I Am The Alter Ego

...that I love, love, love, loved finding this conversation (http://s8.invisionfree.com/SKoWAwards/ar/t1.htm) about POGA and Island Olivier? I mean, yeah, there's a couple people who are in favor of the stories and obviously someone thought they were worth recommending in the first place, but the rest of it is readers chiming in about not caring for my stuff. AND I GRIN LIKE A FREAKIN LOON EVERY TIME I READ THESE NEGATIVE COMMENTS. No, seriously, I do. I mean, I sparked discussion! Not very intelligent discussion, but still. There was dialog. And no one was attacking me directly, but they were thinking about what I had written. Whee!

I'm officially stupid.

Can I just go off topic for a moment and share a really dumb, petty, pet peeve of mine?

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate when new members of online communities make posts that include the phrases "I don't know if this is allowed, but..." and/or "I'll happily remove this post if it's against the rules, just let me know..."  Do you know why I hate this?  I hate this because it's basically declaring to the whole of the Internet that "Hey, I don't have enough respect for the users of this community to read the rules and really find out what this place is about before I use up their precious time" and "I don't want to take responsibility for my own actions so I'm just going to make you responsible to know the rules for me so that I don't have to do research because I'm too lazy to care about the extra effort you have to put in to make up for my determination to go ahead without all the information." 

I am so sick and tired of people trying to blame me for their bad decisions and laziness in my regular life that I seriously cannot tolerate it in my online one. 

Personal responsibility.  Respect.  Self control.  Learn these, people.  Use them.  Or I just might feel compelled to rip you a new one, if you catch my drift. 

I just spent a week and a half in Hong Kong.  By all rights I should be bursting with thing to write.  Instead, mostly I'm just tired. 

Yeah.  I don't like angst.  Every once in a while someone is able to pull it off and I enjoy it because, say, a plot is particularly compelling.  But on the whole?  Not so much. 

So I've decided that I don't hate POGA.  Gasp!  I know, I know... there's Mary Sues all over the place in it and the writing isn't perfect and it's a totally cheesy romance riddled with absurd and unbelievable events, but get this: it's changed people's lives.  And I don't mean that in a self-aggrandizing way, I mean that in a awe-struck totally humbled I-can't-believe-people-have-actually-emailed-me-to-privately-tell-me-how-it's-positively-effected-their-lives kind of way.  Somebody recently reminded me of the impact POGA has had for some readers and it made me ashamed of how I've sometimes put down that story on this blog.  It made me ashamed because I thought: gosh if I was one of those readers who'd made a live-changing decision based on that story and I read the things I've said on here, I'd be embarrassed that I'd gathered any hope from something the author herself thinks is stupid. 

I don't want that.  I don't want anyone to take back those positive decisions they've made from reading that story.  I don't want someone thinking that they were stupid just because I got embarrassed and called my story stupid.

See, the truth is that I was embarrassed.  I am fully aware of how silly POGA's overall plot is and how juevenile a premise it has.  But it is also probably one of the most honest stories I've ever written.  Renee is not overly "perfect," anyone who thinks she is isn't reading carefully enough.  She is flawed but not so much that she couldn't function in the real world.  I think the fact that she is an honest representation of me and my personality makes it that much more embarrassing that she's on display in all her cheesy, messed up glory. 

But I'm guessing that the honesty and the fact that Renee, as a character, is okay with who she is even when everyone else thinks she's lame, is what makes POGA the kind of story that can inspire someone to make a life changing decision.  And even if it only makes that impact for one or two people, that's enough to make writing and posting worth it.  And that is precisely why I won't take it down. 

Therefore, I hereby officially decide to confess that I like POGA, no matter how stupid anyone else thinks it is. 

Ever since the plagiarism debacle, I've noticed an increase in the number of favorites lists I'm on. 
I suppose that makes sense, but I feel bad for the authors who were forced to remove their work. 

Regarding this whole FP and plagiarism thing... should I be offended that no one has tried to steal any of my stories?  Or should I just assume that no one is dumb enough to think they could pull it off because my writing is so awesome that it is recognizably mine...?  Right, I'll live in my little delusion and pretend it's the latter. 

Anyway, I've been watching the FP drama unfold and the list of stolen works continue to grow and I'm not even remotely surprised at the number of stories that show up on winglin or equivalent sites.  My previous experience on those sites prior to finding FP have led me to understand that most of the posters on those sites are overseas and have little to no comprehension of ideas like plagiarism and intellectual property.  It's common practice for them to take stories or the exact plots, dialog, and events of popular television shows and write them down with changed actor names.  Yes, that's right, they change the names to those of their favorite actors.  In the mind of the thief she (because it's almost always a girl) isn't stealing at all, but instead living out the fantasy of her favorite story only cast with her favorite hotties.  The purpose of posting to winglin, etc, is to let other fans squeal along with and give kudos for thinking up the cast list.  Maybe gain a little popularity from it. 

