I’m a little disappointed that there’s been no interest at all in the free tarot reading contest that I put up, but it’s lessons learned and so on.

I’m debating still on NaNo. I need to sort that out. I have a story outline that I first wrote when I was sixteen, and another story that I’ve had on the cards since college, which was the major inspiration behind it. But I’m just not sure…do I want to write about ghosts, demons and angels? or do I want to write about aliens trying to survive on a planet torn about by a war started inadvertently by other characters I have from another story series.

I finally got “Ergo Writing” formerly at http://ami-chan.net/writes/ cleared out and deleted. All the poetry is now in the poetry tab at the top of the site and on pages which are keyed to this blog layout rather than otherwise. I added some notes to a couple of them as I copy-pasted them over.

So, there we are, that blog is cleaned out and closed down and fully merged with this one. I feel a little bit strange about it. I did really like the layout that I had made for the blog, but I wasn’t using it. I think the last time I had updated it was June or July, and it just slipped by the wayside.

There are new chapters coming. We’ll see how they do.

Something else copied from Ergo Writing blog, originally published April 28, 2007, now transferred to this blog.

I was re-reading some of the reviews I’ve had on fanfiction that I’ve written and realized there’s a tendency for some reviewers to feel they should instruct you precisely on things to add to your plots, particularly with regard to romantic encounters. Generally these reviewers appear to be the more immature ones, and also the most prevalent.

Most people on ff.net who review stories seem to write such useful gems as, “This good. Plz continue soon!!” Personally as a writer I prefer reviews which actually help me; the sort that point out hideous grammatical and spelling errors rather than just begging me to continue. A lot of people don’t seem to realize that there are times when stories do not need to continue or that there are times that stories don’t need romance.

Once upon a time in college on a night I was extremely sleep deprived I came up with a very cracked idea to drop the characters from one anime (Gundam Wing) into the universe of another anime (Sailor Moon). These two shows are in NO WAY related. For those readers who might not be versed with anime I can’t really think of two US shows quite as mismatched to use as a comparison, but for one Sailor Moon is set in modern times and Gundam Wing is in the future, for two one involves big giant robots piloted by guys and the other involves girls who can say a magic phrase and transform into superheroines. I suppose it would be like Transformers crossing with WINK.

The point is this crossover, as most crossovers really shouldn’t, should not have happened. The plot of the story was pretty much non-existent, except that the guys went through a portal and landed in Tokyo (with supposedly hilarious results), but as happens with a lot of very stupid fanfiction people loved it and wanted more. I posted the story a few years after I’d written it and didn’t expect it to get much attention, by this point I was done with college and had no idea where the story could possibly go; but I got at least one review telling me I should pair up this Sailor Moon character with that Gundam Wing character, which made me even less likely to do that.

Writing what you hope a certain audience will like is one thing, but you’re never going to make everyone happy. I know that writing fanfiction doesn’t make you the next J. K. Rowling, but all writing is an exercise and you generally you should stick to your guns if people are asking you to do something hideously out of character for anyone. It’s one thing to point out to someone that they need to clarify where a character pulled say an AK-47 from when they have no bag and no pockets. It’s another to ask them to insert a torrid romance where none should ever exist or volunteer to change something because they said they like it, which is something else which happened to me.

Occasionally when people review my work I will take a look at things they’ve written. I came across a story and thought I would give the author a bit of constructive criticism, during the course of my comment in an example I used I remarked to this person that I was a fan of romances between two characters they were using in their story (but had not romantically linked). They wrote me back volunteering to change that entire aspect of their story to cater to this like of mine. Given the amount of people making comments about romances between characters if this author was volunteering to do the same for each person their entire story would turn into a round robin of partner exchanges, or perhaps an orgy.

Here’s a collection of a few snippets of stories and ideas collected from Ergo Writing as I finish the transfer of “bits worth saving” and close it down. Although I don’t know if either of them will make much sense without the full context which is sadly at the moment entirely in my head:

This first bit was posted on April 20th 2007, but written a while before. It was intended to go into “Forsaken” a story I have on the go about genetic engineering.

“You can come through the back door. Leave the car,” Neural disappears off screen, and I take the car down closer to street level. I don’t understand why we haven’t seen any Seekers. Something has to be going on.

I find myself glancing in the rear view mirror expecting to see the light’s glinting off the smooth metal surface.

Michael doesn’t say anything until I land the car and tell him to get out. Instead of doing so he turns to me and asks, “Why don’t you trust the professor?”

“Because he’s obviously brainwashed you, who knows what he could have programmed you to do.”

He reaches into his jacket even before my brain really processes his movement and with two fingers on the end of the gun’s grip throws it down into my lap, “So you know I’m not going to kill anyone,” he says.

I don’t point out to him he could probably easier kill someone without the gun.

This next piece is fan-fiction. Harry Potter inspired. Some friends and I like to work in “Marauder era” which for those not entirely familiar with the series is what the era when Harry’s parents were in school is often referred to. It’s from the perspective of Remus Lupin. Perhaps eventually the piece will extend itself enough I can put something up on fanfiction.net but I don’t seem to be able to pin much down lately. It was posted on the other site on 25th April 2007:

“I don’t think he does anything besides read…” the taller one remarks glancing over at the other one with glass and scraggly hair.

