Tag: writing

Posted in fanfiction, general, writing

Writing deadines

Posted on by sokorra

I decided to try posting from my phone as I won’t always be with my laptop.   This app is new to me so I’m not sure how to access my drafts to give you the next part of my fandom starter kit series.   But I will talk about writing.no

Writing is my hobby right now but part of me wishes I could do it as more then a hobby.   To write professionally.   However that would mean being about to put out more then one book per decade.  I have many ideas but sadly not many get past the preproduction stage.

One of my goals this year is to stop procrastinating and get some stories done,  both in my original collection and in my Fanfiction group.   If I ever want to make it to being a credible author I must be able to finish something and not leave people in a lurch 12 chapters in.

One of my tasks this week will be taking an inventory of my works,  both in progress and completed.   Then making a list of stories that need finished.   Probably in order of how complete it is.

And I also need to find beta readers who can keep on me about deadlines.

So hopefully when next January comes around I can claim I finished a lot.

 

20160115_220312
Unless Max decides I can not.
Posted in essay, fanfiction, writing

Fandom Writing Starter Kit: Terminology

Posted on by sokorra

Whenever you first start reading fanfiction, you’ll see various terms used to describe what you are about to read.  Its important to understand some of these terms, especially when you are posting your own stories.  People look for certain things when they are reading, and its always good to describe your story in a way that will make them understand what they are looking at.  Here are some multi-fandom general terms.

Gen
Continue reading “Fandom Writing Starter Kit: Terminology” →

Posted in essay, fanfiction, writing

Fandom Writing Starter Kit: An Introduction

Posted on by sokorra

I started this series on Bubblews, but instead of a direct transfer, as I actually lost the copy, I’m starting a new.  So it’s  fresh version of an old post.

For those who are newbies to Fandoms in general, a fandom is a collection of fans who share a similar love for a show, movie, book, band, sports team, etc.  Although you often don’t hear people refer to sports as a fandom, it essentially is one.  Any time a group of people gather and enjoy the same entertainment, it’s a fandom.

Fandom writing therefore is fan created works relating to the be-fanned subject.  This is more popular in fandoms that are based on books, tv shows, and movies then other fandoms, but they still exist.  And it usually comes in two types: Meta & Fan-Fiction. Mainly in this series of articles I will be focusing on the latter. Continue reading “Fandom Writing Starter Kit: An Introduction” →

Posted in mythology, writing

Lady of Shadows: An Introduction

Posted on by sokorra

Many of those who know me know that for the last few years (probably longer then that, honestly) I’ve been working on an original novel that takes the myth of Persephone and turns it into something a bit more Scifi-ish.

I’ve written different drafts of it for Nano over the years, scrapping quite a few.  The original novel was actually taking place in Ancient Greece.  Then I made it have no connection at all.  The current draft, which I wrote primarily for Nano 2014, is a midway tale.  In it, the Mythological characters are in fact humans, just another ‘breed’ if you will.  They live almost eternal lives and live in pocket spaces to co-exist among their less advanced and shorter lived counterparts.  Cronus (sometimes known as Saturn) has been evicted from the pocket worlds for essentially being an evil scientist and using regular humans in experiments.  The thought was that without his technology and laboratory, he wouldn’t be able to cause harm.  But he persevered, and has power within the regular spaces of Earth. Since then his adoptive children and one biological child, Zeus, led a rebellion of sorts trying to keep him from taking over the Earth with his corporation, Titan, Inc.

Continue reading “Lady of Shadows: An Introduction” →

Posted in history, writing

The “Wikithrall” effect

Posted on by sokorra

Wiki-thrall is a term my sister and I came up with for those times when you go on wikipedia to look for one thing, and then an hour later you are still there, sometimes not even on a subject anywhere related to your original topic.  Once such case, I was researching the bird “Wren” because I decided to call the species that were to be the big bads in my Stargate Atlantis fanfic that and wanted to see if there was anything of the actual animal that might be good to use.  At least I started there.  Somehow by the end of the day I landed on the history of Pepsi.  Still not sure how I got there.

Sometimes its just by clicking links on the page. This happens alot when I’m looking up people.  You see a highlighted association, so you check that person out.  And suddenly you are reading about a Rock star who once wrote a song about a cousin of a friend of a cousin of the original person you were researching.

I love learning, so its not necessarily a bad thing.  However I do think sometimes it hinders when you are actually doing research with a purpose, like when I was doing research for a paper on German artist Anselm Kiefer.   I was doing topic research on Norse mythology, for which his painting was based, and ended up learning about Norse deities that were not even involved with the story at hand.  Of course it probably didn’t help that Thor had just come out on DVD at the time so I was intrigued by the differences between the comics and the actual mythology.

Today I was trying to show my father an article on the actor Armie Hammer, who is in a movie I liked and made my father watch last night, The Man From Uncle.  However I ended up on the page of his Great-Grandfather which lead to learning some interesting history.

Its not a good example of Wikithrall, but it reminded me of that, and I started wondering if other people had names for it, or what interesting paths led them to new information.

