Taven Moore's Blog, page 27

[Perry] Emergency Broadcast

I don’t believe our esteemed Authoress will be able to put up a post today, so I’m totally using this opportunity to hoist the colors and mount a raid.

This shan’t be a long post.

I just want to share a link to a beautiful, beautiful something, and then leave you all with a tidbit of information that I hope will make you feel as old as it made me feel.

Firstly?

Look at this beautiful thing. 

Gods, isn’t it gorgeous?

I don’t really get behind using it as an iPad cover or anything…but apparently, the person who makes these can custom make it for Kindles and various ereaders as well.

Whenever I next happen to upgrade my Kindle, I am definitely, definitely doing to be looking into this cover.

Because? Then truly, the story WILL BE Neverending.

Secondly?

Gods, secondly…

There was a Disney movie a while back involving a bunch of lions, a nod to Hamlet, and some of the catchiest Disney songs ever written.

Oh yeah, The Lion King.

You guys know that movie?

That movie turns TWENTY years old today.

…TWENTY!

Think about that for a while.

Then? If you’d like to join me? I’ll be in a corner, eating chocolate ice cream out of a tub as I try to make myself feel better.

Related posts:

[Perry] Lament of The Wolverine
[Perry] Evil Dead: The Musical
[Perry] Pacific Rim

[Perry] Why You Should Read Bad Books

I’ve recently finished listening to an audiobook by Stephen King called “On Writing.”

This is not one of his hair-raising tales, but…well, it’s hard to describe.

It actually reads as almost two separate books.

The first half of the book details his childhood, the things he found himself interested in as he grew up, and the influences that eventually turned him onto the craft of writing.

Stephen King details his first forays into fiction, the first dollar he ever made off writing (an original four page story that his mother bought), to his first really huge success (Carrie) and the things that happened after that.

The second half details a few of the stronger lessons that he feels every writer should know, and he lays them out in a language that’s easy to understand, with arguments that are hard to ignore.

A big chunk of the advice are things that I was first introduced to by Tami, actually. The biggest offender (and the longest section) actually deals with the hated passive voice, how King hates it, and how it can be fixed.

But there are some gems in there that our dear Authoress hasn’t really covered in depth quite yet (as far as I’m aware… >.>), so I’m taking the liberty of sharing some of the advice imparted by the book.

Largely speaking, this type of advice really applies to the craft of writing, but I would assume that there’s at least a little bit of a cross into other hobbies and disciplines as well.

Read bad books.

This will help you more when you’re just starting. Once you really sort of hit your stride, this advice falls to the wayside, but I hadn’t really thought about it before.

Bad books have just as much to teach you as good books.

Actually, scratch that.

I think that bad books teach you MORE.

This is closely related to some advice I shared a while back from a guy named Ira Glass. Essentially, it comes down to a matter of taste.

If you’re a writer (and even if you’re just a reader), you have a taste for books, and that taste is killer.

You KNOW what you like, and you know what you hate.

But here’s the interesting thing.

Until you attain a certain…proficiency with writing, this will hold true.

When you finish a GREAT book, if someone were to ask you “what made you like that book so much?”, generally speaking, there isn’t much in the way of specifics.

You’ll talk about how the characters were good and well-developed. You’ll talk about how the plot was well-paced and had a certain rhythm to it. You’ll talk about how it worked to scare you, or how it made you laugh…

But if I press you?

WHAT made the story scary?

HOW were the characters well-developed?

WHAT about the plot elements made it well-paced?

Well…it’s a little hard to say exactly WHY you enjoyed those elements quite so much, only that you did.

Let’s take the opposite case, though.

Let’s say you finish a book that left a bad taste in your mouth.

If someone were you ask you, “Why didn’t you enjoy this book?” or “Why couldn’t you finish this book?”, I’ll bet that you’ll know EXACTLY why.

Your answers may include things like:

“I found the dialogue too stiff and formal. Nobody talks like that in real life. It made the characters very flat and unbelievable.”

“The plot was too jumpy. It’s great that the author is trying to show us all these different perspectives, but he jumped from character to character too fast, I didn’t get the chance to really care about anyone before they died.”

“Well, I thought it was alright until I got to the ending. And then the author just pulls a deus ex machina and has a godlike power swoop in at the last second to make everything alright? Fuck that.”

It’s a matter of taste.

In the video about writing up above, Ira Glass says that it’s all about taste.

When you fall in love with a hobby, whether it’s watching TV shows, or reading or writing or listening to music…your taste is killer.

