I Really Love Fanfiction

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Fanfiction is one of my favorite things.  I go through it in waves- I read a lot of it in high school and my 1st year or two of college.  I read it sporadically for several years, but I’ve been reading a lot of it lately. 

I love reading it because it’s interesting to see what everyone does with the characters.  Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of bad fanfiction to find the good, but the good stories make the search worth it.   

I like writing fanfiction too- the possibilities are endless.  Fanfiction plays into the whole “what-if” thing.  It gives me a chance to focus on just writing, and also writing in a specific world with specific characters.  Writing fanfiction is a way for me to get out the what-if’s going through my head, as well as a way for me to develop characters without…coming up with my own.  After all, what better way to get better at writing than to use already established characters and an already established world?

Don’t get me wrong, I love creating my own characters and everything, but some of my earliest fiction writing is fanfiction.  It’s really interesting to see the change from my 1st fanfic to now, so about 8 years or so, when I made the jump from personal journals to fanfiction, and eventually to original fiction.  Writing it gave me the confidence I needed to keep writing and to eventually start coming up with my own ideas. 

I honestly know nothing about fanfiction and copyright laws, other than some authors are in favor of fanfiction, while other authors aren’t, so that’s something to take into consideration when writing fanfiction.  I know J.K. Rowling doesn’t mind fanfiction, so I know I’m safe with Harry Potter fanfiction.  I should probably look into that, since it’ll probably be a good thing to know about, so it’ll have to go on my list of things to do. 

Fanfiction really is interesting though, because there are so many different ideas out there. and it’s always interesting to see what other people come up with.  For me, if writing fanfiction works for you (and you’re not doing anything illegal or breaking any copyright laws or anything), I say go for it.

Not Quite Finished, But It’s A Start

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So I started the character profiles.  I only did something really basic, limiting it stuff like age, where they live, what they do, and other basic info.  It’s a start, though, and a lot more than I probably would have done otherwise.  I think I definitely need to set smaller goals for myself, since that seems to be working a lot better than really vague goals.  Smaller, specific goals + a deadline = me actually being productive.  It works during NaNo, so I have no idea why the thought to apply the same principles outside of NaNo never occurred to me. 

Here are the characters I worked on:

  • Kaylee Adams: I see her as early to mid-30’s.  She’s from Rhode Island, twirls her hair, is in fairly good health, and has no vision problems.  She’s the middle child, generous, and is (generally) polite, but is sometimes rude. 
  • Penelope Adams: She’s in her 60’s.  I have no idea where she’s from.  She studied psychology, and I’m toying with the idea of her having some kind of medical background.  She’s judgemental of others, but tries not to show it, is sometimes polite, and is the 1st female president.
  • Tucker Robinson: He’s between the ages of 35 and 45, is an only child, and wears glasses.  He is introverted, polite, and not very generous.  He has a PhD in anthropology, and likes conspiracy theories.

My goals for next week are: to continue working on the 3 characters above, taking a look at how they deal with things, and what motivates them, as well as what scares them and makes them happy.  I will also write 150 words each for the Giant Prehistoric Chicken, Turning Point, and Fred and Hermione.

Writing Is Good

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So, I actually wrote this week!  I’m very impressed with myself right now.

Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken: Hermione, Harry and Ron continue their quest to find the giant prehistoric, and are currently wandering the underworld.  Snape is annoyed that he’s surrounded by Gryffindors, and is completely ignoring that Tonks was a Hufflepuff and Luna’s in Ravenclaw.  Harry points out that the sorting hat almost put him in Slytherin, which doesn’t make Snape feel any better.

Fred and Hermione: It’s the 1st time I’ve worked on it in years!  I forgot how much fun I had writing it- I definitely want to keep writing it now, because I have no clue what happens.  And I want to know what happens now.  Hermione and Ginny talk about trying to set Ron up with someone, much to his horror, and Mrs. Weasley likes their plan so much, she may try to get in on the action.

Turning Point: Lot’s of banter about Kiora being accident-prone.  I have the feeling that issues between Owen and Kiora will pop up soon.  He likes her less and less, I think, but I haven’t really shown it. 

I haven’t done any of the character profiles yet, but I will sometime today, I think.  Or maybe tomorrow, but I’d prefer today.  

I think setting a weekly goal is something that is working out better for me, than writing whatever I want, whenever I want.  Even more amazing is that I went beyond the 300 word goal I set for the week, writing a combined 725 words.  I’ll definitely be setting word goals every week now.

Plus, I decided to do the worldwide wordpress 5k!  I have today, tomorrow and sunday to do it, and it shouldn’t be that bad, it’s just an hour of my time, so I’ll definitely be blogging about that when I complete it!