Posted in Uncategorized, writing

Writing Habits

Posted on by sokorra
home-office-336378_640
Source: Pixabay

I think if you asked any writer they would have different advice about habits in writing. About what helps us write.

For example, I like to make character or mood playlists to listen to while I write.  It helps me get into the zone of writing.  It doesn’t always help, but it usually does.  Other writers however like a quiet area to write.  Right now I have no music on, as there is no specific mood I want to be in, and I’m not writing a story so there are no characters or relationships I want to focus on.  Sometimes on days I have had too much noise stimulation (a trigger for my anxiety problems) I write without sound simply because I can’t stand more noise.

But most of the time I have music playing.

Another habit of mine is to write on my laptop.  Some writers prefer a keyboard while others prefer pen, pencil and paper.  The reason I prefer the keyboard (and a regular sized one, not one on a tablet or phone) is I can type as I think.  I don’t write nearly as fast as its coming to my head.  Not that typing doesn’t end up with a few mash up words too. I am always amazed by people who hand write their stories, because to me that takes a lot of time, dedication, and pain as writing for long stretches ends up making my hand cramp up.   I do carry around a small memo pad in my bag to jot down any scene or idea that comes to me when I don’t have easy access to my laptop.  And sometimes I write short stories in notebooks while on breaks between classes or work.

Every writer has habits they keep to help them write, or feel comfortable as they write.  And each writer has different habits.  The trick is to find out what your own are.  Is it playing music while you write?  Finding a nice empty silent corner and writing away in your notebook?  It might be finding a really comfy chair or a cafe or library where the ambient noise is comfortable to you.  Maybe its doing a daily sprint where you do nothing but write for a period of time.

There isn’t just one way to write, so while any writer could give advice on what to do to help you keep writing, it usually just comes down to finding out what helps you.

Posted in Art, bookit, general, history, writing

Resolutions & Goals

Posted on by sokorra
new-years-day-1054594_640
Source: Pixabay

Every New Years, a popular tradition is to make a set of resolutions for the coming year. And its almost a tradition to fail at keeping them too.

This year I’ve decided I’m not making resolutions.  I’m making goals.  While its not really all that different, when you say “Goal” that puts less stress on meeting it while still being a motivator.  It also allows you to be more flexible.  If a goal needs altered, it feels less like a failure.

My goals for 2016 are as follows.

  • Write on this blog every day.
  • Write on 750words every day.  For those who don’t know, 750 words is a website that is dedicated to keeping people writing by setting a daily goal of 750 words.  You go on there and you get points for keeping up with your writing.  It also gives you statistics on the mood of what you wrote, how many pauses and breaks you took (basically any break in typing over 3 minutes) and various other data.  Its a good tool if you have trouble getting yourself writing.  Its also a good place for brainstorming because it saves all your entries for the month, so you can go back and see what you wrote when you just sat down and wrote for 30 minutes or so.
  • Revitalize my graphic design portfolio.  Revitalize my love for graphic design.  Start an Etsy store and start earning income for what I went to college for.
  • Get a new day job.  My current job gives me too much stress for not enough money to pay all my bills.
  • Read 52 books. My friends and I have a yearly project where we try to read at least 50 books in a year.  I decided to make it 52 this year as there are 52 weeks in the year.  As I have only once made it to 50, we shall see if this was a good idea or not.  The basic premise is that I will read books available in (e)print  (ie Fanfiction doesn’t really count, sadly) on their own (so book on short stories is one book, you can’t count it by story).  Also it needs to be primarily reading, so math text books don’t count either.

    It will effect this blog as I will do a review/end notes for each book I read this year.  I will also keep a page listing all my books for the year along with links to their review/commentary post.  This will be tagged/categorized as bookit  (Does anyone else remember that program?  I hope it still exists.)

  • Read a book on each president so I know one thing about each of them other then they were President at some point.  So far I’ve only done Washington, and of course I know all the presidents Post Reagan.  I might make this a running post of mine.  Perhaps that is tomorrow’s Post topic – What I learned about Washington.
  • Draw each day.
  • Finish an original novel.  Also finish a couple of my fandom related projects.  Get my WIP list down to under 10 (its at 30+ right now)
  • Learn to drive.

 

I don’t know how many of these goals I will manage to achieve, but I felt that writing them all down on a post might give me more motivation to keep it.  After all, I told everyone I would do it, didn’t I?

So here’s me keeping at least one of my goals for the day.  Now to just do my 750 words writing and start reading Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines  by Ruth Wheeler which is an old novel.  The copyright inside my copy reads 1934.