You KNOW what you like, and you KNOW what you don’t like.

Glass says that the problem is when you start trying to emulate or create (you start by loving reading, then you try writing. Or you start by listening to music, then trying to create the music you love), your skill isn’t on par with your taste.

When you encounter something that’s GOOD, it’s usually because it was created at a skill level that you can’t attain (at the beginning at least).

You KNOW it’s good, because your taste in books is good, but you don’t know exactly WHY it’s good because your skill level isn’t quite there yet.

On the contrary, when you encounter something that’s BAD, it’s usually because it was created at a skill level that you’ve attained and surpassed.

Or, at least, you FEEL you’ve passed it. And because you are more than a match for that level of skill, most times, you can identify exactly what’s wrong with it or the specific elements that made you dislike it.

Your mileage may vary.

Once you reach a certain level of proficiency with the craft of writing, you can reliably identify exactly WHAT about a book you liked, made you enjoy it.

You can talk about the realistic development of a character that made them feel genuine.

You can talk about the subtle nods throughout the plot that led to the climax that you registered subconsciously and had you combing back through the book once you’d finished to see how it all holds together under a second reading.

You can talk about the realistic dialogue and how the book made you feel you were eavesdropping on a conversation between two characters instead of reading words off a page.

In closing.

The books that you hate, or that you think are abominations tend to stand out in your mind.

You remember the foul taste of it long after you’re done with the book and a bad experience can easily cause you to shy away from an author for years to come.

I don’t think I’ll ever be reading another book by Peter Hamilton after my tragic experience with his deus ex machina nonsense.

The books that you hate…you remember exactly why you hate them. And when you turn your talents toward creation and writing, you clearly avoid making those same mistakes because it rubbed you in SUCH the wrong way.

Reading bad books impart powerful lessons, ones that will last for a damned long time.

So read an awful book now and again! Or, at least, read just long enough to know EXACTLY why you hate it before stopping, so that you can train your skill according to your taste.

Once you’ve attained a certain level of skill with writing, you can reliably STOP reading bad books…but even then. I think reading a horrible book once in a while can help keep the reminder fresh in your head…

And that reminder is?

YOU CAN DO BETTER.

…Now go out there and do it =)

Related posts:

[Perry] “Read This”
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[Perry] Separating the Author from the Book

Delicate topic today.

This is something I’ve been mulling over in my mind a fair bit lately.

It started back when I first started seeing trailers for the Ender’s Game movie (don’t waste your money).

I’d read the books a long time ago and I loved them. I even loved the further sequels that nobody else seemed to give two shakes for. I thought they were powerful, thought-provoking books and I would easily put the first book right up there with Starship Troopers by Heinlein and The Forever War by Joe Haldeman as ESSENTIAL military sci-fi novels.

These are all books that explored more than the war itself, but what it means to be a soldier and they had some damned powerful statements to make that left you thinking.

Then, the movie was announced.

The trailers were shown.

Then a huge hubbub erupted about the fact that Orson Scott Card was a blatant, homophobic racist.

I never knew about this side of the man. To be honest, I don’t really know much about most of the authors that I follow avidly.

To me, their personal lives didn’t matter. Their political and humanitarian views or activities didn’t matter. Whether they were a saint or a bigot…I never thought it mattered.

To a large extent? Honestly? I still don’t.

It’s much the same way I don’t really care much about the personal lives of celebrities. I just…it doesn’t really concern me, who they marry or if they had an affair. It never seemed to matter to me whether they were a good person or a bad person because I had no real vested interest in what kind of person they were.

I wasn’t their friend. My chances of anything but a very fleeting chance encounter with a celebrity was slim to none, so what did I care if they were awesome or horrible?

I did some long thinking when I found out Orson Scott Card’s views on the world.

Did it matter to me what the man thought?

In a general sense, yeah, I mean…the world would be a much nicer place if people would stop being such dicks, you know?

But in practical sense…no.

It didn’t matter to me.

I just didn’t care.

I don’t particularly think that makes me a bad person, though I’m sure there are people who would happily argue that point with me.

Long-winded and rambling, but my point is that when I’m consuming, music, movie, art, or novel, I tend to divorce the creator from the creation.

Let’s take a more concrete example.

Let’s look at Jim Butcher or Patrick Rothfuss. Two authors that are sort of giants in my eyes, authors of ongoing series that I can’t wait to read more of.

Let’s pretend that tomorrow, one or both of them were outed as these massive douchebags. Racist, homophobic bigots, the whole nine yards.

