Fic writing, my how long we have been parted!
Anyone remember when I used to write a lot? No one? Didn't think so. It's been so long since I've been an active and prolific force in any fandom. I tend to do a lot of random drive-by fic postings interspersed with a lot of paint!comics.
I miss being known as a writer.
My journey into fanfiction started long before I even knew about fanfiction. The first instance I really recall of starting to pull elements of tv/anime/books etc. into my writing was in grade 6. Our teacher made us do creative writing and I remember taking concepts from "Sailor Moon" and trying to rework it into something more original for that class. I then wrote a short one pager about themes from "Mamono Hunter Yohko"
The first time I really took characters from something was in grade 8. It was again in creative writing and I wrote something on Harry Potter, which would turn into my first published story on FFN called "Voldemort's Bad Day" which FFN saw fit to remove. Fucktards.
Over the last 10 years Fanfiction.net has seen fit to remove nine of my stories and suspend me twice (that I recall). The sad thing is I can only really remember two of those stories that were removed... The only consolation was that they were old and if I can't remember them, probably not that good anyway. But still, right?
Anyway, the laughter those creative writing induced Harry Potter stories got me from my RL friends prompted me to put up on FFN. I did so on December 31st, 2000. I got into writing because it made my friends laugh, it made then smile. And I liked making them happy. My first start was in humour, and that eventually evolved into many other forms.
I cut my teeth on Harry Potter fanfiction, and I count myself as very lucky for the reviews I got. I had a lot of positive feedback which inspired me to write more and keep improving on my style and my story-telling.
I find that new authors these days can get flamed brutally. No their work isn't great, but when I was 14 years old and just starting I wasn't that great either. But I grew.
My first chaptered fic was for the Andromeda fandom, I learned to format from that fic, I learned about characterization, plot, action. It was a stepping stone that I learned from and got better at with time.
My sophomore fandom was "Dark Angel", and my writing continued to improve.
I got to write a bit more angst and confirmed that I could write more than just comedy. "Out of the Future" was the first fic of mine that broke 100 reviews. And it's sequel "A Family Affair" is the only sequel I've written that I think out does the original. When I was nearing the end of writing that fic in 2004 I was starting to hit my stride, and find the type of writing style that would carry through the rest of my work. The depth and emotion was finally coming through in a way that reviewers responded to. Not only that but my descriptions got better. "Family Getaway" served to continue this.
The Andromeda fandom then came back in force.
(SPN fans may recognize Rhade as Dr. Sexy)
I did more fics for this fandom than the others I was involved in. This fandom also gave me what I think is one of my best pieces of work. "Through the Looking Glass" is something I am quite proud of. I am still, after six years working on finishing it's sequel "Glass Shards".
Andromeda really helped me write romance. Over 95% of those fics revolve around Beka/Rhade. I still love those two. It helped me improve upon emotion, character interaction, and characterization.
I was then thrown head long into the "Star Wars" fandom after I saw "Revenge of the Sith".
All of a sudden Anakin Skywalker was actually hot and I could slash him with Obi-Wan to my little hearts content. He was still a whiner and a complete idiot, but he was a hot whiner and complete idiot. In "Attack of the Clones" all Anakin led me to do was ship Obi-Wan/Padme. I admit it, I was Obidala for a year or two. I liked reading it, but I had a problem.
I couldn't write it.
There was no storyline I could come up with that I could put them in. No interesting situation, no nothing. While other writers did it wonderfully, I couldn't do it. Something was missing. Obi-Wan and Padme were just too similar. But when RotS premiered, and I paired up Anakin and Obi-Wan, I cannot describe how right it felt.
I had my OTP. And I jumped in.
What SW did for me was help me get comfortable writing sex. The first time I wrote it in the "Dark Angel" fandom, I was so embarrassed. When I wrote it in the "Andromeda" fandom I thought my sex scenes sucked.
I wrote seven NC-17 Anakin/Obi-Wan fics. And each time I grew more confident. Not only were my sex scenes better but so were my characterizations and descriptions, the atmosphere and tone.
