11.11.09 / Ficathons/Fanfic Exchanges / Author: admin0 / Comments: (0)
Tags: fanfic, fanfic exchange, writing fan fiction, yuletide assignment, yuletide treasure project, yuletide treat
Tomorrow at 8pm my time is the cut-off to sign up for this year’s Yuletide Treasure project, the holiday exchange for obscure and underwritten fandom fiction.
I so enjoyed it last year. I’ve been looking forward to it all year. I thought about skipping it because I may end up really pressed for time right before Christmas, but I’d be too disappointed if I skipped it and then had time.
The hardest part is trying to figure out exactly what to request. I got a wonderful Lawrence of Arabia story last year (and a treat, a 300 story, too!). I think I may request Lawrence again, because there’s not nearly enough written in it. 300 is gone this year–I missed the nominations somehow, and it maybe have been disqualified for not being obscure enough, anyway. Stranger things have happened.
All I know is that between now and 8pm tomorrow night–and it’s not wise to wait until the last minute in case the database keeps breaking down–I need to sign up if I’m going to do it. I actually started making a list of fandoms I could write something in, and got tired after this many:
Allo Allo
Are You Being Served?
American Gothic
Appaloosa
Arrested Development
Constantine
John Dies at the End
Seachange
Someone Like You
District 9
Dexter
Galaxy Quest
Equilibrium
Forever Knight
Futurama
Ghost Town
Glee
Modern Famiy
Zombieland
Hot FUzz
Shawn of the Dead
The Road to El Dorado
Doctor Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog
True Blood
In Treatment
Tropic Thunder
King of the Hill
Kolchak
Life on Mars US
Blades of Glory
Public Enemies
Bolt (which I just saw last night)
There are more, but I got tired of looking at the list. I could offer them all (I just checked my email–I offered 17 last year) but I’d rather choose a handful that I’d be most excited about if I got it as my yuletide assignment. If I see a request in one of the others that really inspires, there are always treats or NYR stories. I love the challenge of writing something I’ve not done before.
The problem I have is that while I’m thinking about the characters I’d be willing to write, I end up with bunnies and scenarios, and then I just want to write the story. And when I think about the stories I’d like to get, I end up thinking about them and wanting to just go ahead and write them.
Now to figure out 3 requests! I think I’ll use at least 2 of my requests from last year. The other 2 fandoms aren’t on the list this year so I have to come up a one new one. So exciting!
09.11.09 / Writing in General / Author: admin0 / Comments: (0)
Tags: characters, fanfic, Star Trek, Star Trek novels, Van Helsing, writing fan fiction
The simple answer is because it’s fun. But it’s more complicated than that. I write about the characters who seemed to me to need to live beyond whatever media they first inhabited.
I started out writing Star Trek fan fiction when I was around 9, I guess. I wish I still had those furiously penned things so I could laugh and reminisce. I only remember that they focused on my favorites: Spock, Kirk and McCoy. And boy oh boy were they dramatic. I was the Queen of Dramatic Openings and Dire Circumstances for All if Kirk could Not Once Again Pull the SUPER Dramatic Solution out of His Ass.
I remember one that I particularly liked involved Kirk and Spock on the bridge. The turbolift whooshed open (and I’m pretty sure I used the word whooshed), Doctor McCoy stepped out and opened his mouth to no doubt make a smart-ass remark about something, when he immediately collapsed in agonizing pain. He was going to die, and everyone knew it. They didn’t know why, because of course I had no clue. But they had to save him and time was running out–Dundundun DUUUUNNNNNNN.
I wrote those stories because I’d watched every episode of Star Trek long before reaching that age (apparently Dad indoctrinated me very early by holding me on his lap while he watched them semi-obsessively) and it just wasn’t enough. Those characters were too big for that short-lived series. I wanted them to live again. Then the Star Trek novels appeared under the Timescape label, and I clutched The Entropy Effect from the small grocery store next door to my not-yet-developed chest and thought, OH MY GOD YAY OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING THIS, TOO.
Well, modern’ net lingo has crept in. This was almost 30 years ago–I probably actually thought something like GEE WHILLICKERS OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING THIS, DANG THAT’S SUPER SWELL!
Once I got online in the late 1990s, while still a die-hard Star Trek fan, I was at the time quite taken with a show called Forever Knight. The Internet not only introduced me to Star Trek fanfic of every stripe, but a pretty active FK community of writers and readers and general appreciation of the actors and the show. I again thought excited thoughts in capital letters and devoured what I found, and soon began writing fan fiction again. I paused now and then, but have written fairly steadily since then, mostly in Forever Knight, and then about 6 years later I discovered Van Helsing and found Carl and Gabriel didn’t really fit into a small little movie. Just Carl’s weapons alone needed more room than that.
I’ve only dabbled in a few other fandoms, but when an idea strikes or a character seems like he wants to break free, at least in my head, I let him go. He might not do or say things that everybody likes, and in fact might be playing for an audience of one, but since the whole reason I write fan fiction is to get the characters to act out the stories I think they belong in, that’s all right with me