It's weird.  I don't get it.  It's a practice totally bizarre to me. 

Only because I would never cast my favorite actors/actresses in someone else's story.  I would cast them in my own original story. 

But I digress...

I think what I'm driving at is that these perpetrators don't even understand the magnitude of what they're doing.  It's normal to most of them.  I find that almost more saddening than anything else.  Seeing it so normal to so many young girls--something they think is just accepted--made me realize that I can't expect them to respect my rights as the original creator if I post the story online.  Thus why I took down Siren Call.  Technically, I should take down In So Many Words too, but I'm not that worried about that one.  And I don't care so much if someone were to steal POGA or Island Olivier.  Or maybe I would and I just don't realize it yet because no one's bothered to try...

Anyway, I want to be clear that I'm not saying it's the authors' fault for posting online; quite the opposite.  I'm just noting that the online world can't be trusted, there are simply too many people involved, many of whom don't know any better. 

The writer's block is dead!  Woohoo!  Do the happy dance. 

I don't know how long this will last but I've got six full pages already on a new story; and since this new story is a short one, those six pages mean I'm a little over half done.  Huzzah!  Clearly I'm excited about this.

( More about the new story... )

I wrote some for A Siren Call this week.  Like, two paragraphs, but still, it's something. 

Meanwhile, on another story I've mentioned previously while discussing the value of story format, all production has ceased.  Why?  Because my printer broke and I can't print out any more pictures, etc.  [pout]  Poor Karl and Nina are now stranded somewhere in Switzerland until I fix my stupid ink issues. 

Btw, I'm totally bonkers for that new show Castle, mostly because Nathan Fillion is a genius and I just love the screen saver on Castle's computer admonishing me: "You.  Should.  Be.  Writing."

I have just re-realized that I haven't finished and submitted (to publishers and stuff, not FP) a story in since I graduated college.  Ugh.  I feel like a failure. 

Stupid paying job taking up all my writing time... mutter, mutter, mutter... stupid wedding planning...grumble, grumble... darned computer game of Perfect World DOMINATION!!!!!!!!

Alright.  Fine.  It's my own fault.  Happy now?

So I was reading this wikipedia article on Mary Sues and, as happens every time I start thinking about Mary Sues, it got me thinking about Renee in POGA (Pathetic Obsessive Girls Anonymous for those of you who haven't read it--you're not missing much).  In case you didn't know: Renee is a major Mary Sue.  On purpose.  In fact, when I first started writing the story, I used my own name.  Sad, no?  But I was writing for my friends initially and had them worked into the story too.  I think it's most obvious in the first chapter where every third sentence is an inside joke or reference to some shared memory and doesn't make sense or hold any interest unless you were there.  In later chapters I continued to do that, but I also started posting on FP so the characters became more independent of my friends and myself as my audience widened and I took the story more seriously (as opposed to considering it one giant group nostalgia indulgence). 

And on another note about POGA: is it really not obvious why they're considered pathetic obsessives?  I mean, Renee and her friends specify things as being Asian every five seconds.  If that's not pathetically obsessed then I really don't know what is.  Sometimes I think that, despite all the rules of good writing, people still need to you tell them repeatedly because they're not getting it when you show them. 

It is not possible to write and plan a wedding at the same time. 

Obvious, I'm sure.  But since I've never had to plan a wedding before, I hope you can excuse my naivete. 

And my mom broke her foot. 

So, in summary: working full time + wedding planning + taking care of mother with broken foot = no time to write despite not actually having writer's block. 

Just thought you'd like to know that. 

Island Olivier is now on 292 favorites lists.  Nearly 300.  (That's more than POGA, btw, which I am strangely better known for--go figure.) I still, almost two years later, get reviews on this turkey about how sweet and wonderful and brilliantly funny it is.  Are my readers on crack?  Can they not see what a total waste of space this story is??  Sure, if I were them I might read it and enjoy the brief respite from reality it offers in it's short twelve chapters of utter silliness, but I hope that I would never add it to my favorites as an example of quality.  Especially when compared to Siren Call or In So Many Words.  Ugh.

Incidentally, I recently reread Island Olivier and was both disappointed and gratified to find that it was better than I remembered: ridiculous plot, odd pacing, and shoddy character development aside, the narrative is still pretty fun and engaging if you enjoy that kind of tongue in cheek self-awareness that mocks it's characters and tries to bring the reader in on the joke.  I half wish there were nothing redeemable about the story because then I could totally discard it with a clear conscience.

