Fiction

One of my resolutions this year is to do more fiction writing.

I have some friends who regularly write short stories and even publish novels online and ever since then I've been considering doing the same. Hopefully one of my stories will be published with a group of others next year too. I also hope to submit something to Rachel's Haven's own anthology series "A Little Bit of Girl Time" which is reaching its third volume soon. The first two are available now as e-books from Amazon along with the individual stories. I have meant to submit something before but time and other work has previously been an issue.

Amazon link for A Little Bit of Girl Time

When I was writing the first story I mentioned (apologies if I'm sounding a bit cagey about this, by the way) I found it a little hard to get back into the groove since I have been writing non-fiction things like blog posts, and reviews for various websites. It's funny that I never even considered all the captions (at least 200+ now) I wrote as fiction when of course they are. Not long enough to be short stories they are kind of micro-stories I guess and although they are on a similar theme, there are still many, many, many things you can do with it and I'm very proud of all the work I've done.

When I was younger I used to write fan fiction mainly. Now, most people think that fan fiction is just writing about various characters hooking up and to be honest that's what a lot of it is but I've read many wonderful stories by people wanting to write about adventures set in their favourite universes. I would recommend fan fiction to anyone as a good way to get into writing. Straight away you have a set-up and characters right in front of you. The hardest thing to do can be to stare at a blank sheet, or screen, in front of you without the foggiest about how to start. With fan fiction, you get to play in someone else's sandbox for a bit with their ready-made characters. You get to make up your own stories involving them, dialogue and bring in your own characters. There are various websites you can publish these on such as fanfiction.net. It's a good way of building confidence and once you have that then you can go on to cultivate your own ideas and characters.

Of course, this is not for everyone. I've spoken to people about this before and they've just not been able to do it. Indeed, it can feel odd writing in someone else's universe with familiar characters. It can make you feel a bit like a charlatan and not a proper writer. I know, I've felt all these things but yet I would still recommend it to writers starting out to sharpen up their confidence.

Many years ago I also had an idea for a series of books. Sadly, although I had the concept I didn't have any solid plot ideas so I've remained stuck ever since and I've further been soured on it by finding that a similar idea has already been used. However though it could still happen. I've always wanted to write a novel and in this this shiny new digital ago of e-books that is more of a possibility than it was 10 years ago.

Hopefully, this will be something good for me this year.

My Week #3

Ok, so again I've meant to post different things this week but I've not had time so I thought I would be lazy and do the jumbo update which will probably include a lot of stuff that you're not interested in.

Anyway, I got a Kindle recently which is something I never thought would happen. At first I thought it wouldn't be much use especially for me as I have so many actual books to read already. Over time it became more popular and I suddenly cottoned onto the fact that it's like the book version of an iPod and that really appealed to me. A couple of my friends have also released e books recently and I wanted to support them. My housemate was selling his, so I bought it and have been reading with it all week. I'm really enjoying it although that may just be the novelty. There are so many books on offer now and they seem cheaper and easier to get so I can really see myself using it more.The only trouble was when I tried to download my first book, the billing address on my credit card didn't match my new one. I haven't used Amazon since I moved house last year. So I ended up with a call from the bank which always puts the frights up me since I have been a fraud victim twice before. Still, it got sorted out although they called my old number at first so I had some explaining to do to my parents.

After that I ended up watching Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Now, everyone moans at these sequels but, although the first movie was better, I still really enjoyed this. I went to see The Amazing Spider-Man yesterday and can't say I was that impressed with it. I don't see why we had to have another reboot for a start and although Andrew Garfield is a good actor, his Peter Parker was very furtive and geeky, he's just too much of a pretty boy. Martin Sheen was good as Uncle Ben though but overall it didn't feel fun enough for a Marvel movie.