The Spirituality of Imperfection

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Title: The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search For Meaning

Author: Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham

Pages/Format: 243/Paperback

What I Thought: Someone recommended this book to me about 4 years ago, and it’s taken me several years to get through it.  I loved the stories and quotes scattered throughout the book.  It was hard to get into, because the book is fairly dry, and read like a textbook at times.

A.A. and the 12 Steps/Traditions are mentioned throughout the book; at times, I felt like it was more like the spirituality of A.A., not the spirituality of imperfection.  Kurtz, according to the author biography at the back of the book, has written several books about A.A., which would explain the focus on A.A., as well as the bias towards A.A..  I don’t have anything against A.A., but I felt like it was focused on too much.

I did find the book interesting, though, since it’s about how accepting imperfection is the 1st step towards spirituality, and how there’s meaning and joy within suffering. 

I did like how the authors connected the stories to both imperfection and spirituality, and also how the stories illustrated the story of spirituality and imperfection.  I also liked the organization of the book, which is divided into 3 sections- the roots of spirituality, how spirituality and A.A. are really connected, and how spirituality is beneficial. 

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 because the quotes and stories were the only redeeming factor of the book.  Everything could have been said more succinctly, and it was redundant at times, especially towards the end.  While I did like the stories, they did start to sound the same about halfway through.

Lunch With Authors

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Prompt: Name an author that you’d like to have lunch with.

My 1st response was to this prompt was “living or dead?”  I thought I’d do both.

J.K. Rowling would be my choice for an author that’s still living.  I loved the Harry Potter series so much, and I’d love to be able to talk with her.  I’d probably be too much in awe to say anything, but eventually I’d probably say something.  I’d probably end up asking her about the series, but hopefully I’d remember to get in a few other questions.  The books are just so magical, and to be able to talk with J.K.R. would be so amazing.

Jane Austen would be my choice for an author who’s no longer alive.  I’m a big fan of her books, and just love her characters!  I haven’t read Mansfield Park, but I have read her other 5 books, and I must say that I really do love Jane Austen.  I can’t put a finger on why I love her books, but it’s a combination of her writing and the characters.  I will admit to not liking Pride and Prejudice the 1st time I read it, but I think it was because I had trouble get used to her writing style.  When I read it the 2nd time, I could appreciate it, and fell in love with it.  Emma and Sense and Sensibility are 2nd and 3rd, with Persuasion and Northanger Abbey being my 4th and 5th, if I ranked them in order of how much I liked them.

And while my answers really isn’t a surprise, given that Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice are my top 2 favorite books, I think those are my 2 choices.

Northanger Abbey

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Title: Northanger Abbey

Author: Jane Austen

Pages/Format: 236/paperback

What I Thought: Now that I’ve read Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park is the only Jane Austen book I haven’t read. 

Northanger Abbey is about 17-year-old Catherine Morland.  She visits Bath, England for the 1st time with the Allens, who are her neighbors.  She is invited to stay at Northanger Abbey by General Tilney; she’s friends with his daughter Eleanor, and his son, Henry is Catherine’s love interest. 

Northanger Abbey is probably my least favorite of Jane Austen’s novels.  I liked it, but found myself bored while reading it.  It did take me a couple times to really enjoy Pride and Prejudice, which is one of my absolute favorite books, so I’m willing to give Northanger Abbey another chance.  However, I did like Volume 2, which takes place in Northanger Abbey much better than Volume 1. 

Catherine does mature throughout the novel, as she learns that life does not always resemble fiction, and that things are not always what they appear to be.  A great example of this is when her friend Isabella gets engaged to Catherine’s brother James.  The engagement gets broken off when it comes out that Isabella was flirting with another man.  Over the course of the novel, she learns that she doesn’t need to rely on others, and it’s okay to be independent. 

I did like Catherine, who lived her life as though she were a heroine in the Gothic novels that she loved to read.  She’s very imaginative, which is something that worked well for her; at the same time, it wasn’t something that was shown very often.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.  While not my favorite Jane Austen novel, and while I was slightly bored reading it, it was still a good read, and I found certain parts of it kept me on the edge of my seat.

Matt and Melissa Harris

Posted in Character Spotlight, Wildflower by

I thought I’d double up on characters for this post, since I kinda gave up on character profiles by the time I got around to most of the Wildflower characters.  Since Matt and Melissa are siblings, it seemed appropriate to put them together.

Matt is about 25, while Melissa is around 20 or 21.  Matt plays for the Ashton Bears, while Melissa does…nothing.  I didn’t really have a job or school in mind for her, so she just kinda hangs out. 