I sit cross legged in the arm chair, having re-read the paragraph four times because my attention keeps being drug away by the fact that they’re talking about me.

“Can’t be healthy,” the first one continues.

“I’m pretty sure he snores,” the one with glasses remarks, “so that means he MUST sleep.”

Fifth time. I close the book, gather my things and head for the door.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the first says somewhat sarcastically as I move around my chair, “Were we bothering you?”

“Just need something from the library,” I answer, and go down the stairs and through the portrait hole.

“We’ll have to try harder,” one of them says.

I was going to post a third one which had some cursing in it, but it’s by far the longest snippet, probably three times as long as the other two combined, so I will save transferring it and put it in an entry by itself.

Now, to transfer the poetry and short stories.

Something from “Ergo Writing” blog which was written on March 23rd 2007:

When I first heard about fanfiction I thought it was a travesty and that I would never do something like that, but then I realized growing up most of what I wrote was fanfiction and bad Mary-Sue fanfiction at that. I was eleven and had written a story about me being the long lost half-sister of Brain from ‘Thunderbirds’ and falling madly in love with Virgil, the second eldest brother. What was that if not fanfiction? I’m glad that story has been lost in the transatlantic move and will never see the light of day again because it was, I’m sure, absolutely horrendous.

Several years later I wrote a story about someone who turned out to be Clark Kent’s sister. My idea on the origin of ‘Supergirl’ given I hadn’t read or seen much about it, and I was watching ‘Lois and Clark’ obsessively. I wrote something else around the same time about the Red Dwarf crew finding another hologram on an abandoned ship and she and Rimmer falling in love.

More bad Mary-Sue-ing.

Yet, when I was in college and someone told me about Fanfiction.net I freaked, and spat and hissed and thought it was the most horrible thing ever created. Now I have an account there and semi-regularly update it with random things. I’m not overly popular but I have a few ‘hardcore’ fans there. I think the problem is that the one thing I generally steer away from is romance in my stories, and romantic stories are by far the most popular there. I think I’m afraid I will have a Mary-Sue relapse, and no one wants that.

I’ve come to realize though that writing fanfiction is a good exercise. At least for me. It helps me to come up with things that I can use for ‘plot bunnies’ in other things I write. It helps me to just write random fun things that I won’t necessarily put into anything so I can get them out of my system and move on to better fictitious pieces, and sometimes you just get these whacky ideas when you’re watching a show. I treat writing fanfiction like the writing exercises I used to do in primary school. The sort where the teacher would write a paragraph up on the blackboard and have you finish it in a two page story.

The major thing it’s helping me with is ending things. I have such a hard time with ending stories, and they shouldn’t drag on forever that’s the worst thing possible. All the stories I have are beginnings and middles without ends. Hopefully now that I’ve seen even if I make things several chapters, with regards to a fanfic I can in fact end it, this will help me to find the ends to my own works, and the important step after that: finding a publisher.

I also have some things published on fanlib.com and the specialty site PGSM Fanfiction. Thus are the way your outlook changes. I have written anything fiction or non-fiction for a few weeks now. Since before we moved I’ve had a problem where things are sticking in my head and refusing to come out even if I have the idea and it seems good.

My Ergo Writing post from 19 March 2007 explaining how I started on this ‘writing’ thingummy:

I started writing in high school when I still lived in England. I would tell teachers I’d lost my exercise books and pay them 25 pence to replace them, miraculously find the other exercise book, and then keep the replacement. I would hide it inside the book I was working in for that class and write story notes, and bits of ideas down in the hidden book while still doing my classwork.

Despite this deciept I was a Straight A student. My form room teacher Dr. Mace would read some of my work. Her husband was a published author who wrote science fiction primarily. She would always tell me my work had ‘potential’. I look back on some of that writing done while I was twelve to fifteen and think that she was being very polite, but then again, there’s also truth in it. A lot of what I wrote then was horribly, horribly cliched but there are some truly interesting nuggets which I retain in the hopes I can resurrect them into something decent and publishable.

At one point I went through my various bits and pieces of fiction and I had sixty stories. I threw a lot of those out, thankfully: the one about the two sisters with almost identical names who found an otter, the one about the triplets who went to an island where every other family had two children because of some strange inheritance of their parents, the girl who finds out she’s a telepathic princess…these things were trite, hideous, lacking three dimensional characters.

I’m down to about a dozen ideas now, some of which are more able to be developed than others at the moment, but I intend to persevere. I’ve participated in National Novel Writer’s Month each November for the past three years, and in 2006 I actually ‘won’ and achieved my goal, so I know the words are in me, it’s just pouring them out and forging them into something recognizable, rather than a blob of metal. I hope this will help me to do that.

I appreciate critiques, and beta readers, and general poking. Poke holes in what I write, make me explain things and force me to become better.