Posted in Uncategorized

Some Quotes

Posted on by sokorra

“As the saying goes, type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.”
— Matthew Carter

“Typography needs to be audible. Typography needs to be felt. Typography needs to be experienced.”
— Helmut Schmid

” Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. ”

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

” Every designer or photographer should have an ongoing conversation
with the word editor –- you are all journalists. ”

Roger Black

” Drawing is what I always loved the most. I discovered drawing type
is drawing in a very pure form. Because a type designer does not draw letters.
A type designer designs words and words are structures that contain patterns
of black and white shapes, form and counterform.
It is a game that deals with space and rhythm.
Which is precisely what, for me, is the essence of drawing. ”

Cyrus Highsmith

Posted in fanfiction, ncis, stargate, writing

Ponderings: AUs

Posted on by sokorra

After school let out for the summer I decided to go through my computer and finish the unfinished stories and start getting them moved over to the “Look how much crap I have written” Disk.  I opened the NCIS folder, having decided to start there and realized I had six unfinished stories. All of them were AUs in the sense that Kate Todd never dies in my stories (except in the Doom Fic, which she actually only dies for a few minutes) but I wondered if I should actually call them AUs.  For examples, I shall list the summaries of these WIPs.

1. Dirty Deeds

Basically I’m writing a cliché.  Kate and Tony have a one-night stand the night before his wedding to Bianca (an OC).  Much angst is held because Tony is confused, Kate feels guilt and confusion, Abby and the rest of the gang are wondering why the hell Tony is getting married and Bianca has issues of her own.  AU because Kate is alive and Tony is actually getting married, but still staying close to canon.

2. As the World Falls Down

Kate & Tony (are you getting my ship for this fandom yet?) babysit Tony’s half-sister.  Kate has a strange dream inspired by Labyrinth and decides to make a move on Tony.   It starts off as a fluffy one-shot but Abby & Tim wanted their turn. So its more.  AU Kate but stays close to canon

3. The Christmas AU 1

Tony and Kate spend Christmas together during the great Snow-in. Canon AU

4. The Christmas AU 2

Jen, Kate and Ziva own a book store.  Ari is a patient at a mental facility where he is watched over by Dr. Leon Vance. Ducky runs a clinic with Gerald and Jimmy, Paula Cassidy a jewelry store, Cassie Yates a drug store, Tony a movie rental place and Abby a computer repair center.  Tim is a writer known for spending time at the book store.  I forget what I have Gibbs doing.  AU AU

5.  Untitled

Tony decides to take a job in LA for a few months to put distance between himself and Kate.  This is how She realizes how much Tony actually does within the group dynamic.  AU season 3

6. The One with a Casino

Jen owns a casino. Ari wants her casino, so he sends his best man Peter to try and blackmail and otherwise terrorize a stubborn Jen out of the casino.  Kate is a PI (partnered with Tony) and comes to work undercover to catch Ari & Peter in the act. Gibbs is Jen’s wealthy but retired boyfriend, Ducky and Jimmy bartenders, Ziva is head of security, and McGee is a frequent customer to the table where Abby is the dealer.

There is more (including, I think, a McAbby ficlet) but I will stop there. Especially since this is supposed to be a reading/writing original fic journal. But the point is most of those stick to canon in the sense that they have the same missions, the same things happen to people, but its altered slightly by the fact that Kate (and at times Jen) lived to see another season.  But then I also have the Casino and Bookshop fics.  If its AU to have Kate alive, what do I call fics where its not even in the same setting as the original product.

What if I have Rodney and John as professors at Atlantis University instead of who they are on the show?  Do I call that Au or do I have another label for it.  Or what if I write a fic where Vala never got off the Prometheus the first time?

So what I am asking my few readers is How do you define an AU and whats canon fic.

Posted in fanfiction, Pet Peeves, writing

The Author Note

Posted on by sokorra

I read tons of fan fiction in my free time. And over time I have come across some things that have made me want to bang my head against the wall.  Sometimes it was atrocious spelling (if its worse then my own, its really really bad, believe me), other times it could be the lack of capitals or punctuation.  And often it is the author notes.

Author notes are for the purpose of speaking to the reader about whatever it is your story that isn’t explained within the story itself, or answering a common question in reviews for the last trouble, or even making a note about the song you listened to or an excuse why its late. I usually include people who helped in the brainstorming and beta’ing of the story.  It belongs at the top and/or bottom of your chapter.

Where it does not belong is in the middle of it.  Over the last couple of months I have constantly come across stories where I’m into the story and get thrown out because the author decided to stick an author’s note into a paragraph.  I spend a few minutes glaring at said author’s note and continue on.  On occasion I have found fics riddled with author notes.

As a reader I am begging the writers:  Please keep the notes to the start or the finish.  If you feel you need to explain something, put an asterisk or a number ala footnotes and explain it later.  Or just explain it in the opening notes. 

When its in the middle of your story it throws the reader off.  Its like floating through a river and suddenly a rock appears.  Also, half the author notes within the story I have seen tend to be commentary rather then explanations.  If you want to do that, do a fic commentary like people do for television shows.   I find the “And he danced to the hokey pokey. (A/N: I love that song!)” to be greatly annoying.

Also, if you feel something needs to be explained, have another character explain it.

I don’t want to sound mean or make it sound like those who do this aren’t good writers.  All I am saying is that I have stopped reading fics before because of excessive internal author notes.  Keep them to the before or after area, and not the during, please.