One of my life goals is to have fewer little pieces of paper surrounding me, each containing reminders of tasks undone. A clear ‘to do’ list is the surest sign of freedom, I’m sure. But right now, what I want to pin on my notice board of stuff, is a humble note to self:
You don’t have to do everything at once
Indeed, you don’t have to do everything
Life does not require you to be ready
For a lot of last year, I was producing a weekly radio show all about the Arts Scene in Northern Ireland. It was a mixed bag, regularly featuring interviews, reviews, and exhibition notices. As part of it, I spoke to poets, authors, painters, and singer/songwriters, not to mention a range of people involved at various levels in the organizing of Belfast’s many cultural events and festivals.
One group of people I didn’t initially seek out were the city’s many talented comic writers and graphic illustrators, however. A good friend kept insisting I do a feature on comics, but I dismissed the idea. Comic books are for kids, I kept thinking, they’re not particularly cultural. Needless to say, my friend challenged this thinking, and he was right to, because I was wrong. Let me break down why, for a second:
I’ve self-published a few books, so far, and I intend to release more in the future, but I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the topic by any means. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from both A. having opinions, and B. wanting to share those opinions, which is what I’m going to do here. If you want to read more about the actual process I went through in making my books a reality, you can do so over here.
So, what are my overall thoughts on self-publishing? It can be great. Key word: can. It can also be awful, if you do it wrong. But, generally speaking, I’m in favour of it. I like the opportunities it gives to people who – for whatever reason – can’t or don’t want to be traditionally published. That’s not to say I’m not in favour of traditional publishing, because I am. They’re both good, for their own reasons, and in their own ways. I think some types of books are more suited to one particular publishing method than the other and, when it comes to my novels, I want to go down the traditional route, only using self-publishing as a plan B.
I self-published ‘Still Dreaming’ and ‘Wake’ because it suited the books and it suited me, at the stage of my writing career I was at (i.e. the very first stage). Traditional publishing wasn’t a real, tangible option for them at that time, mainly because they were works of poetry and short stories, which are also known as ‘things most reputable publishers won’t touch with a barge pole unless the author is already very famous’. As sad as it is, that stance is completely reasonable for publishing houses to have because the chances of them selling these types of books in large enough quantities for them to break even – let alone make a profit – are very low. Continue reading
Flash fiction inspired by my train ride home:
The teens were excited – three girls squealing at a photo on one of their phones, while music poured out of a second device. Deep bass made the whole carriage shake almost as hard as the conductor’s head. He told them to turn it off. There were complaints from all around the train – everyone seemed to love the song. Unanimously he was told to shut up and enjoy it.
I guess it’s not really news that the Internet is a strange place but, for me, it got a little bit more weird than usual, recently. As self obsessed as it may potentially sound, I have a Google Alert set up for my name, meaning that I get an email pretty much anytime someone mentions me on the Internet. Personally I find it quite helpful, and I would recommend it to anyone trying to build an online platform, especially as it’s free, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. Today I wanted to document a strange thing that happened, which my Google Alert (fittingly) alerted me to: someone’s set up a complicated kind of scam linked to an illegal version of one of my books!
I don’t know the ins and outs of how it works but, basically, there’s a website out there in which Fake Person A asks where they can get a free electronic version of a specific book by me, and Fake Person B replies with a very dodgy link to what I believe to be a virus. Not only a virus, but one you have to pay to download. And not only a single payment, but a set of monthly payments that seems difficult to unsubscribe from once set up.
How do I know these people are fake? Well, this is the weird part – every time you load the page it tells you it’s on a different website, the people’s names have changed, the linked profiles don’t exist, and the messages are written ever so slightly differently. I can’t imagine what kind of coding goes into something like that but, actually, I’m a little impressed.*
Anyway, I guess the moral to the story is to keep an eye on what people are doing, and don’t try to download any illegal books.
The stupidity of the thing is that subscription to the “free” download site would cost more than the official eBook version anyway. *shakes head and sighs deeply* Stay safe online kids!
*If you’re wondering, Google really frowns on such things, and I’m confident they’ll block the link soon.
I would rather write one-hundred thousand words of fan fiction than ten-thousand words of “original” fiction. Is it because I have fewer ideas for original stories? Is it because I prefer the writing process with fan fiction, or that writing fan fiction is in someway easier? Nope, nope, and not at all. The key is motivation – let me explain:
Ten-thousand words of a novel is ten-thousand words of a novel. It’s not a complete novel. Unfinished as it is, no one wants to read it*. And, generally speaking, you shouldn’t want to show it to people before it’s ready anyway. Posting it online severely lowers your chance of getting it accepted by a traditional publishing house. While giving friends and family a sneak peak can be a blessing or a curse, and there’s no way to tell until it’s too late.
So, basically, you’re left with ten-thousand words to worry over. Is it good enough? Will people like it? Even if you’re certain you’re penning a best seller (which you absolutely can not be sure of) you have to slog on and go through the long process to publication. It can take years, and it can be demoralizing.
