100

This is my hundredth post on this blog. I've been going for just about two years now, and a lot has changed.

I finished my first non-fiction book, Navigating the Ebook Jungle. That was last year, meaning it's dated and needs editing, because such is the nature of epublishing right now.

I finished my first novella, Intervention, with my friend Mason Kochanski.

I finished the second draft of my first novel, which is still under revision.

I became Managing Editor and then Editor in Chief of Island Writer magazine.

I helped found Theory Train Magazine, now with its third issue out.

I spoke as part of a panel on getting your book out there for the Victoria Writers' Society.

I started writing fan-fiction which I'm actually showing to the public.

I won the first season Anything Goes Writing League, earning the Faulkner Prism.

I finished Emergency Medical Responder training (still need to get my freaking license, but we're talking accomplishments here, so never mind that).

It's been a pretty good couple of years, all told, and it's only looking up. I have several writing projects in various stages of completion, and have discovered the many and varied joys of outlining first. The publishing industry appears to be stabilizing more in favor of epublishing (now watch as the next couple of months make me look back on the word 'stabilizing' in shame). I'm excited for what the future holds for the writing world.

Fandom, part three

Last week I talked about why I don't read Kristen Britain anymore. You should read it! It's another example of my carrying through with strong reactions to things most people don't care about. This week, other stances authors have about people writing fanfiction of their work and why I like them better for it.

Sherwood Smith's attitude towards it makes a lot of sense to me (bottom of the page): alternate universes only, because you as a fan don't have enough information to write in the universe completely accurately. That makes sense, and gives everyone boundaries they can stay comfortably within while still allowing a great deal of leeway to write fantastic odes to Sherwood Smith's work.

J.K. Rowling has a slightly different boundary: she loves fanfiction, but is disturbed by the porn and wishes people would stop. Given that she originally conceived Harry Potter as children's book, and a lot of the characters can remain under the age of consent even in the more explicit works, this makes sense to me, too.

Andrew Hussie is probably the most generous with his creation: he encourages people to play all they want as long as they're not profiting from it (it's how he makes his living), but he sometimes lets fanart be sold through the shop, fan art gets put in the calendars, and the latest soundtrack is going to be all fan contributions. He has also unilaterally declared that all fan things are canon to the story. Given the sheer range of stories, this was most likely at least partly sarcastic, but it was hilarious and inclusive and pretty much a gift to the fandom.

They have different comfort levels in terms of fanfiction, and slightly different boundaries, but they're all engaging their fandom about fanfiction. It works for them: people stay engaged between books/movies/updates. Of course, some fans are still going to be jerks and be impatient for new installments and express it inappropriately. But a fandom where people connect positively keeps interest up and keeps everyone happy, which is something to consider in terms of engaging readers long-term.

Fandom, part two

I don't read Kristen Britain anymore.

Not because I don't like her writing: Green Rider was excellent, First Rider's Call was a delight to discover a couple years later, and The High King's Tomb left me hungering for more in the series.

Because I wanted to know when I could get my hands on the next in the series, I checked out her website. All authors should have websites: especially ones that they update with the release dates of their next books. As I browsed around, looking for extras like Sherwood Smith has on her site (she has maps!), I found Kristen Britain's FAQ, and her response to fan-fiction.

It confused me, at first. Fanfiction does not affect your copyright as the author, since, uh, you created it first, and everything is automatically yours. Most fanwriters will prominently label their works with at least the name of the original work, if not your name, because they want other fans to be able to find it. They label them as fanfiction. Of course, anyone trying to sell fanfiction is doing something illegal and violating your IP and should be reported, but non-commercial fanfiction is generally treated as falling into slim grey fringes of Fair Use.

But that's the legal stuff, and has very little bearing on my decision.

Fanfiction is, at its core, a love letter to the original work. People write it because they can't get enough of the world, they want more, they want to explore an aspect of it that won't be further explored in the text (like someone's ambition to become a pirate which is derailed by plot). Saying that it's all unwelcome seems very much a denial of your fans' emotional investment in your work. Obviously they will never be as connected as you are as the creator, but does that mean no one else is allowed to fall in love with it?

I thought that was king of the point of writing. Kristen Britain's answer to the question of fanfiction struck me as very much a refutation of the validity of fans loving her work. Anne Rice behaved very similarly and was higher-profile, but I stopped reading her for other reasons, so this is prompted by Kristen Britain's stance. From what I've read, we're supposed to buy her stuff, read it, and care about it only as much as necessary for us to buy the next one and not one iota more.

Half Price Chocolate Day

Today is one of two iterations of my favourite holiday of the year: Half Price Chocolate Day. The other is November first. Apparently there are other holidays preceding these two days, for which people pay full price for chocolate. I do not understand this logic, and will comfort myself for my lack of understanding with offensive quantities of chocolate for which I paid very little money.

Oh, right, I also have a guest post up on my friend Patrick Thunstrom's blog. It's about linguistics and word choice again, since that's one of my favourite topics. If you like that sort of rambling, you should also check out Speaking Human, the irregularly-updating sociology, linguistics and signalling blog I contribute to.

Tumblr is something I've been getting more involved in recently, though my initial impressions of it still stand: it's much more functional as a tool for connecting and getting involved in a community than it is as a tool for sending forth material into the world. Blogger's archives are significantly more easily navigable unless you are tracking a specific tag on a specific tumblr. Once you're caught up, though, I find Tumblr's dashboard much nicer than Blogger's Reading List. This could be simply because the only time I look at the Reading List is when I'm on Blogger's back end, instead of on Google Reader.

They are definitely different modes of communication. If you're thinking about starting your own, or an additional, blog, I'd recommend examining your goals and your style as well as all the options out there.