Dear FictionPress,

I'm sorry, but no amount of visitor traffic pages will make up for the sheer horror and cruelty of taking away my stats page and the ability to see how many favorites lists I'm on. 

You've taken away my crack.  And I'm coming for you.

Sincerely,
Woman Running Out of Patience

Have you ever sort of rediscovered one of your own stories?  I mean, found something you started writing, reread it and thought, "dang!  That wasn't half bad!"  I recently did that this weekend with a short story of mine that takes place in the same world as A Siren Call (only several hundred years earlier and on a different continent).  I remembered being extremely satisfied with the story when I was done, but I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed writing it until I started reading it again. 

It was exciting to go back and see all the details I'd worked into the story.  For instance, one of characters serves as a younger brother figure to the other characters and his name is a conscious variation on the Chinese term "di di" meaning little brother.  I'd also never realized how much I used color in the story as a form of symbolism rather than a literal descriptor.  It was kind of like, whoa, that was cool I did that without even meaning to. 

All in all, it reminded me that I had all these ideas for a set of vignette type sequels that eventually lead up to event that... well, I can't post that, it would give too much away.  But I got all excited and hunted down the few notes and paragraphs I had written for the first of these vignettes and, holy crap!  Why the heck did I ever abandon this story?  It was so exciting and action packed and surrealist fantasy.  How on earth did I ever get writer's block on it in the first place?  Why must the muse of writing be so fickle???

Am I the only person to experience writer's block on a story they actually like?

EDIT: I also found a lot of mention of eyes and vision in the story as symbols and, inspired by recent treasurehunt postings, ran a search for the word "orb(s)".  I am proud to say it was never, ever used to describe anyones eyes.  Woohoo!

So, it's NaNoWrimo and I'm NOT participating, which, at this point is probably a good thing because I am really behind on writing anything lately.  I like to blame the health issues that have legitimately been hindering me; but the truth is that I've also been feeling really lazy lately, so whatever to that.  Often times being in this non-writing mode becomes a time of influx of ideas for me, so I don't feel too bad about it (though I do occassionally find the ideas overwhelming).  Many of these are never fully pursued but they eat up brain energy for a while anyway, just because they're fun and they get me excited and because every now and then they yield a little nugget of awesomeness that later resurfaces in my mind after many months and turns into it's own unique story and moment of writing glory (okay, probably not glory, but in my mind it is). 

Anyway, here are some of the goofier ideas that have bouncing around the interior of my cranium that will NOT be written by me despite my daydreams of fame and fortune at their "inevitable" popularity.

( Read more... )

 Alright.  Now that I've got that out of my system, I think I'm done for today. 

So writing is a bit slow for me at the moment.  For the past week or so I've been recovering from carpal tunnel syndrome and subsequently limited in my typing.  And then, just as I was getting over that, I got an abrasion on my eye and had to lie down all day with eyedrops in my eyes.  Right. 

Anyway, just a brief status report on the high school romance experiment I mentioned starting a few months back: response was good on the first two chapters, which is about when I couldn't bring myself to write anymore of that crap and just stopped.  Really, truly, I simply couldn't do it.  The story was too trite and boring to drum up the energy to write it.  I suppose that's a good thing. 

I'm working on a new story--a kind of re-coming of age tale.  So far I've decided not to post it on FP; I think it's not right for the audience I've accumulated there and it's something I may try to publish one day.  Most things I want to publish I don't post on FP because it severely limits your publishing options, not to mention exponentially increasing the risk of having your work stolen.  You might wonder why I publish anything at all then; but the truth is that I don't generally see my writing as something to make money at and support myself with so much as an expression of art and emotion.  I like to say stuff and move people with my writing without having an editor coming through and changing my message (not saying that's always what happens, but I like not having to compromise when the story is important to me). 

( But anyway, back to this new story. )

In any event, I'm enjoying myself.  Even if the story is still lacking a title. 

So not that anyone cares but...

When I wrote In So Many Words, I knew, before I even put the first word to paper, that I didn't want to write it from Claire's perspective.  There was something about it that just seemed so wrong; not to mention the fact that I simply didn't feel like I had the right to pretend that I could even comprehend what it must be like to be in her situation.  At the same time, a large part of the point of the story was to expose the selfishness with which we approach romance in general: in our expectations, in the behavior we encourage in others, in the way we portray love in our media, in the way we view the object of our affections. 