Fan fiction, on the other hand? Because it’s not for profit you can share it online to your hearts content and, when you do, your heart is indeed content. You get reviews, and compliments, and people boast about you on Tumblr**. To me that kind of affirmation is like a drug***, and that’s why I do it. The fans. The community. People placing value on my work.
…I would rather write one-hundred thousand words of fan fiction than ten-thousand words of “original” fiction. This is a problem, because I have a novel to write. Can someone start paying me for Spike and Buffy stories?
Recommended Video: A TED Talk on Self Control (It’s vaguely related, and very interesting.)
*I’m throwing generalizations around, here.
**Okay, so you’re not guaranteed to get showered in praise but I’ve found that – excluding a few haters here and there – fan fiction readers are lovely, and if you come up with anything half decent you will no doubt get fans/followers.
***Disclaimer: drugs are bad. The high doesn’t last forever, and the following slump can be crippling. Same goes for writer’s block, though obviously to a lesser degree. Haters do hate, and they will kill you slowly if you let them.
Recently I read ‘Finish Your Damn Book’ and ‘Are You Finished Yet?’ – both great blog posts which I really recommend everyone else check out. Even for those who haven’t clicked the links, it should be pretty obvious from the titles what they’re about, namely: actually achieving your big goals instead of just thinking about it.
Trying to do everything and failing to get anything done is a pretty big hole to fall into. So, I’m aware it’s February and no longer New Year, but my writing goals for twenty fifteen are these:
Sounds simple, right? Well, simplicity is what I’m aiming for. We’ll see how it goes.
I first joined Blogger because the Internet used to be new and exciting. It can still be exciting, no doubt, but it’s grown up a bit, as have I. Back when I was in high school I joined every social media website I heard about, with the aim of having multiple profiles all over the web and being, therefore, cool.
I didn’t succeed in being cool. The only thing I actually achieved was having multiple profiles all over the place with childish usernames, awful grammar, and personal information that was best left unpublished. Oh, the follies of youth!
I’ve since spent many hours trying to access old email accounts in an effort to get these profiles taken down and, in many cases I’ve been successful, but not in all.
Anyway, back to blogging. When I first joined Blogger I didn’t know what a blog was, and I didn’t care. I just wanted a profile. So I made one, and then swiftly moved on.
Time passed and Facebook was born. I went to University and started writing Facebook “notes” to kind of document the experience. That was 2008, and in 2009 I rediscovered my actual blog, and started cross posting. I got feedback, telling me what I wrote was interesting (though, looking back, I quite disagree), and so I blogged more. I spent more time writing blog posts than actual university work and then, at the start of 2010, when I’d decided to drop out of university I had even more time to write. I went from one blog to three, separating out the mish-mash of everything that had been my main blog (aptly titled This and That) to a Creative Writing Blog (Writing Through the Night), and a place for posts about Christianity (what came to be known as my “God Blog”). Continue reading
I’m a member of Belfast Writer’s Group, and during a meeting a while back I suggested the following writing prompt:
Pick a fictional character you detest and kill them off.
Simple as that, but bonus points if you could do it without specifically naming the character and yet have everyone know who they were just from your description. My own response to the prompt is below. Not only should you be able to guess who’s being killed, but who’s doing the killing. Here we go:
Sparkliness. Idiocy. Creepiness. Those were his three main crimes – in that specific order. He was everything both a boyfriend and a beast should never be, and it was why she hunted him; why she had to end the mockery he was making of the real monsters that defined her existence. With walking around in broad daylight – albeit under heavy cloud, which she so did not appreciate – he was easy to find. The difficulty only really lay in deciding the best way to dispatch him.
After having thoroughly considered all of the classics, she didn’t think any of them quite seemed right. In being the antithesis of everything he should represent she decided that his death should be equally unnatural.
A railroad spike replaced her usual stake, Bourbon was picked in place of holy water, and fire was kept as a staple, though in a different form than she would usually use it. After beating him around the head with a statue of Buddha, she pinned him in place with the spike, poured on the alcohol, and let the Zippo lighter finish the job.
Disclaimer: this is just for fun. No offense is intended, if the fictional character I don’t like is one that you love.
The bad thing about fan fiction is that anyone can write it, and the good thing is that anyone can write it. But isn’t that the same with any kind of creative work?
It’s true that while traditional fiction only allows writers to subject their own characters to a range of emotional ups and downs, fan fiction authors can – and do – take characters that you love and do what they like with them. But, then, so can you. It’s a double-edged sword, and I think it’s a great one – if that weren’t already obvious.
I don’t like the fact that all fan fiction is grouped together and looked down upon. Not when there’s so much variety, and not when a lot of what’s on offer is actually very good.
Some people tell me I’m wasting my time writing fan fiction, because I’m never going to be paid for it, but is it really a waste if I love it? I consider it practice, if nothing else.
In a sense – because there is no monetary motivation – writers of fan fiction are better than a lot of writers of traditional stories, because they do it for the right reasons. There are thirteen-year-olds out there who have written several novel-length works and just given them to the world. I don’t find that a thing of shame, I’m impressed by it!
If you want to read more on this topic I suggest you check out this post, for a much better (more objective, less opinion-based) defence of fan fiction than I could ever hope to write.
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