Home Posts tagged "writing" (Page 6)

Tag: writing

Guest Post: Dianna Bell on Fanfiction

Siri here. We have a special post-Easter treat for you today. Because it’s the fifth Tuesday of the month, you’re getting a guest post from fellow writer Dianna Bell. Dianna is an Aussie who writes primarily fanfiction, and she’s here to share some ways in which lessons from fanfiction can apply to writing original fiction as well. Pleeeease welcome…Dianna! This guest post feels like all my writing: I have a plan, but no idea how to start so that the words in my head hit the screen. How about I just wade in? I write fanfiction, and there are things I’ve learned from it that could apply to all writing. (Supposedly I also write original stuff, but I’ve had more luck in the last few years with fanfiction, and in any case that’s probably another blog post. Which may be a while coming, because I’m a guest. ) Dismissing fanfiction as ‘not writing’ is wrong. It’s true that characters, locations and more come ready-made; however, I’d note that I’ve never seen this argument made against people who redo fairy tales. I believe, whether fanfiction or original, a story boils down to a “what if” statement. No matter how much they started with or had to create from scratch, each writer has that moment when the “what if” comes to them, and they write down the story which follows from it. Uh, what’s a fayth? I’m writing a Frozen Fantasy X fanfic currently; I’ve replaced the Final Fantasy X (FFX) characters with…

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3 Things I’ve Learned from the Sekrit Project

Siri’s and my co-written novel continues to be in the front of our minds as we finish up our edit (the book’ll be out in May!), so bear with us for just a little longer. Next month we might actually talk about something else! Though I make no guarantees. The sekrit project (as we’ve dubbed the novel) has proven to be eye-opening in many ways. I’ve had to plot, write, and edit differently than usual. It’s been a long time since I wrote with someone else, and rarely with the level of coordination that this has entailed. So, before I jump back in (I’m ~66% of the way through my parts), here’s 3 things I’ve learned from working on this project.

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In the Throes of Editing

Just a quick post today, lovelies, because Kit and I are still wrestling bears editing our novel for your future reading delight. I’ll be honest: it’s been a really tough slog. Not because I can’t take critique — I’ve been in critique groups for years, and have gotten past the initial defensive reaction. When someone like our awesome editor KD points out a problem, I listen. (And then decide whether the passage in question should be fixed in a different way, or should actually stay as is while I go fix something elsewhere that led to the perceived problem…) Not because I can’t stand the thought of changing a word. I’ve long since gotten over the fear of messing up my first drafts. (I mean, first drafts are rough by nature, but there’s something raw and pure about them — that’s the way the story came out of your head, and it can be hard to contemplate making it different. But first drafts aren’t canon. Or maybe they are, and second drafts are the fanfiction that seeks to improve upon them? Good grief, I think it’s too late in the day for analogies.)

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7 Weeks

So about seven weeks ago, coincidentally enough, I blogged about an app called 7 Weeks. It’s supposed to help build habits. So how’s that going? I think I should have invested in the Cattle Prod app. Don’t get me wrong! The 7 Weeks app itself is great. Easy to use, appealing, intuitive…the problem, as always, is me. The free version tracks your habit for the titular 7 Weeks. I paid $1.99 for the pro version, knowing I was going to need more than seven weeks. And after those seven weeks, I can unequivocally say I was right–I needed it. Probably I’m trying for too much at once. I didn’t just stick with the two habits I talked about last time, oh no. Not ME. That would be too easy! I stuck with writing every day. I altered “watch the money” to “update budget spreadsheet.” I added “clean kitchen.” And “at or under calorie goal.” Most days I get one of them (clean the kitchen, generally. It’s the least mentally-challenging). Some days I get two! I’ve even gotten all four once or twice, but definitely not more than that. As I see it, there are a couple reasons for my less-than-stellar performance here: I take on too much. Always. Instead of one habit at a time, I went for four. I’m also doing these while I take a three college classes (two of them only one credit each, but still!) work full-time, and continue my adventure-seeking in the great outdoors. (For…

