Writer’s … Unblock?

20, December, 2007 at 2:39 (Fan Fiction, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Stargate: SG-1, stories, writing)

Well, I finally have time to buckle down and do some serious writing! Posting… well, I can’t promise that.

 I’m pretty excited about the Prince Caspian trailer, too, and the upcoming movie. Besides my usual gripes that Caspian is too old, has an accent, Susan and Peter are still too old, and the dryads don’t look right at all – I love it! I think it’ll be a great movie, and I must applaud the way the River God looked in the trailer. And even I get carried away now and then, so I made a bit of a graphic for one of my favorite scenes in Prince Caspian – except, of course, in the book it’s at night.

Random Picture

Anyway, as far as writing is concerned, I’m still working on Walls Between, as well as two or three giftfics. I may do something for the December Teitho contest if inspiration strikes. But right now I’m quite absorbed in Narnia, though if I get bored I may finish my SG-1 Western.

 But other than that my fanfic life will be on hold while I enjoy Christmas, my family and friends, and RL as it should be.

 Merry Christmas!

 Val

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Fire!! Fire!!

30, November, 2007 at 10:47 (Fan Fiction, Narnia, flame, stories, writing)

Been flamed by me? Feelings a little roasted? Please bear with me and read the following:

 1) Definition of Flame:

to “flame” someone is to viciously insult them or their work in a manner that has little or no redeeming value. Note that “flame” is a general-usage netword, and is not appreciated anywhere…especially not in writing/creative groups.  - The Fanfiction Glossary. 

Given this definition, I do not flame. I sincerely hope that my reviews are never considered rude or of an insulting nature to an author. If I don’t know you, why should I insult you?

Well then, if I don’t flame, what do I do?

2) Harsh – but constructive! - Criticism

This would probably be as high as I go in my reviews.  I may complain about a fic and give several hints that I wish it had never been written; however, I have resigned myself to the fact that people will write trash, and on occasion I will read it – usually by mistake, though. And my personal policy, at least where Narnia is concerned, is to review everything I read. Bar none.

3) General Form of Review

I’ll probably start out by rolling up my figurative sleeves and grousing about how I hate to have to write long reviews to writers of poor fanfics. I may apologise in advance if I’m in especially nice mood. Then I’ll probably start picking it to pieces. Oh joy. I type slower just at the thought.

These are usually areas I will touch on: plot, grammar, spelling, content, characterisation, canon, Mary Sue/Gary Stu-ness of a character, unoriginality of the piece, poor flow of writing/events, and misunderstanding/misrepresentation of C.S. Lewis’s works/worldview.

I will do my best to point out specific examples and suggest how to fix them. On only a very few fics will I blatantly recommend instant removal from the site.

I will never personally insult an author. I will never use a swear word in any review. But if a fic is bad, I will let you know.

4) Understatement

I will use understatement in my review. A whole lot of it. So if somehow you can’t understand that, a sentence like ‘your grammar could use a bit of work’ probably means that it’s a wreck and you should re-take all your high/junior highschool English courses. (This only applies in flames/harsh reviews; in normal reviews, I don’t use understatement as much, since they’re usually shorter and easier to misinterpret). So if you think I was being nice…. read it again. I was probably being civil and polite, but I won’t be nice to bad fic. Understatement of the year.

5) Where’s the Constructive?

 I make a point to include at least one, if not several, constructive comments. If I don’t – my mistake. Please let me know. Politely.

6) Why I Do It

Because I’m a cynical, mean-spirited girl who enjoys inflicting pain on fellow authors. No, not really – as cheesy as it sounds, I do it because I care. About you personally? Perhaps. God grant me the grace to – but mostly I do it out of love for Narnia and respect for Lewis. I also do it out of the (mostly) vain, idealistic hope that somehow my comments might help reform a writer.

I can’t bear to see Narnia and its inhabitants mutilated and otherwise disgraced by bad writing and perverted imaginations. I also dislike seeing Lewis’s beautiful work ruined by people who couldn’t write their way out of preschool. I don’t like writers who have no respect for the author and the time and effort he put in to his works. I could go on.

7) Wanna Gripe? PM me.

Link’s on the side of the page under ‘my fanfiction’. Click on it, then click ’send message’. Gripe. Moan. Complain. No cussing, please. I’ll get back to you.

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Thanksgiving, Of Course!

26, November, 2007 at 4:34 (Fan Fiction, Lord of the Rings, Maximum Ride, Narnia, general, stories, thanksgiving, writing)

Well, it’s about that time of year again… and I really do have so much to be thankful for. My alter-ego Val does, too…

 I’ve got to say, first of all, that I’m thankful to God for giving me the ability to write. And also for the inspiration to write, whether it comes from other people’s stories, random events, songs, poetry, the sunset and stars, or just ideas that come from out of nowhere.

More specifically I’d have to thank Ted Dekker, for always making me excited about writing – his books are AMAZING, which of course you’ve heard from me already. A huge thank-you goes out to my friends at The Lion’s Call – Dearheart, Petraverd, Cherokee, Squeaklebeep, Gleeblecheep, Kristi, Deanalynn, etc., etc… and everyone, including the awesome writers elecktrum and Lickitysplit who drop in for Writer’s Group now and again.