Matt plays the piano and he’s on the quiet side.  Melissa is very talkative and loves watching movies, especially while talking during movies.  Matt’s the middle child, and Melissa’s the youngest, which means they have at least one mysterious older sibling.  I didn’t really think about that either.  They’re from San Francisco. 

Matt’s pretty loyal to his friends and teammates.  Melissa’s fairly bubbly, but doesn’t always think before she says or does anything. 

Their profiles aren’t very filled out, because by the time I got around to working on them, they had started to sound like everyone else, and that’s never good.  Characters who deal with things in the same way, and act scarily similar are boring, so I gave up.  And then there was the fact that it was close to November, and I didn’t want to work on it in November.  If I do any work on them, I’ll post an update.

I Am So Proud of Myself

Posted in General, HP & The Giant Prehistoric Chicken, Other Projects by

I actually planned a couple of my plot bunnies.  Not really planning, but more coming up with notes.  And I even worked on Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken!

Not much, mind you, but a little.  Like 20 or 30 words.  But it’s the most I’ve worked on it since November, which is a big improvement over the fact that I’ve done absolutely nothing with it.

I don’t have many many notes on my plot bunnies, but I have a few.  And I have characters!  With names!  That’s all I have, but it’s a start, and I can stop referring to them as those nameless people that I need to name and think about. 

We have Kaylee Jane Daniels, who stumbles across a mysterious group of people.  She 1st heard about this group of people through someone she met, and soon sees them everywhere.  I’m still trying to decide how she meets this person, but I have a couple of ideas.  She definitely doesn’t think anything of it, and even laughs it off, until she starts seeing them herself. 

I have a very vague idea of her job, but she tells her boss, thinking she’s crazy.  Her boss, however, becomes worried that Kaylee’s seeing mysterious people everywhere.  I’m not sure why it’s important, and in the end, it might not be important.  But right now, it is.  It seems very ominous. 

One of my goals is to have a character profile done for Kaylee and her boss done by Saturday.  I’d also like to get one done for the person that tells Kaylee about the mysterious group of people.

I will also write at least 1oo words each for the Giant Prehistoric Chicken, Turning Point and one of my other Harry Potter fanfics. And I’ll post if I actually get any of this done.

What Would I Do With $1000?

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Prompt: Here’s $1000.  Spend it in the next hour or lose it.  No online shopping allowed. 

  • I have a list of books I want to get, so a good chunk of it would go to books.  It’s a mix of cookbooks, fiction, and non-fiction.  Me wanting books isn’t anything unusual, so of course it’s going to be at the top of the list.
  • Sephora is a must, and very convenient since it’s next to Barnes and Noble.  You can never have too much lip gloss or nail polish.   
  • Food- what I like to eat is so different from what my mom and grandma eat, so I’d totally buy some stuff that would probably confuse them.
  • Let’s see…I suppose a new iPod is in order, since there’s not enough room on my iPod for all the music I have. 

I just got an idea for a story of some sort- a scavenger hunt for strange items you have to buy.  Maybe a short story, because I don’t know if I could sustain for 50k.  It could definitely be a comedy though, with a quest for the final item that cannot be find.  I suppose it could be more serious, but it screams comedy.  Maybe writing something shorter will get me going as far as writing goes.

The Bell Jar

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Title: The Bell Jar

Author: Sylvia Plath

Pages/Format: 244/Paperback

What I Thought: I really liked it, and I could definitely relate to Esther Greenwood’s descent into depression.  The Bell Jar is about Esther Greenwood, who had an internship in New York City, but finds herself becoming more and depressed, until she ends up in a mental hospital.

I thought it was a realistic portrayal of what it’s like to live with depression, and I found myself thinking about my own experiences and struggles with depression.  I also really liked the imagery that Plath used, as well as her writing style.

While it was sometimes hard to follow, I was willing overlook it.  Sometimes your thoughts are all over the place, and they certainly aren’t rational at times.  It was also hard to get into, but over time, I found myself wrapped up in the book.

The feelings of going under and feeling trapped are all too familiar, and it’s a struggle to cope with it; at the same time, you find ways to move, and ways to make the pain go away. 

The Bell Jar is apparently semi-autobiographical, and I can certainly understand writing a fictionalized account of your life.  Since this is the only work of Plath’s I’ve read, and since I don’t know much about Sylvia Plath, I can’t really say for sure.  But going off of the fact that she did kill herself by sticking her head in an oven, and struggled with depression, I’d say that certain elements of her life did end up in The Bell Jar.  Sometimes writing about what’s going on can be very cathartic. 

Rating: 4 out of 5.  It’s not the most amazing book I’ve ever read, but I certainly knew what Esther was going through, and how even the most mundane tasks can be difficult.