Tag Archives: Writers Resources

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It’s Been A Year! Why didn’t you remind me?


Well, technically it has been a year and one month but let’s not quibble.  In November October 2012 I launched my first fan fiction effort.  This was on the back of having fallen under the spell of Fifty Shades of Grey, subsequently discovering that it started life as Twilight Fan Fiction and having that moment of temporary insanity that said, “Well, if she can do it, why can’t I?” “I’ll give that a go.”

That first effort was Investing Elliot the title of which was a play on the 2003 novel by Graham Gardner.  (It’s okay, you weren’t the only one who didn’t get it). While the book had very little to do with my story it has huge resonances with my journey as a writer.

The original book description says that Elliot is “young teenager who decides to become a different person and ends up being invited to join a secret society which is orchestrating a reign of terror at his new school” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventing_Elliot).  In many ways, that is exactly what my journey has been.  Well, okay, not the reign of terror bit (not really) but certainly the secret society. And I have loved it.

Writing fan fiction has been tiring, demoralizing, a waste of time, great.  It created discipline when I didn’t have any (I can now spend hours on facebook avoiding work without breaking a sweat), it helped me to push past writers block (with a cricket bat)  and to fit things in when life gets to busy (like ending up in hospital with a stress related illness).  Blogging the journey has also helped to hone my thinking (I have more ideas for my exit strategy now than just being a world famous author with a movie deal).  Of course, I had plans to stick to a proper blogging schedule but…

Now, I could go on about everything I learned about doing things wrong, or what I learned about my own sexuality, or what it means to write in this genre, or the nature of fan fiction creativity.  I could tell you about how I became a celebrity reporter, or getting a my first bloggasm award. But I won’t bore you with all of that.

Instead, what I want to share with you are a set of challenges that I created for my friends and fellow fanfickers.  I would love to know your responses to any or all of these challenges.  So they will come out for you in a series of posts over the next few days.  Please participate. I would love to hear from as many of you as can be bothered.

In the meantime, I will be over here celebrating with that card that you couldn’t be bothered sending me.

BTW – a big shout out to my dear friend Colleen for creating my stunning new banners and background.  Love you, girl!
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Not Quite Dirty -Reblog or Coblog


The beautiful Becca from Lady or Not…Here I Come  posted a conversation that we had earlier today on her blog.  I am not sure if this is amazingly creative or the height of blogging laziness.

If it is the latter I wanted to go one better and reblog her blog of our blog conversation on her blog post. So here it is….

Not Quite Dirty.

She called me her muse.  I like this; the Beatrice to her Dante, the Marie-Therese to her Picasso, the Yoko to her John. I hope that I haven’t been one of the 10 Most Scandalous Muses in Art History [NSFW] – Flavorwire.

Thalia Muse of Comedy

I like to think that I have been, in this instance, her Thalia, muse of comedy – cos Becca is shit truckloads of funny. (She doesn’t use bad language)

Anktd (pronounced ‘Cat’)-y Art

– All Vaginas Are Unique

All vaginas unique

The whole conversation came about due to Becca’s love of making up words. This is a constant search for any writer but for erotic writers (which Becca isn’t but I think she should be) in particular.  After all how many ways can one say ‘throbbing member’? Well according to my research there are lots of ways.

Some websites which might assist to enhance your writing vocabulary.

50 Great Names for Vagina.

25 Republican-Approved Ways to Say ‘Vagina’ Without Offending Political Pussies.

The Incredibly Rude Logophile: Day 4 of Alternative Words for Penis.

Victorian slang – sexual slang.

Talking Not Quite Dirty Together

Becca and I are now considering a collaboration.  I think it could be a raging success.  I imagine that if we combined our extraordinary bloggasmic skills, we could  create a new erotic genre.   Nigella Lawson, the Goddess of Food Porn could become our Thalia.

 

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Your honest opinion please


Today I am stepping onto the other side of the review process.  Oooh, things are not so hot over here either!

I am feeling a case of the guilts over a book review that I committed to write.  As you may have guessed one of my regular haunts is GoodReads which I love for staying up to date with new offerings and reconnecting with my old favourites.  As part of my contribution to the platform as a resource for readers and writers I am trying to write reviews as often as I can.  It is good for the growth of the site and the bank of knowledge it offers to the world but it is good for me as a writer and reader to deconstruct what I read and really begin to think about what it is that I like or don’t like about a book.

politicalhumor.about.com

The downside is that you can’t like everything.  In a recent review on this site I promoted a book that I actually think is really well written but felt I could only give it three stars.  For my money it was missing the genre in which it was being promoted and that is difficult because it was one of those great reads that falls between genres. I tried to be honest about my own reaction to it as a reader and not as a literary work and to be constructive about this beyond ‘it wasn’t for me’ or ‘I just didn’t like it’ (rolls eyes, twirls hair, pouts lips).

I just don’t like it

This latest book has a lot less going for it than the work cited above.  There are some real issues with it and I couldn’t with all good faith give it more than two stars.  But this author is a newly minted one.  She is learning the ropes and quite honestly has potential because the idea is great.  In fact, it is dangerously close to where I have been heading in one of my stories so this is going to seem disturbing when I finally get to that point but I will honestly say up front here, on this date, with my hand on my heart, that I thought of my storyline over a month ago and I read her book this morning!

That aside, as a recently and often rejected writer, I get frustrated at the review process when I either get a rejection without any critique at all or a rejection where the critique is so obscure that it gives me nothing to work on.  The ones that give me hope tell me the good aspects of my work and then make sensible and actionable suggestions as to what I can either do to improve the work or improve my skills.  Couched in the language of ‘don’t give up’, these are the ones that give me some hope that I am not completely wasting my time.  Of course, since the passion is an obsession it would be pointless for them to tell me not to continue, I am not sure I could stop even if they wanted me to, but you get what I mean.

In the end, this is the best advice for any writer.  Of course, it doesn’t mention reading and I would add in the mantra that to be a better writer you should be applying the 3:1 rule.  For every hour you spend writing, you should be spending three hours reading, and reading a range of genres.

So I posted this review for this particular author this morning.  I want to contact her personally if I can to give her some encouragement. Please tell me, am I being too harsh? Am I supporting her enough to be the type of writer that I think she could be in the future?

You'll Be Safe Here (Promises, Prayers & Secrets Series, Book 1)You’ll Be Safe Here by Kristine Pierce

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a fantastic idea that has been poorly executed. The plot is really good and I can see that what is essentially a novella, could become a great novel but this version of the story is underdone. There is very little in the way of character development and for me this is a key element that is missing. The author sets up the dynamic but fails to really explore the motivations through either the first person narrative or the back stories. The action leaps around too much. I felt like I was being dumped in the middle of each scene without any of the requisite build up to get there. The book needs some heavy editing. Tenses are all over the place and there are a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. More attention could be paid to crafting of sentences to eliminate word repetition and to really shape some of the linking elements that are absent between scenes. Having said all of that, the central idea is really good and the characters could be fabulous. I would love to see someone work with the author to reshape this into the really great story that it has the potential to be.

View all my reviews

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