Fanfic: On principle

Fanfic is one of those things that very few people feel comfortable sharing with people they actually know. Particularly people that aspire to write original fiction of their own. For them, amongst whom I number, it’s like the dirty little secret they carry around with them that they wouldn’t actually tell people about and they dread the few in the know blabbing about it.

For me, I enjoy it for several reasons. I find it very freeing. There are no rules to which I must adhere. There is no real ‘competition’ because the more, the merrier. If you get into a nice group of people, they are all very encouraging and it can be a lovely creative and social experience. [Usually bound up in a mutual lust object, but not always.]

Also, re-writes are optional! I am attempting to writing for television, which involves the occasionally tedious process of writing spec scripts. Break down a show, come up with your own idea for an episode, write it, tear it apart and write again. As a creative person, fitting into the structure designed by another can be a frustrating and annoying process. Fanfic, while it also borrows the universe of a show in a specific way, no one is forced into their episodic structure unless they so choose.

I think what makes someone a writer is that for one reason or another, they are compelled to write. For some, it is their talent and success that urges them to continue. For others, they have something to say and can’t stop until it is out.

Obviously, I have something to say. I’m speaking. (sort of) But clearly I don’t focus any of my stories on this subject. I have always felt that writing and storytelling were in my blood because I have always felt compelled to write (for good results or bad, who knows) and I cannot imagine that that would ever change. It’s like a drug that I need on a regular basis or I don’t function properly. Anything I “have to say” comes out naturally. This isn’t the case with “real” writing. Everything has to be planned in advance, which can be annoying. I like to have at least one aspect of my storytelling open to change and open to whatever subconscious voice is in my fingers, waiting to break out and teach me something disturbing about my psyche.

So in spite of the fact that I am largely embarrassed by this hobby, I also find it a wonderful outlet that I really enjoy and may continue for some time.

In the meantime, hopefully I will get some “real” work done as well.

I’m engaged!!

It’s amazing the journey you take on a relationship inside your own head. Well, it might be just me, but I really doubt it. When I first got together with the person I now intend to build my life with, I wasn’t really certain that things would work out, I thought we might have an enjoyable, if brief, relationship. It seemed like we were too different, but apparently not. Two years later, I was happy, but the idea of marriage was still terrifying. When I figured out I wanted to get married and actually made peace with the decision we were four and a half years into our relationship and he proposed at the five year mark.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life trying to figure out what was real. What is real love, what is true about religion, the world and humanity. I feel like fiction simplifies all of that, to a great degree and I’ve been reading and writing fiction for most of my life. I’m not giving it up, either, I love it too much.

I remember the world of confusion I went through, when I was with a man that I loved (the same one as now) and I wasn’t happy.

The rules and concepts about the world inside your head are always changing, of course, but right now, I think the point is that you’re supposed to struggle with it. I sort of feel like “love at first sight”, “finding your soul mate” and even buying into every belief of a major (or minor!) religion without deciding what you think on your own is the lazy way out.

If you haven’t worked for your sense of peace, I feel like you just haven’t started the fight yet. Maybe some people never do, I’m not sure.

I don’t believe there is someone for everyone. “The one” concept is bull shit, a concept to make junior high girls swoon and twenty-somethings pull their hair out. I don’t want “the one”, I want my fiancee.

I’m in love with my best friend and I’m getting married. I still have to resist the urge to walk up and show my ring to perfect strangers. But I guess, truth to tell, that’s exactly what I’m doing now.

Relationships

Shipping is such a weird, indefinable thing. It’s hard to say what it is about one couple that you love and what strikes something deep inside your subconscious that makes you projectile spew.

I often see people post on message boards with a signature that has a list of people they ’ship’ and usually, as I read through them, I say Yes, yes, nice, okay, who is that? and YICK! This idea of real love is something that is obviously not a universal understanding or easy to define or wouldn’t everyone be able to tell what it looked like?

Is love patient and kind as we learned in sunday school or does it screw you up against the shower wall?

I’m trying to write a relationship in which there is no doubt that the couple is in love and yet, there are only a few scenes between them, some of which need to be a bit dramatic. But this is a D-story. There’s no time for it, really, but it’s important. This love is what drives the main character.

They aren’t magical beings with a mystical bond of love beyond their control. Real people, real love. Why isn’t that romantic anymore? It should be.

Darjeeling Tea

I’m enjoying a nice darjeeling tea from a bag by Chami. I have a little more than a teaspoon of regular white sugar in there and it is a pretty big cup. I’d say **. Nothing to really write home about, I’ve had been darjeeling, but it’s still nice and keeping me awake

Hermione Malfoy

I am currently writing the last chapter of Hermione Malfoy and it is weird the relationship I have with it. I really don’t want it to end, is the biggest problem I have in writing it cause when I really get INTO the actual writing it is one of the funnest stories ever. It really makes no sense on its face, but the relationship between characters really makes me laugh and hopefully that is translating well.

