Survived

Guys, I think we've survived this grant app (knock on wood!) Everything is written, it's all been edited. My boss has it in a PDF format, and tomorrow she's going to formally submit it.

On Monday I will go back to my regular work responsibilities (I have some catching up to do in that department) and my regular social life.

I'm both relieved and a little sad, strangely. Working on a grant app teaches me a lot about myself, believe it or not... about my abilities, about how much I've grown in my company since I was hired as a brand new, painfully shy graduate. And... there is something nice about losing yourself in one focus for a few weeks. All the other stresses in life melt away because you just don't have time to deal with them right now. Now it will be back to real life and all the problems that come attached with that.

Weird, huh? But mostly I'm just glad that it's done. I think we did a great job. I'm hopefully we'll hear good news this fall.

Outlining

Okay, one last thing. I was having a rough time outlining my novel, since I'm used to being a "pantser" and making things up as I go rather than plotting things out ahead of time.

But outlining the fanfiction was easy. At first, I started by writing out the events in the film that I wanted to cover. Then I realized that I was parroting the actual film too much... fanfiction is supposed to bring something new, right? So I started expanding things... and I started seeing the beauty of the outline. It was much easier knowing what to add in where, because I could see how it would add up in the bigger picture.

For example... there's a scene where an uncle gets very angry at his nephew for many complicated reasons, but the one he vocalizes is that the kid is drawing when he's supposed to be doing something else. Cue a much earlier scene I added in that explains why his artwork is so very upsetting.

Seeing the whole picture helped me think through what elements and themes were needed to tie together into the great whole.

Tl:dr version.... Outlining my fanfiction is converting me to outlining in general, and giving me insight into how to outline my novel better. I think for some of it, I need to work backwards. Begin with the end game in mind, and think through what would need to happen in the beginning to raise the stakes.

Hayley often quotes the Fantasy Fiction Writing Formula, a how-to book she loves, that you have to write a million words before you can be a good writer. This fanfic may be silly, but it does count towards million words, and I'm already learning a lot from the process. And, getting into the healthy habit of writing every day without stressing about it too much. The amazing thing is, I'm reasonably happy with my work, even though it's certainly rough and unpolished.

Growth all around. :)

PS: I'm up to 5 readers now. Yep, it's literally just a handful, but man... does that have me jazzed!

Lessons from My Experiment

So.... I promised myself I would never speak of my dorky fanfiction experiment again...

Apparently that was a lie. Huh.

I posted it up on Fanfiction.net on Saturday. I kept working on it during the weekend and it ballooned up to 6 chapters, but nobody was reading it. That wasn't a surprise. Actually, that was part of the plan. It's scary to let internet strangers read your stuff.

Last week during my grant writing madness, I also finally signed up for a DeviantArt account. That website is more geared to... well.... art, but there is a fanfiction section... I didn't get the account with intent to post anything. Actually, I didn't even have a fanfiction when I got it. I wanted an easy way to save my favorite pictures (there is some gorgeous work on there!) and pinterest wasn't cutting it.

During the process, I liked a fanfiction in the same category that I ended up writing in. Apparently in DeviantArt etiquette, it's polite to thank someone who favorites your work, so the author popped onto to my wall to thank me. I thanked her for her awesome story and admitted I like her version way better than the real thing.

And then I got brave and posted just the first chapter of my fanfiction. DeviantArt is way harder to navigate than fanfiction.net. I've been reading fanfiction since 2004 (at least, that's when I made my account!) so I know that site pretty well, and it's easy to upload stuff. (Makes sense, since it's an all-text website.) DeviantArt... man, that was a tough one. I thought of asking some friends for help, but I was way too embarrassed to do that because then THEY'D SEE WHAT I'D WRITTEN. Hahaha.

Anyways, author girl popped back up on my wall to thank me again for my nice compliment.... and she saw what I'd posted! And she submitted it to a fan group for that particular topic! And she favorited it, and told me she liked it and hoped to see more.

Do you see the exclamation points building!!! Hahaha... I liked that feedback way more than I should. By the end of the day, I had 3 readers. I mean, on the one hand that's like, pssssh, hardly anyone. But I am so excited anyway!! Three people read my work (from 1 o'clock in the morning, nonetheless) and they liked it!!

One of those people is THE number one fan of this fandom. No really, it's true. It's not the biggest fandom in the world... She has more fanart and fanfiction than anybody else, she's met the writers behind the scripts and even did an internship with them, so she knows lots of plot details no one else knows (because when she was geeking out over this thing, she was right there with the creator to ask him whatever questions she had and get real answers.) Anyway, I've read her stuff a lot and really liked it.

And she favorited my dumb little fanfiction! And talked for a while, I think our comments went back and forth for 4-5 times.

I was so excited by all this silliness, I ended up getting inspired to write a new, better chapter 2 than what I had posted on fanfiction.net originally. Already it has two favorites (from two of the three who liked the first one) and number one fan girl is now following all my posts on DeviantArt.