…But they continued writing.

Would I stop reading about Kvothe and Dresden because of this newfound fact?

No, definitely not.

Would I start pirating the books instead?

…Maybe, maybe not.

It’s a complicated issue and I don’t have one clear opinion on what I think is “right” in this situation.

I’ve read through Ender’s Game, numerous times now. I never…really got a homophobic or racist feel from it. So maybe it’s there and I’m just not well-versed in reading between the lines, or maybe the story is just a story and has nothing to do with furthering his personal political agenda.

Now that I’ve found out about his viewpoints, should I burn any copies of his book that I can find? Boycott the rest of his work when I very clearly enjoyed his previous efforts and thought them powerful and good teaching tools?

I don’t think there’s really a right answer.

I don’t think everyone will have the same answer.

My answer…is that I tend to find it easy to divorce someone from the work they do.

Sometimes, a story is just a story to me. A movie is just a movie, and I don’t need to know that everyone involved in the creation of said work was a saint in order to enjoy it.

By the same token, knowledge that someone involved WAS a douchebag doesn’t STOP me from enjoying it either.

This was a big rambling, but in light of events, I’m curious to know what you guys think of the whole issue.

CAN a writer and his work be separated? Or are they inextricably bound together?

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Hug An Author Month!
[Perry] Judging a Book by its Cover
[Perry] One Last Book

Harry Potter 4 Discussion

Book 4! The first book that I had to scramble to finish before the end of the month, because I’d forgotten how big it was. Also the first book that I haven’t seen the corresponding movie for, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on the differences (if you’ve seen both)

This book was LONG.

And once again, Hermione spends some time in the infirmary, though blissfully not a giant chunk of the book. Though her using-magic-to-fix-her-teeth trick seems to bring up another quibble about the magic system. Why would anyone be ugly in a magical world?

I recall multiple instances throughout the books where people try to fix the spots on their faces. Teeth growth/shrinkage is fixable, but acne still hasn’t been handled?

Anyway, I still loved this book. I remember it being my favorite the first time through, and for all the same reasons, I enjoyed SO much of it. Every challenge he faced as part of the Triwizard Tournament was exceptionally well done and exciting. The culmination in the fight with Voldemort? Edge of my seat reading, even knowing how it went.

My quibbles in this book included the fact that it had not one but THREE info-dumps at the end. (for the non-writers in the group, that’s when you explain something using giant chunks of text) You had Voldemort monologuing first, followed by Mad-Eye, and then Dumbledore.

Worst? You needed every single one of those to fully understand what had already happened in the book. Even knowing it was Mad-Eye from a previous reading, I still had no clues as I read the book that he was anyone other than who he seemed, or that Winky was helping an invisible person around. Especially with the Bagman interferences.

There were a LOT of storylines in this one, and I loved that George and Fred Weasley got a lot of airtime, but their quest to get their joke shop up and running didn’t quite mesh with the rest of the story and felt tacked on.

This book definitely brought in more serious stuff, though. Anyone remember Perry commenting on how horrifying the Polyjuice potion would be in real life? Looks like Rowling realized that as well, and used it very effectively here. We knew not only about Polyjuice but also invisibility cloaks and animagus before this book even began, and still had no clue what was going on. And each was used to show the darker side of their application in magic, which I appreciated.

I did not like the Rita Skeeter or the SPEW sub-plots. Skeeter is another paper-thin villain who exists simply to be vile. SPEW was an excellent thing to point out — the unfair treatment of the house elves? But it went on for so long and never actually had any payoff or purpose. I’d have liked it better, for example, if Hermione started listening to the elves and simply protested their treatment, thus helping Winky and somehow unveiling some of those plot points that were otherwise just heaved on us during the info dumps.

Snape, on the other hand? Really got to show something other than being a terrible human being, and I enjoyed his scenes quite a lot. Especially the bit at the end where he revealed his Death Eater mark.

Also, many people point to the death of Diggory as the “turning point” in the series, the indicator that it was going to be more young adult and less middle grade.

While that’s true, and the entire scene (including the repeated use of the cruciatus curse) was dark and appropriately horrific?

Nothing beats the awful, terrible sensation I felt when I read that Neville’s parents are not only alive, he visits them regularly and they don’t recognize him. The author put in a line about how Harry thought that all the orphan sympathy should go to Neville, and then the matter was dropped.

I just. I know that kids probably wouldn’t carry that forward, but to just idly toss it into the book without fully utilizing it really hit me. THAT was the worst, most adult-oriented thing I saw in the book, because I don’t remember even noticing it when I read the books the previous time.