And then I thank God that I have time to write – it’s not much, but it’s enough! I’m so glad that The Tempest got finished, and that I’m finally publishing The Uncanny and Such A Time As This. I’d also have to say thanks to WhiteWolf1 for nominating Double Blessing for a MC award – as well as for her friendship and her awesome story Trolls and her crazy plot bunny.

And I’m sooooo thankful for C.S. Lewis and the wonderful world of Narnia that we fanfic authors get to play around in. Thank you, thank you, thank you! It’s been a blast.

I’m thankful for God’s incredible gift of music, and for the inspiration I get from it – especially, of course, from Skillet. Comatoseis the world’s greatest album. Ever. At least four stories of mine would be nowhere without it. Thank you also to BarlowGirl, Switchfoot, Kutless, and Casting Crowns. Y’all are only slightly less amazing than Skillet.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who take time to review my stories – especially Andi Horton, elecktrum, floppyearsthebunny, kassandra not cassey, Jacky06, BubbleBlower, etc. You all rock! Thank you also to everyone who has honoured me by placing me and or my stories on your favorites list.

And finally, both me and the fanfic-writer part of me would like to thank God for chocolate, my cool laptop, strong wireless connections, beautiful leaves and brilliant stars, the amazing people that He’s placed on the earth, my awesome roommate, Stargate: SG-1, and the colour green.

THANK YOU, JESUS, for my salvation, above all else. Because I would have quit long ago if not for You.

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Cover Art!!

8, November, 2007 at 9:07 (Fan Fiction, Maximum Ride)

It’s a product of long nights and days full of studying and nothing else. Because a girl has a right to have some fun…. the photos I used either came from Deviant Art or Google Images. I’ll put up a full list of credits later. But in the meantime…. does this not look cool? It looks just like the cover of a real book – but then, I have to remind myself that it is novel length…

Tempest Cover Art

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Finally! Time to Write!

25, October, 2007 at 10:22 (England, Fan Fiction, Narnia, The Dark Is Rising, castles, stories, writing)

Pendennis CastleWell, I finally have some time to write! I did a thousand or so words in Walls Between the other day, but other than that I’ve been positively swamped.

I’m happy to report that I’m still extremely exited about my newest fic.

Here’s some little tantalising images of things to come – and this time, they’re not word pictures! Pendennis Castle

Pendennis Headland

Thanks to Google Images, and Google Earth, I’ve found the perfect location for chapter 2. It’s Falmouth, UK, a small town in Cornwall in possession of a fine castle (Pendennis Castle), headland, and railroad. It’s perfect! Now all I have to do is find out what was going on there in 1915 – a harder task than I’d initially thought it would be.

On another note, I was extremely disappointed to find that Kemare Head does not exist. Other than that, I would be hard pressed to keep myself from setting chapter 2 there!

Hopefully I’ll be able to write another chapter or so today, and maybe even work on Portraits of the Past! Believe it or not, I’m still working on that fic…but I want to get Lucy just perfect, so it’s taking a while.

Have a blessed week,

Val

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Tempest Notes, 10/19

22, October, 2007 at 1:50 (Fan Fiction, Maximum Ride, author's notes, stories, writing)

These are late – so probably if you were interested in reading them you already looked and discovered that they werent’ here. In which case you would simply assume I hadn’t had anything wonderful to say besides I FINISHED THE TEMPEST!!!

You’d be right. That is all I have to say. So what’s next for me and MR?

I do hope to sever the relationship as quickly as possible in protest of James Patterson’s upcoming fourth book in the series. It’s called, The Last Global Warming Warning. Need I say more? Let’s call a boycott, people. Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports was bad enough – come on, does JP want American youth raised devoid of morals and common sense? Probably – as long as they’re replaced with propaganda-believing malleable minds where everything is relative (because, after all, on a relative scale his book might actually be called ‘good’).

So all I have left for MR is finishing up one ‘deleted scene’ from The Tempest where I get rid of a singularly annoying character. Oh, and I’m thinking of doing a cover art piece for Tempest. That way when I publish it here in pdf format (without all those annoying author’s notes and other stuff I insert) it’ll look like a real book! That should be fun, provided I can find the right photos to meld together.

Then I will officially sever all ties with JP and his books. I do still like the first 2 in the series, but the rest are, to put it mildly, trash. So is a lot of MR fanfiction, come to think of it… anyway. Thus concludes my brilliant commentary on my literary work.

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Canon Defence

15, October, 2007 at 8:50 (Fan Fiction, Lord of the Rings, author's notes, stories, writing)

I am writing this in case any of you who read The Eagle and were dissatisfied with my interpretation of canon could come here and hear me defend my reasons for doing what I did.

 Firstly, I tried to stick more to Tennyson canon than Tolkien canon in this story. Secondly, the main idea was not to fill in a ‘missing scene’ but to try to convey a vivid picture that Tennyson’s poem continually puts in my mind. The realm of Middle-earth just helped to put that idea across.

 Ok – so, here is the research that I did before I wrote the story.