It's not a big deal at all so why am I so excited?!? (Oh yeah! It's because I'm a DORK!) Apparently I needed to get my writing up on the internet before this, I guess.

All in all... I think this is a good experience that will help me with my own book. It's giving me a little more confidence in my abilities as a writer. And it's helping me take a step back and analyze some of my strengths as a writer.

There's a lot I need to do to improve, but you know what? I'm semi-decent at tugging people's heartstrings. I know how to pack an emotional punch. I know a bit about human relationships and how we all get so tangled up in how we relate to other people, it impacts everything we experience and feel and do.

That's what I'm doing with this fanfic. And that's part of what I want to do with my book.

Part of my problem is that my two greatest strengths (well, at least what I like to write the most) are polar opposites: family drama and ridiculous off the wall humor. It's hard to mix the two without getting serious mood whiplash in the narrative.

Oh well. I'll figure it out somehow. :)

Fuzz Helped Me Out With Work Today

I was petting her next to my laptop, and the next thing I knew, she was up on the keys.

Look, she's even smaller than the computer mouse! Love this little girl.

Fanfiction

Oh man, guys... This grant app is making me crazy or something. I'm smashing through all kinds of walls.

First, TVTropes, and now.... Fanfiction.

I've always been a casual fan of fanfiction. When there's a book or movie or TV show I'm particularly passionate about, sometimes I'll seek out fanfiction. It's hard to find good ones, but sometimes I'll find ones that expand the stories I love so much in new and exciting ways.

I've never tried writing fanfiction. On occasion I've let myself daydream about alternate plots to things, or what characters must have been thinking. But I've never tried fanfiction.

Until.... this morning, from 1 to 2 am, when I wrote a (fairly awful) first chapter of a fanfiction piece.... and POSTED IT ONLINE.

The craziest thing is that I've since added another chapter to it.

Probably no one will ever read it, which is probably for the best. I won't tell you what it is exactly, but it's a fanfiction of something that means it will probably quickly be buried in the archives of fanfiction.net.

It's a really rough thing that I just threw together (did I mention I wrote the first chapter... basically imagining the thoughts of a particular character and exploring his motivations throughout the main story. A lot of the real plot is rehashed. It's nothing to be proud of, but for some reason I am so proud of myself for writing it up and putting it out there.

I should be working on my novel outlining instead. But even though this is just a silly fanfiction piece... It's probably good for me to just be writing something! Exercise those creative muscles. Who knows, maybe it will help me with my book. It can be my warm-up lap to some real writing.

Nature Therapy

Today was a stressful day. The first draft of the grant app was due by the end of the day.

I made it! Whoo!

But man, was I wrung out by the end of the day. So I packed up a notebook and walked over to a park a little ways from my house... and just sat there writing for half an hour. Brainstorming novel ideas, working on my outline. It was wonderful, very peaceful with no distractions. So much easier to think in that kind of peace and quiet.

I need to do that more often.

TV Tropes

Good news! I'm achieving my goal of blogging more and sharing more of my real thoughts and feelings, rather than just generic airbrushed things sanitized for public consumption.

Bad news: I am hardcore revealing how much of a dork I am through my honesty. :)

So today's nerdy topic: TVTropes. One of my favorite websites. Basically, TVTropes is a catalog of tropes: that is, a catalog of storytelling devices encountered in film, literature, video games, etc., etc. For example, one of the tropes is called a "Disney Death." This is a scene, usually occurring at the end of a story, where it appears that a character has died. Other characters mourn, the reader/viewer gets upset... and then we learn that everything is okay and that character is alive after all! Disney movies are notorious for this--we see this in Snow White, Pinocchio, and Frozen, among many others.

That's an example of a plot trope. There are many, many kinds of tropes, examining things like characters, setting, and even dialogue, not just plot points.

TVTropes lists tropes in two ways--1) by trope (so you can go to the Disney Death page and see examples of this posted from all kinds of media), and 2) by story. So, for example, you can go to the Pinocchio page and see all the tropes in that film that TVTropers have identified and labeled.

Basically it is a nerdy writer's paradise.  I love analyzing the stories I read and watch and hear, and with TVTropes, I have trope names I can use to label the different deconstructed pieces of the story.

TVTropes is a wiki of sorts. About a year ago, I tentatively made an account and made less than a handful of contributions. Well, I don't know if it's the grant getting to me or what, but tonight I went CRAZY. I've probably added a good 20 trope examples all over the place on the site. It's really fun! We'll see if other people have to go back and clean up my work since I'm a newb, but I'm encouraged because my contributions from a year ago are still there, untouched and even expanded upon.

Finally, a healthy way to channel my overanalyzing of everything I read and watch! Look out, internet, I've got a lot to say about this stuff and apparently I'm not afraid to say it anymore.