A Brief Note on Ronald Weasley

I came across this link and I honestly think it is TOP notch. Far more deserving of reading than my yammering.

I will say that my understanding of just how important Ron is to Harry was cemented in this book. Ron is more than just Harry’s best friend. Ron is Harry’s rock, his anchor in the wizarding world. For all that Harry is the hero and “popular” at school, he doesn’t actually have many friends. He doesn’t put himself out there the way a normal kid might.

He picked the same classes as Ron in a previous book and that bothered me, but now I see that Harry wouldn’t even want to be in a class he didn’t share with Ron. Nothing mattered to him, so long as he was with his friend.

That’s a pretty powerful thing and I thought their disagreement in this book did a lot to cement that. (It’d be nice if one of the plotlines of future books didn’t always have to be “two thirds of the group have an argument and stop talking to each other until someone apologizes”, though it’s not a bad lesson to have in a book aimed at kids. Disagreements happen, even with totally wonderful people, and apologies are important.)

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for today. What are YOUR thoughts?

Related posts:

Harry Potter 1 Discussion
Harry Potter 2 Discussion
Harry Potter 3 Discussion

[Perry] Deus Ex Machina

…and the Dire Earth trilogy by Jason M. Hough.

Please, for the love of all of the fluffiest of kittens and puppies in the world: Just. STOP. (Warning, the following post may contain more than a little rambling due to ANGER!)

For those not in the know, deus ex machina refers to a literary device where, at the end, all of the problems of the plot is resolved by having god or a godlike figure descend from the heavens and make everything alright.

One of the most heinous examples of such things can be found in Peter Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy.

It’s cheap.

It’s tawdry.

Just. Fucking. STOP.

In Hough’s Dire Earth trilogy, the world has been consumed by a disease that turns the affected humans into mindless animals that are driven by their base, primal urges (fight/flee/procreate).

The only save haven is the town of Darwin, where the mysterious Builders (aliens) have inexplicably left behind a space elevator of sorts which gives off a sort of ‘immunity aura’.

The story follows a number of people as they deal with the revelation that the Builders will likely return and what that may mean for humanity, given that the characters have no idea what the Builder’s motivations were in the first place.

So the mystery builds, and the action intensifies, chapter by chapter, book by book.

See, I was feeling a little nervous when I hit the 50% point of the final book and they still hadn’t gotten to the climax of the series yet.

I was SCARED when I hit 80% and the final act seemed to just be starting.

I knew what was going to happen when I hit 95% of the book and STILL NO END IN SIGHT.

Sure enough, around 97% of the way through the book, the mysterious aliens swoop down, cure the plague, gift mankind with technologies to make up for experimenting on them and whisk away a few of the main characters for a mysterious purpose…which is all explained in the scant 5-10 pages of the epilogue.

How the hell do you wrap up a super complex plot and mystery in just a throwaway epilogue?

That is NOT good closure.

I felt completely dissatisfied at the end of it and would have thrown the book into the damned trash if it wasn’t on my Kindle.

Hells, I might have set the fuckers on FIRE.

Deus ex machina is a cheap and tawdry story-telling device. Even using it in an ironic and self-aware sort of manner tends to leave a bad taste in the mouth. It makes me feel like reading the novel (or novels) was a complete waste of my time and that is NOT how you want a reader to be feeling when they put down your book.

It’s bad enough when it’s in a one-shot novel, but when it’s in a lengthy trilogy? Full of mystery and suspense and action and it ends like THAT?

SET THEM ON FIRE.

Such a STUPID way to end a complex story.

Don’t subject readers to this tripe because you’re too lazy to figure out a believable path to the ending.

Getting to the end of a complex plot and having the author just “okay, and then god waved his hands and all was right with the world again,” is tantamount to admitting that you have no fucking clue where your plot is going and that you’ve given up.

/rantover

Please tell me that I’m not the only one that’s suffered through this. Have any of you run into deus ex machina endings that made you want to set the book on fire?

…I could use a support group.

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[Anne] I Distinctly Remember The First Time I Saw Sesame Street

Tami says: This post comes to you courtesy long-time commenter Anne, Mother of Three. WELCOME TO THE PARTY!

The American Dream.

I can tell you the day I started dreaming the American Dream.

I was in my grandparent’s front room, where they had a color console TV. On this amazing television, this amazing show, with bright colors, fun music and wacky characters came on and I was immediately hooked. It was unlike anything I had seen before, and I was sure this was an accurate representation of how amazing America was.

