(in no particular order):
Pay off my student loans.
Set up an IRA (Roth, I think, since I’ll have already been taxed on the winnings).
Talk to an allergist about getting shots. Achoo!
Buy every single Doctor Who/Torchwood book Continue reading
On some fanfiction sites, crossovers–stories that are fanfiction of two or more other unrelated storylines–are actually fairly easy to categorize. That is, they are labeled as “crossovers,” and they can probably be found among other crossovers for each story they represent.
But what about sites that don’t have a crossover category?
Should you label your Doctor Who/Star Trek fanfiction as Doctor Who, or as Star Trek? What criteria would you use?
And what about stories that aren’t typically labelled as crossovers?
What if I wanted to write Doctor Who fiction about one of the actors meeting the Doctor? Is it fanfiction… or real person fiction? And, since many of the sites I’m on don’t actually allow RPF, would such a story, such a crossover, be permitted on those sites?
Update
Fanfiction.net’s most recent policy, updated as of 2008, specifically lists among the forbidden stories: “Stories with non-historical and non-fictional characters: actors, musicians, and etc.”
It does not state “real person fiction” is not allowed, but that stories “with non-fictional etc” is not allowed.
My interpretation, then, is that this prohibition includes crossovers between the real person and the fictional character, so “David Tennant meets the Doctor” plots are… probably not allowed, no matter how much focus is put on the Doctor.
That being said, I have seen quite a few such crossovers on the site, which suggests that either readers have not reported them or the site does not always enforce the rule as such. Which still leaves the question up in the air on whether or not they’re actually allowed.
I have, a few months back, come across the TVTropes page for “Gainax Ending.” I don’t remember why, exactly, I clicked that page, but I do remember one comment that bugs me to no end. And I remembered it just the other day when my father and I were looking for something to watch and found The Red Planet showing on one channel.
The comment in question bugs me because it doesn’t, near as I can tell, say what movie it’s talking about. Continue reading
I’ve never been that great at keeping in contact. I know that, my family knows that, my pen pals know that.
Heck, practically the whole world knows that… if I have a reason to keep in contact with them. 😉
But there are other people out there who are better at it than me.
See, I have this friend I knew in North Dakota, back when my dad was in the military.
This friend was a teacher at my high school.
She wasn’t my teacher… she taught German and Spanish, and I never took any language classes until after we’d moved again. But I knew her through my sister.
This teacher shared many of my interests: we both loved wolves, and tigers, and animals in general. We both loved visiting the zoo. We both loved to read. And while we didn’t both love to write (at least, I don’t know that she was interested in writing), she certainly encouraged me to keep writing. She encouraged me to keep reaching for my dreams, no matter the obstacles.
Our family worried, last year, when we’d learned of the flooding in our old town.
We wondered if this teacher had been in the area at the time, or if she lived elsewhere and was safe.
We wondered this about many of our old friends from the area, but we never heard from her.
So, even as bad as I was at keeping in contact, I tried to keep contact with her, even after we moved.
My mother, however, was far better at it than I: my mother sent her a Christmas letter every year.
My sister was better at it than I: my sister kept contact with many people we’d known in North Dakota.
The school was better at it than I: the school, which my sister had graduated from, and which I had spent most of my high school years at before we’d moved again, sent us a newsletter every year.
And just today, we received a note from this teacher’s family.
She had died of lung cancer… two years ago.
So, two years late, I have this to say:
Thank you. Thank you for your encouragement, for your inspiration, for believing in me and reminding me to believe in myself.
Thank you for being there, for reminding me that I am a person of value, for teaching me to look beyond those obstacles.
Thank you for teaching me that my value is defined, not by the money I make, not by how other people try to define me, but by the value I see in myself and the things I do.
And the things I do, the writing especially, might never have come this far had it not been for your teaching.
Thank you. And whether I become a published author or not, whether I become a professional author or not, I consider my writing a success because I enjoy doing it. And I would like to dedicate that success to you.
Or:
Anyone who writes, whether you’re writing a poem, a short story, a novel, a thesis, a musical composition, or anything else, writes in multiple stages or drafts.
I don’t care who you are, or how good you think you are, you write in multiple stages.
Perhaps you go through some of these stages at the same time.
Perhaps you switch back and forth between stages.
Perhaps you aren’t even aware of writing in multiple stages.
But you do write in most, if not all, of these stages in some form or other in any project.
I was looking up a company the other day, hoping to find out more about some job my folks wanted me to apply to.
See, I almost always get a “why do you want to work for us” type question, or “what do you know about us,” or any other question that requires me to learn something about the company before an interview.
And since plenty of these ads are for companies I’ve never heard of, I turn to Google.
I don’t recall the exact search terms I used, but one of the phrases was “knowledge of the surrounding area”.
That phrase, or something very like it, happened to be in the job listing’s requirements, and since I couldn’t find much about the company directly (apparently they don’t have their own website), I thought looking up the job requirements was a good next step.
Except page one of my search results included, I kid you not, How to Survive the Apocalypse.
Spooky coincidence? Sign of my luck on the job search? Or story prompt?
Hard to say.
What do I want that would help me in my writing?
Well, there’s always the obvious.
More books for research.
A newer laptop (and smaller; an 11- or 12-inch would suffice).
A second modem or a mobile hotspot.
My parents to leave me alone while I’m writing, and stop treating every slightest thing they want me to do as loads more important than my writing (e.g., I want them to actually be patient, and accept that “hold on” means “wait a moment so I don’t have to cut off what I’m doing in the middle of a thought”).
But there’s also the health issue.
Continue reading
I have a dilemma.
I would like some kind of widget to display my writing progress, but it must meet certain criteria.
It must not depend on word count. I don’t want to set a numerical goal, and just show off how close I am to that goal.
I don’t have numerical goals.
Aside from NaNoWriMo, I have no idea how many words a given story should be, nor do I care at this stage; I just set out to write a particular story, and worry about length when I see who I can submit it to.
I want a quality goal: Is the story plotted out, is it written, have I finished editing? Have I sent it in for publication? Continue reading
Warning: quite long.
It is, apparently, an old saying that you should not discuss politics or religion.
As society progresses, other topics are added to this list, things that nobody should discuss except with great care.
Some communities have added sports to the list.
Then there are the topics that teachers warn students off from discussing.
There are even jokes: never discuss rulers at a nudist colony.
Apparently, even weather is becoming a taboo topic in some circles.
And there are the serious topics that apply to specific types of groups. Read on to see my
Side Quest Publications 