automatic assault rifle? Are your testicles really that small?
You know, the rest of the world is looking at this and thinking these idiots are representative of the rest of us. That we’re violent neandertals that’ll wave weapons because that’s the only way we know how to argue. Jesus fucking Christ. It hurts my brain, it really does. I don’t even need to go into just how dangerous it is to go into a rally like that armed. I mean, it’s obvious.
The scary thing is, these people are procreating. There’s a horror story right there.
And just for the record, the second amendment states that an individual as part of a well-regulated militia has the right to bear arms. Any idiot can see that it doesn’t say an individual as an individual. You have to be part of a militia. Considering those are illegal and we have well-regulated armed forces, there is nothing to guarantee an individual’s right as an individual to bear arms. But I guess people will read what they want.
As for me wanting a hand gun, I just want to go to a firing range. While I believe what I said in the last paragraph, if it’s being interpreted as it being legal for individuals to obtain firearms, I’d like to just be able to shoot at a range to let off some steam. The only thing I plan on shooting is a paper target.