The "Star Wars" fandom meant a great deal to me, not only where my writing was concerned, but also the people I met there (you guys know who you are! ♥). The encouragement I found and the types of detailed reviews were infinitely helpful to my becoming a better writer.
After Star Wars, I hit "Supernatural" and felt that my writing had started to steady out.
Though "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" marked the first time I was completely comfortable and satisfied with one of my NC-17 scenes. It was a story I wrote for spn_holidays and I remain fond of it. I ended up writing eight NC-17 fics for SPN.
It took five years for me to be completely comfortable with writing sex.
Speaking of sex, yes there is quite a lack in "Sun Kissed". Oh "Sun Kissed".
My highest anticipated Star Wars fic that's still in progress. I love this story, I really do, and not having the time or energy to get to it is maddening. I have 16-17 chapters planned. The outline is there but it's just getting the words down and seeing if it will evolve from my outline or not.
A lot of people are waiting for this and there is pressure for me to make it worth the wait since I update so infrequently. I believe I have a good story though. I'm sorry there isn't as much sex and people usually anticipate from a "slave-fic", but hey, it's Obi-Wan we're talking about here ;) It makes me happy that people do seem to be appreciating the burgeoning emotional connection between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and don't mind the slow build. Granted I do feel that once I do get to the sex I had better be able to make it fan-fucking-spectacular for teasing everyone for so long! ^.^;;;
"Glass Shards" pains me. Pains me because it was meant to be a trilogy and because I have lost interest in the fandom I merged parts 2 and 3 together. I feel bad about not being able to give my readers the story I had hoped to give them. "Glass Shards" was supposed to be all about Beka's family and them finding out about the things she hid from them, the third fic I was going to entitle "Shattered Glass" was going to be about Rhade discovering the secrets his family kept from him, and his journey of rediscovering his identity.
Putting those concepts together, I feel like what I've written is rushed and has too much going on. It's the first story I have ever seriously considered deleting off the face of the internet.
But I won't. Because there are people who really are enjoying it and staying with it, and I have had authors delete fics that I loved on me before. I will always hold it's the authors right to do with their story as they please but for the readers it does suck when something you love is gone for good and there are no copies.
I have two chapters of GS left, the next chapter is actually 75% complete. I started writing it June 30th, and am trying not to stall since I'm so close to getting it out. It's been over a year since my last update. This chapter has a lot of detail in it, and I like where it's going. So that's one plus at least.
It saddens me more than anything that I average one chapter a year now. I used to be able to complete 20-25 chapters within 10 months or less.
What happened? A combination of school, writer's block, competing fandoms, and laziness.
I'm doing a degree in the health sciences and it's a lot more work than I thought it would be. I've discovered I would be doing more and learning more than I expected of my chosen profession. It both inspires me and fills me with anxiety, see Figure 1.
Figure 1.
That pretty much covers it, and trust me the chart does not just apply to med students.
University keeps me very busy and when I have down time I am tired. I don't want to do any more work, and sometimes writing feels like work. Sitting down two days ago and pounding out that GS chapter made me miss writing for the fun of it. Because it was fun. I remember the fun. Sometimes though it can feel like another career on top of the one I'm going to get paid for eventually.
Then there are the competing fandoms. I get involved with fandoms that I don't write in. See Stargate and DBZ. I love them, and for the last year DBZ has eaten my life. It's hard to be in one fandom and write in a different one. I still manage to do it but it can be quite difficult.
And then sometimes I don't want to do anything but listen to music and relax.
Other times I get blocked. I know what I want to write but can't figure out how to get the words out. I sometimes wish I could project the story to people and they could watch my story like a movie.
Then again there are other times still when that feeling to write just starts gripping me and I know I should listen to that voice. I have 9 pages of "Glass Shards", and once I'm finished that I hope to start on "Sun Kissed". And I hope I can write while holding a job because I really need to get one this summer. I have a lot of debt and doing this year without more loans would be great.
Then in August I will have prep work for September and it will start all over again (on another note, fanfic writing made me a better essay writer, punctuation and grammar win!). Maybe when I finish school and have a steady job I will be able to dedicate a day to writing.
I really want to finish "Glass Shards" and "Sun Kissed" they are the only two WIPs I have and I won't start anything new while they are still on-going. There's a PotC fic I really want to write but it will have to wait.