I needed Claire to be the primary symbol of that selfishness because of two things: First, her time was limited and that was essentially like placing everything she experiences in a pressure cooker and forcing her and the reader to have an impending sense that if it's going to happen it has to happen NOW; Second, because the reader's instinct is to defend her due to her circumstances and the resulting empathy/sympathy forces the reader to see themselves in her selfishness.  At first, I tried to accomplish this by fighting my instinct and forcing myself to write a chapter in her first person POV.  My logic had been that, maybe , I was just being chicken and backing down from the challenge of writing her perspective and the details of what it felt like to be in her position (which would have required settling on the exact illness, researching that illness, etc.) because it was too much work.  But after I'd written a full chapter in this POV, I knew it wasn't working.   Only five minutes after finishing it, I rewrote the chapter almost word for word but from Grace's POV (which is when Grace really started to take on a life of her own).  At the same time, I'd had some success with Claire and found myself revisting the prologue and why it worked. 

The letter that comprised the prologue of the story was not so much Claire's POV as it was a tangible remnant of her perspective--basically something that would still be around after she died.  It's as if she were already passed on and these were the momentos and testimony to her life, which is far less presumptuous than pretending we can live it with her.  Instinctively, I returned to this tactic of notes and other tangibles for Claire, a decision I had confirmed for myself within a few more chapters. 

This was a perspective that I discovered worked much better for her as I realized in the course of her development that even Claire viewed herself as already dead--making her inhibitions pointless in her own mind.  The entirety of Claire's development and storyline is informed by this mentality, highlighting the sense that there are no consequences to her actions simply because the consequences will effect those who live on and not her. 

I particularly liked this as a visible representation of our human mentality that if it doesn't work out badly for us or we don't see the fallout, there must not be pain caused by what we do or that the pain doesn't matter.  Also, later, it shows that Claire has already detached herself from Grace and her family and nearly views them all with the attitude that they are in her way and deserve what pain they get from her as a result. 

Claire's dissolving friendship with Grace is the first indication that Claire is disassociating from other people (those who are not terminally ill) and focusing entirely on herself.  This is carried through into her relationship with Jae, though it is initially sugarcoated by their romance. Claire almost views Jae as a mark on her checklist, an object and possession, something to experience before she dies.  She relates to him with a total disregard for what and who he is because she has allowed herself to be so self-absorbed and regards him as a symbol of her goal instead of a person.  She only cares how he makes her feel and not how she makes him feel except as an impetus for him to continue to pursue her.  This pattern of selfish "love" is something I see, not only in 90% of romance writing/media (YA and adult alike), but also in many real-life relationships--the majority of which do not last and all of which result in seriously unsatisfying and miserable relationships. 

Claire's interactions with Jae illustrate how we sometimes use another person as a symbol of the relationship and the idea of being loved in a deeply satisfying way, but not actually investing into a relationship with that person apart from taking what they give.  This is primarily manifested in the moment that Claire admits to Jae that it is more important to her that he enact the scene at her passing which would fulfill her fantasy of living out a soap opera rather than to see him enjoy his life. 

It's about at this point in the story that I actually wanted readers to be disgusted by her.  And judging by the reviews, for the most part they were (a couple exceptions but those seemed defiantly determined to validate her selfishness because they said they would act the same way in her place).  A couple chapters later, Claire is given the opportunity to redeem herself; but like everything else in the story relaying Claire's POV, it is in the form of a momento left behind.  And  to drive home the fact that all these glimpses into her perspective have been souvenirs as though she were already gone, this one does not emerge until after she has actually died. 

And even though she has already died, the consequences that she had so thoroughly ignored in her pursuit of "happiness" and "love" are haunting her, as revealed through her final words from the grave.  Ultimately making, in an undeniable way, the story's main point that the happiness of being selfish is fleeting but the pain it causes lasts a lot longer (or more specific to the story: selfishness always results in regret that you cannot shake). 

Yeah...  I really overthink my writing...

So I've started another writing experiment on my other FP profile (and, no, you may not know the penname of that profile) and already it's making my eyes roll back into my head trying to lower my IQ enough just to write it.  What is the experiment this time, you ask?  Simple: I'm testing my theory that the popularity of a story on FP has nothing to do with writing quality and everything to do with feeding young female mind with the lies she wants to read.  In other words, I've started a romance into which I am working every single possible cliche I can think of while never proof-reading, deliberately mistyping words, consciously neglecting character development, ignoring detail and plot, and all around just throwing together a bunch of unbelievable crap that looks like everybody else's HS romance. 

Sad, no?  But I felt compelled to prove to myself that it isn't my writing that is failing (and, really, I'm being whiney when I say that any way because I've got some pretty loyal fans out there), it's that I don't have the right audience.  A previous experiment already gave me some evidence to this effect, but really that story had been more an experiment in summary content and the direct correlation between reviews given and reviews received.  (Btw, if you're curious: the number of mass reviews you receive is connected to your summary and content; the type of reviews you receive and who you receive them from is much more impacted by the reviews you give.)