A lot of people want to read it and are waiting to read it and I know that and it is almost like that makes it more difficult to write instead of easier. There’s expectations, where at the beginning of the story, no one had ever heard of me or the story and there was no pressure whatsoever.

Another day, another story

This one is also BTVS, but a different couple. This is Angel/Cordelia. Takes place after the second season finale. (Well, maybe some slight overlap to where it would be considered during, but you can figure it out)

Working title is Liam.

Chapter One

I’m trying to work on my description with this one. Hopefully it went okay, though if I were to ever officially post it, I would give it a look through.

Two Buffy fics

In keeping with my post from earlier/below this one, I am posting two fics that I have started and continue whenever the mood strikes, but am unlikely to finish because if I make that a goal, I’ll never finish anything else.  SO!  With that in mind, here we go, these are both fanfics for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, owned by Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox.  I make no money in writing them and indeed give myself only stress.

Fic 1:  Boomerang, Buffy/Spike, takes place after Chosen.  Buffy’s biological clock goes cuckoo.

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

There’s a fourth, incomplete chapter on my computer but I won’t do partial chapters, that’s just ridiculous.
This next story is actually the sequel to the first one, proving what an a-linear thinker I am and how I tend to skip to the end of everything and can’t sit through the middle. But whatever. Here we go.

Fic 2, Reincarnated

Chapter One
Chapter Two

Part of me wants to complete these fics because I really like the idea behind both of them, but the need to write my own work will probably push them into obscurity.

A purpose

Not in life, but for this blog.  I officially declare this the dumping ground for my random explosions of creativity that derail me from whatever my true project is at the moment.

For example?  My current project is a feature spec script that I am writing as an original sample.  However, since beginning this script, I’ve started at least two fanfics, maybe more, because I’m simply unable to ignore an idea when it plagues me 24/7.  However, if I were to post them on a fanfiction site somewhere, there would be pressure to finish them and that is just stress I don’t need when I have a PROJECT, DAMN IT.

So that’s the situation, I will post what comes into my mind but I make no promises to finish anything.  I am only writing them to get them out of my head and work on mechanics.  (Not that they’ll be edited in any way, so proceed at your own risk.)  If, for some weird reason, I actually finish a story placed here, I will move it to an official fanfic site, until then, it will sit here, pressureless.  It’s an idea, anyway.  Hopefully it will work.

Brand New Tea

Pineapple Guava White Tea by Republic of Tea (via Whole Foods)

Tea Type: White Tea

Ultimate Intake:  About four cups so far, great stuff

Sugar content:  1 tsp Light Agave nectar per cup

Milk Content:  None

Satisfaction:  ***1/2 of 5 stars

This is a great tea and I’m really enjoying it.  It’s in a bag which sometimes gives me pause, but it is also super less of a hassle, so I’m definitely not complaining.   I’m glad I liked it, since I got scolded for buying it.  “Honey, we have to drink the tea we have first!”  Pffft.

The WGA Awards

Okay, here’s what I remember from the night:

I looked awesome.  Which really made the event.

I saw some celebs, but not too many.  I couldn’t think of Neil Patrick Harris’s name for the longest time.  I turned to my boyfriend and said ‘Oh, honey, that guy who played the kid doctor is here.’  Nice, right?  Luckily, it didn’t phase him since he already knows I’m a total moron.  He supplied the name ‘Doogie Houser’ – but it wasn’t until they announced him as the host that it really clicked for me.

Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel were sitting near us and they seemed to be whispery and cute.  The president of the guild specifically told her in his introduction to keep it PG cause his kids were there, so she told them a “kids’ joke” about seal balls, which I found hilarious.

Amongst the writers I admire, I saw Marti Noxon, which was very exciting.  I didn’t say anything, of course, because I know no one that knows her, or at least not well enough to do a casual stalking pass.  I kept my eye out for Doris Egan, but unfortunately her brilliant House ep didn’t win, so no dice.

Favorite moment was when Neil Patrick Harris called Sandra Oh a ‘ dirty, dirty whore,’ for what reason, I totally missed and she said he was one too.

Oh, and Jamie Lee Curtis made sure that Danny Strong, writer of ‘Recount’ and actor as ‘Jonathan’ in Buffy and ‘Doyle’ in Gilmore Girls got the card that announced him as a winner, because he’d left it up at the podium and she said someone in his family would want to “put it in a scrapbook.”  Totally true.  He’s such a cute little guy.  I’m told 5′3″ but I’m not sure I believe it.  Not like Sarah Michelle Gellar was some kind of amazon.