If you've actually read this far, please enjoy some naked Goku:
I miss being known as a writer.
My journey into fanfiction started long before I even knew about fanfiction. The first instance I really recall of starting to pull elements of tv/anime/books etc. into my writing was in grade 6. Our teacher made us do creative writing and I remember taking concepts from "Sailor Moon" and trying to rework it into something more original for that class. I then wrote a short one pager about themes from "Mamono Hunter Yohko"
The first time I really took characters from something was in grade 8. It was again in creative writing and I wrote something on Harry Potter, which would turn into my first published story on FFN called "Voldemort's Bad Day" which FFN saw fit to remove. Fucktards.
Over the last 10 years Fanfiction.net has seen fit to remove nine of my stories and suspend me twice (that I recall). The sad thing is I can only really remember two of those stories that were removed... The only consolation was that they were old and if I can't remember them, probably not that good anyway. But still, right?
Anyway, the laughter those creative writing induced Harry Potter stories got me from my RL friends prompted me to put up on FFN. I did so on December 31st, 2000. I got into writing because it made my friends laugh, it made then smile. And I liked making them happy. My first start was in humour, and that eventually evolved into many other forms.
I cut my teeth on Harry Potter fanfiction, and I count myself as very lucky for the reviews I got. I had a lot of positive feedback which inspired me to write more and keep improving on my style and my story-telling.
I find that new authors these days can get flamed brutally. No their work isn't great, but when I was 14 years old and just starting I wasn't that great either. But I grew.
My first chaptered fic was for the Andromeda fandom, I learned to format from that fic, I learned about characterization, plot, action. It was a stepping stone that I learned from and got better at with time.
My sophomore fandom was "Dark Angel", and my writing continued to improve.
I got to write a bit more angst and confirmed that I could write more than just comedy. "Out of the Future" was the first fic of mine that broke 100 reviews. And it's sequel "A Family Affair" is the only sequel I've written that I think out does the original. When I was nearing the end of writing that fic in 2004 I was starting to hit my stride, and find the type of writing style that would carry through the rest of my work. The depth and emotion was finally coming through in a way that reviewers responded to. Not only that but my descriptions got better. "Family Getaway" served to continue this.
The Andromeda fandom then came back in force.
(SPN fans may recognize Rhade as Dr. Sexy)
I did more fics for this fandom than the others I was involved in. This fandom also gave me what I think is one of my best pieces of work. "Through the Looking Glass" is something I am quite proud of. I am still, after six years working on finishing it's sequel "Glass Shards".
Andromeda really helped me write romance. Over 95% of those fics revolve around Beka/Rhade. I still love those two. It helped me improve upon emotion, character interaction, and characterization.
I was then thrown head long into the "Star Wars" fandom after I saw "Revenge of the Sith".
All of a sudden Anakin Skywalker was actually hot and I could slash him with Obi-Wan to my little hearts content. He was still a whiner and a complete idiot, but he was a hot whiner and complete idiot. In "Attack of the Clones" all Anakin led me to do was ship Obi-Wan/Padme. I admit it, I was Obidala for a year or two. I liked reading it, but I had a problem.
I couldn't write it.
There was no storyline I could come up with that I could put them in. No interesting situation, no nothing. While other writers did it wonderfully, I couldn't do it. Something was missing. Obi-Wan and Padme were just too similar. But when RotS premiered, and I paired up Anakin and Obi-Wan, I cannot describe how right it felt.
I had my OTP. And I jumped in.
What SW did for me was help me get comfortable writing sex. The first time I wrote it in the "Dark Angel" fandom, I was so embarrassed. When I wrote it in the "Andromeda" fandom I thought my sex scenes sucked.
I wrote seven NC-17 Anakin/Obi-Wan fics. And each time I grew more confident. Not only were my sex scenes better but so were my characterizations and descriptions, the atmosphere and tone.
The "Star Wars" fandom meant a great deal to me, not only where my writing was concerned, but also the people I met there (you guys know who you are! ♥). The encouragement I found and the types of detailed reviews were infinitely helpful to my becoming a better writer.