Gwaihir and the rescue of Frodo: “He was also part of the rescue of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, accompanied by his brother Landroval and his vassal Meneldor.” – TolkienWiki. It didn’t specify how, though. I know in the movie it’s three eagles and Gandalf coming together from the sky – but who’s to say they didn’t join up later, and that one of the other two eagles was carrying Gandalf?

Geography of Middle-earth: I did take a little liberty here. But, since I couldn’t get my hands on a topographical map of Mordor, I did the best I could. In this story, Gwaihir is probably on one of the peaks of the Ephel Duath. They do appear the tallest in The Land of Shadow’s map, but I’m not sure how far away they are. Given that Minas Tirith was about as far away from them as Oroduin, though, it was probably pretty far…. but then, eagles can see pretty far. And fly rather fast. But let’s say I took a little poetic license and moved the mountains closer to Mount Doom.  Or made their foothills a lot taller.

Well, that’s my defense of my story’s setting right here. But I will be the first to admit that I am not an expert on LOTR canon. If you see anything that needs fixing or anything that I could do better, canon-wise or writing-wise, please do let me know!

Hope you enjoyed the story,

Val

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The Walls Between

15, October, 2007 at 7:43 (Fan Fiction, Lord of the Rings, Maximum Ride, Narnia, stories, writing)

I have finally started on my new Narnia fic! And I have a title- and better still, a theme song!

The title is The Walls Between.The theme song, which will probably contain spoilers as to how the story will turn out, will not be revealed until an appropriate time. However, all the chapter titles will be phrases from the song, so it shouldn’t be hard to guess! Especially because anyone who’s visited my profile page knows my favorite band and this song is one of their hit singles.

Well, enough of dropping hints! I wrote Chapter One: Nothing Left today! It’s probably one of the most action/tragedy filled chapters, but I am so terribly excited about writing more! I have to do some research first, though. I heartily thank whoever thought of Google Earth, though – I may have found the perfect location for Chapter Two.

I’m still finishing up The Tempest – only 3 more chapters to write! I will definitely get it done before I post another chapter on FF.net. And then I may just post the first one of The Walls Between because I am SO exited about it. Wait, I have to finish Portraits of the Past first, and I’m posting The Eagle tomorrow, too…. I really need to learn to finish things!

Ah, well. I just needed some place to let EVERYONE know about this, even if no on reads this.

Blessings anyway,

Val

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Tempest Notes, 10/12

13, October, 2007 at 3:07 (Fan Fiction, Maximum Ride, author's notes, stories, writing)

I only have to write three more chapters before the Tempest is done! I must admit, though, that I’m excited for some of the wrong reasons. Therefore if the end is rather crappy it’s entirely my fault. I’m excited because… well, after…. hmmm, has it only been three months? Or was it four? – the hundred – forty-ish page long fic will be over. And guess what? As of now, it’s over 50,000 words long! Easily the longest thing I’ve ever written. I wonder what the average word length of a novel is – I’ve never even thought me writing a novel would be possible – and it probably isn’t. Oh well, it’s a novella at least.

The reason I’m most exited, though, is that it means I can start on my Narnia fic! I have so many great ideas about it – it’s all I can do to keep from typing the first chapter in right here! I haven’t been this excited about writing for  quite some time now, and it’s a wonderful feeling!

If you were hoping for some deep insight into this week’s Tempest installment…. well, sorry :) It seems like it was so long ago that I wrote it!

Oh, in this chapter you are introduced to the mysterious Miriam Avraham. Yay! She figures prominently in the sequel – which will not be written until 1) James Patterson reforms and deletes books 3 and 4 from the series or 2) reforms and stops trying to brainwash American youth into thinking gangs are cool, environmentalism is life, adults are evil, etc. He’s so deluded! and 3) I finish both Narnia epics.

 Well, that’s all I have right now!

Have a great weekend!

Val

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Tempest Notes, 9/30

30, September, 2007 at 10:42 (author's notes, stories, writing)

Almost forgot to put these up! Let’s see.. what do I have for you all this time? (I can’t even remember what I wrote…)

 Oh! The Great Plot Twist and Mysterious Child. Heh, heh.

The plot twist was planned, and as I explained earlier, it isn’t a cop-out. You’ll still get to know the Plan 1.0, though it won’t be quite as satisfying cuz you’ll know that that’s not the version in effect right now.

Mysterious Child. Well, let’s say my over-allegorical mind tends to stick in things like this at the last minute. This was one of those cases. I’m not sure where things are going with the child, but maybe I’ll find out if I ever write the sequel.

Let’s see…. then there’s Tanya being evil again… but you’ve got to feel for her, Jeb was pretty rotten in his treatment of her; she has a lot of cause to be bitter.

Then we go into the wondrous mirror cube, adapted from Susan Cooper’s mirror maze in Silver on the Tree. Only Will and Bran are so much cooler than Fang (runs from screaming fan girls).

I had a lot of fun writing that one – I don’t usually read horror, much less write it, but every author deserves a chance to be evil now and again :)

Sorry about the rather gruesome cliffie. Things’ll get worse.

Keep reading, though – and please do review – and I’ll keep the story coming!

Val

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