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Co-Writing for Fun and Profit

Didja miss me? Well, too bad…I’m back! Today I’d like to share a bit about Turtleduck Press’s next novel (title and cover art forthcoming in due time). Kit and I have both talked in this space about the fact that we’re co-writing, but we haven’t gone into any detail about the experience…until now. It’s not Kit’s first time co-writing a novel; I’ve done it before too, but not for many many years. And I’ve blogged before about having a major crisis of faith as a writer last year. So I was a little apprehensive about how it would go. In fact, it’s been quite a smooth process — at least as smooth as novel writing ever is! It’s helped immensely to have somebody to bounce ideas off, to trade chapters with (we each wrote one point of view, in alternating chapters), to keep each other motivated. Having two minds to work on the worldbuilding and plotting has not meant that we’ve each done half as much work as on a solo novel, but it’s certainly helped — I think we’ve done a better job on this story than either of us could have on our own. Luckily, we’re on a similar — though not identical — wavelength when it comes to planning. We did a pile of worldbuilding first (it’s a fantasy novel, more or less), then identified our respective characters and wrote some sample chapters. Those went out the window and we started over, with a clearer idea this…

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The Obligatory Winter Blues Post

Every year I find myself writing about the winter blues — what I’m doing to cope, how well it’s working (or not). And why should this year be any exception? 😉 This year hasn’t been too bad so far. For starters, we’re having a really mild winter with almost no snow. Amazing what that does for one’s state of mind. Don’t get me wrong, I like snow, especially the proper crunchy snow that I grew up with and Toronto so rarely gets, but months of it will drag one down. And the cold, and the dark, and the post-Christmas, post-New Year’s letdown…okay, winter is still tough even without snow. I’m doing all the usual things — taking extra Vitamin D, using a full-spectrum lamp, exercising (dance and yoga, with some walking here and there), focusing on coziness (blankets, slippers, tea, soup, comfort reads). This year I’ve also added a couple of new things. First up, my latest creative outlet — Instagram. I  finally joined Instagram last summer so I could post pictures of my garden, but when the harvest was over, my account sat idle. Then in early December I noticed a friend doing a daily photo challenge, #decemberreflections. I jumped in and enjoyed it so much that I joined a second challenge this month, #savouringjanuary. I haven’t been quite as diligent in this second round, but it’s been a lot of fun looking for subjects to match the daily prompts, and seeing the wide variety of ways in which…

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Freedom!

So, as Siri talked about last month, we’ve been co-writing a novel which we’ve dubbed the Sekrit Project and have proceeded to infuriate everyone by keeping to the “secret” part of the name. And I am pleased to say that it’s more or less done, and is now in the pipeline for publication here at TDP. So it’s in the editing process, and I find myself free until we get comments back. Free! ::kermit arms:: Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed writing this book. I enjoyed working with Siri. I did not so much enjoy the fact that we gave ourselves eight months to go from nothing to polished novel draft. In retrospect, that is obviously not enough time and I don’t know what we were thinking. But hooray! We did it! And I’m pleased with the story and hope everyone else likes it as much as I do. But it is nice to have a little bit more leeway in what I’m working on at any point and not have a mad dash toward the finish line. So what am I going to work on now?

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The Dreaded Middle

So Kit Campbell and I are working on a secret project for Turtleduck Press. It’s a novel that we’re co-writing, and you’ll hear more about it in due time, after it’s been made suitable for public consumption. In the meantime, though, we’re wading through the first draft. Well, I can’t speak for Kit, but I’m wading. Or wallowing, maybe. I’ve passed the halfway point and am flailing around in the late middle, feeling rather as if I’m trapped in Zeno’s dichotomy paradox. I’m also fighting the deep-seated conviction that the story sucks (or my half of it, anyway — I’m not about to say that for Kit’s half!). However, I’m not the only one. Check this out:

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