After Star Wars, I hit "Supernatural" and felt that my writing had started to steady out.
Though "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" marked the first time I was completely comfortable and satisfied with one of my NC-17 scenes. It was a story I wrote for spn_holidays and I remain fond of it. I ended up writing eight NC-17 fics for SPN.
It took five years for me to be completely comfortable with writing sex.
Speaking of sex, yes there is quite a lack in "Sun Kissed". Oh "Sun Kissed".
My highest anticipated Star Wars fic that's still in progress. I love this story, I really do, and not having the time or energy to get to it is maddening. I have 16-17 chapters planned. The outline is there but it's just getting the words down and seeing if it will evolve from my outline or not.
A lot of people are waiting for this and there is pressure for me to make it worth the wait since I update so infrequently. I believe I have a good story though. I'm sorry there isn't as much sex and people usually anticipate from a "slave-fic", but hey, it's Obi-Wan we're talking about here ;) It makes me happy that people do seem to be appreciating the burgeoning emotional connection between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and don't mind the slow build. Granted I do feel that once I do get to the sex I had better be able to make it fan-fucking-spectacular for teasing everyone for so long! ^.^;;;
"Glass Shards" pains me. Pains me because it was meant to be a trilogy and because I have lost interest in the fandom I merged parts 2 and 3 together. I feel bad about not being able to give my readers the story I had hoped to give them. "Glass Shards" was supposed to be all about Beka's family and them finding out about the things she hid from them, the third fic I was going to entitle "Shattered Glass" was going to be about Rhade discovering the secrets his family kept from him, and his journey of rediscovering his identity.
Putting those concepts together, I feel like what I've written is rushed and has too much going on. It's the first story I have ever seriously considered deleting off the face of the internet.
But I won't. Because there are people who really are enjoying it and staying with it, and I have had authors delete fics that I loved on me before. I will always hold it's the authors right to do with their story as they please but for the readers it does suck when something you love is gone for good and there are no copies.
I have two chapters of GS left, the next chapter is actually 75% complete. I started writing it June 30th, and am trying not to stall since I'm so close to getting it out. It's been over a year since my last update. This chapter has a lot of detail in it, and I like where it's going. So that's one plus at least.
It saddens me more than anything that I average one chapter a year now. I used to be able to complete 20-25 chapters within 10 months or less.
What happened? A combination of school, writer's block, competing fandoms, and laziness.
I'm doing a degree in the health sciences and it's a lot more work than I thought it would be. I've discovered I would be doing more and learning more than I expected of my chosen profession. It both inspires me and fills me with anxiety, see Figure 1.
Figure 1.
That pretty much covers it, and trust me the chart does not just apply to med students.
University keeps me very busy and when I have down time I am tired. I don't want to do any more work, and sometimes writing feels like work. Sitting down two days ago and pounding out that GS chapter made me miss writing for the fun of it. Because it was fun. I remember the fun. Sometimes though it can feel like another career on top of the one I'm going to get paid for eventually.
Then there are the competing fandoms. I get involved with fandoms that I don't write in. See Stargate and DBZ. I love them, and for the last year DBZ has eaten my life. It's hard to be in one fandom and write in a different one. I still manage to do it but it can be quite difficult.
And then sometimes I don't want to do anything but listen to music and relax.
Other times I get blocked. I know what I want to write but can't figure out how to get the words out. I sometimes wish I could project the story to people and they could watch my story like a movie.
Then again there are other times still when that feeling to write just starts gripping me and I know I should listen to that voice. I have 9 pages of "Glass Shards", and once I'm finished that I hope to start on "Sun Kissed". And I hope I can write while holding a job because I really need to get one this summer. I have a lot of debt and doing this year without more loans would be great.
Then in August I will have prep work for September and it will start all over again (on another note, fanfic writing made me a better essay writer, punctuation and grammar win!). Maybe when I finish school and have a steady job I will be able to dedicate a day to writing.
I really want to finish "Glass Shards" and "Sun Kissed" they are the only two WIPs I have and I won't start anything new while they are still on-going. There's a PotC fic I really want to write but it will have to wait.
If you've actually read this far, please enjoy some naked Goku:
