Thank You to Fan Fiction

Thank you.

To you, the readers. To the professionals who create this great show, and to anyone who has stumbled across my blog and my work, even if you didn’t care for it.

Thank you anyway.

An Announcement

But now it’s time to scale back, big time.

Because I just cannot do this anymore.

This does not mean I stop posting! Oh, no. It’s more that a monthly blog post and even the twice weekly posts are just not going to happen anymore. Not unless things change rather drastically in my life. And I would rather they did not.

So, what does this mean, really?

The Future

Life has changed for me, big time. If you have been following my journey at all, then you will have seen how I grew from someone who could not wait to fling fan fiction goodness out to the ether, to someone with writer’s block. And a published author as well. And an avid NaNoWriMo participant as well.

I also got a job in there. In January, I will have been blogging here for six years. Holy cow! I think I’ve only worked at a job once for longer than that, no lie.

So I was bound to change. And here is how things are changing.

My Blogging Plans

It will take a lot – and I mean A LOT – for me to write any more fan fiction of any sort. It’s not that I don’t care for it. I love it! But I’ve grown beyond it.

However, there is still plenty to post at both Fanfiction.net and Wattpad. I will run out of new fanfiction to post at FF.net long before I run out on Wattpad. So I estimate I will finish on FF.net this year. As for Wattpad, maybe in 2019? I’m not sure.

Hence this blog will scale back to only once every quarter for these progress updates. I’ll have more to write about per post, which should presumably be of more interest. And I will be able to save some time.

Some musings on creativity

I have written well over a million words of fan fiction (I haven’t tallied up every single story but I will). That’s a lot of words. However, writers are often told that our first million or so words are garbage. I had written perhaps a total of 100,000 before I got to Star Trek fan fiction writing, so I like to think I hit my stride right about the time 2014 or 2015 started.

This is just about when Untrustworthy was accepted for publication, so I suppose that works. I also wrote Revved Up during this period, and I revisited the Obolonks and continued and finished their story. I even went to graduate school and created a Facebook author page.

As for fan fiction, that was about the time that I mainly worked on the Barnstorming series with a few short stories in the HG Wells universe but nothing else and that’s pretty much the way it’s been ever since.

Original Work

Untrustworthy isn’t really the gold standard, but it was published so there’s that. I truly think I have gotten better and I can really see the seams in that work now.  One thing that has proved fascinating is that folks from Europe seem to prefer it. Perhaps I should market it there more aggressively.

The Obolonks could use an overhaul. I know that trilogy drags in spots. The Enigman Cave has been professionally edited – and that was kind of costly – so I would like to get it out there, somewhere. I may end up self-publishing that one. A big thank you to Roberta, the best editor in the multiverse.

The Real Hub of the Universe is a good series but it needs an ending. And Mettle needs an ending, too. But those are both far better. If I shop another story to publishers, it will be either Mettle or I will try for the Hub series. We’ll see.

2018 Writing Plans

I fully intend to change the way I write and submit. To that end, these are my plans although work and life might derail them, and they probably will.

• Write like for NaNoWriMo every odd-numbered month, and keep a tally. These would be short stories and longer form pieces.
• Write like Ray Bradbury, which is – you just get out 2,000 words or so every single day no matter how you’re feeling. Fortunately, I have a jar of writing ideas and a ton of prompts. This would, again, only be during the odd-numbered months.
• Spend the even-numbered months doing all the ancillary stuff – editing, researching, querying, and promoting.
• Cultivate more beta readers and work closely with them. I have a few but what I would really love is a writing partner, someone who I can trade with regularly. But those can be a lot like a marriage. It’s not easy to find a writing soulmate, as it were.
• Get something else professionally edited, and that something is probably going to be Mettle if I can get it finished and beta read. If not, then I might get started on the Hub series. I’m not sure.
• Get together a great 2018 NaNoWriMo book. That might turn out to be the third Hub book.

Apple Carts Were Meant to Be Upset

Yeah, about all those plans? Who knows how well I’ll be able to do any of them.

Work is reportedly going to go a lot closer to full-time. I have been enjoying only working about 20 – 25 hours per week but that may have to change.

My other issue is family stuff, and to see what happens with my elderly parents and mother in law. Of course I am hoping for the best all around.

As for my own health, it’s better than it was a few years ago.

Possibilities

This is where I leave you – temporarily – with possibilities. My next post will be the progress report for this month, and then nothing until the end of March. Onward and sideways. Or as characters have said:

• “Let’s go steal from the nuns.” – Elise Jeffries, Mettle.
• “We communicate in stories. And so I want to tell you this one.” – Marnie Shapiro, The Enigman Cave.
• “Have courage, Ceilidh Aisling. Muster up those reserves from when you first left for America.” – Ceilidh O’Malley, The Real Heart of the Universe.

See you soon.