We had a television at home, but it was small, only showed programs in black and white, and all of the shows were dubbed over. At least all the shows my brother and I watched. I am sure that there was programming that was not dubbed over. Therefore, to view a large, console TV in color was astounding in and of itself.

There I sat, in sunny southern Florida, on a floor with wall-to-wall carpeting, and I watched psychedelic numbers flash on the screen as the counting was sung out in a crazy tune. I watched fuzzy monsters discover something new as they uttered yip yip yip yip and uh huh uh huh uh huh. It was marvelous. And I loved it. And my American Dream began.

As I grew older, moved stateside and learned all things American, I began to think of my future. For many, many years, I desperately wanted to be a writer for Sesame Street.

However, writing did not seem to be my strength and I had no idea how to pursue that dream, so I followed my strong suit. Then I followed other dreams, other responsibilities, and other strengths. But I still kept a few of my dreams.

I recently shared one of those dreams with my family. For a long time they have known that I wanted to write for Sesame Street, the Simpsons, or be the person who names the colors for cosmetics. However, I did not ever tell them this dream.

This, in retrospect, makes sense, as they all laughed heartily at this dream and said that I had no chance, ever, of fulfilling that dream.

I gave up the dream of being a lawyer the day I found out I shared a birthday with Richard Nixon, so don’t think that was my most preposterous dream.

I will share it, but first I have to hear of few of your dreams that you have not given up on yet.

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[Steven] Videorama – Perspective Game

Tamis note : Stick with this one through the first few puzzles that are solved. I haven’t said “wow” in such quick succession in a VERY long time.

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Housebreak Hotel

Alternately titled: I Will Never Own a Beagle

Job history is an interesting thing. When you’re building out your resume (which I am not, coworkers, please do not panic) you’re supposed to go through all your old employers and write down all the things you did and learned and use keywords and buzzwords and active words and all that jazz.

I am a programmer and UI designer. I currently code in the latest Microsoft MVC and I love everything from documenting features to chasing bugs with well-placed breakpoints.

My first job was as a groom at a horse ranch. Job 2? Lawn & Garden Cashier at Walmart (and oh boy, that needs to be its own post as well).

Job 3? Housebreak Hotel.

At the time of my education there, Texas A&M University was involved in the Missyplicity Project — an attempt to clone a dog (…and with spare bits and bobs, a cat).

By the time I left, they had failed in the mission to clone the dog. (they did accidentally clone the cat, though. Whups. Her name was CC for Carbon Copy and she looked nothing like her calico “donor”).

Anyrate, the project was a stickler for following humane care and treatment laws. Part of the charter said that no dog would be in the project for more than … I don’t remember. X number of weeks.

After that time, these lab dogs (bred to be lab dogs, lived in kennels except when they were exercised during their stay at the A&M labs — never saw grass before then, but they were treated as well as dogs in very nice shelters from what I could tell.) were sent to Housebreak Hotel, where we taught them that pooping was for outside and this is what carpet feels like and please don’t panic about the tv, and by the way, here’s how to train a human to give you a treat when you sit down.

After we taught them how to be pets instead of lab dogs, they’d be adopted out to homes. (Idly, this is where Steven and I got our first cat. Buttercup, the orange tabby that all the other lab cats picked on, needed a new home pronto so that she could have more space to herself.)

By the time I got there, most of them were beagles.

I’m going to gloss over the negatives (although everyone loves a good jab, the problems were primarily associated with one person and not the project itself, and no I am not going to debate the ethics of cloning or lab animals today, though you’re free to set up a soapbox in the comments if it pleases you) because that’s not the point.

The point was that I learned that it takes a very (VERY) long time for a dog sprayed directly by a skunk to stop stinking. Tomato juice is a myth.

I learned that even short-haired beagles will stand quietly to be groomed once they figure out what you’re up to, and sometimes they’ll even line themselves up at your feet and stare at you with dewy eyes as they wait their turn.

I learned that a group of beagles is called a deafening (it’s not, but it damn well should be) and that there is something magical about the voices of a dozen confused-yet-enthusiastic yodeling ankle-high hound dogs. You just don’t get that crystal-shattering vibration with a small handful of them. Put enough of them together and they achieve a noise I have never again heard, nor am I entirely sure I want to.

I learned that some dogs prefer carrots to dog treats.

I learned how to marinate and dehydrate a beef heart to make dog treats.

I learned that although they are short and stubby and it makes no sense whatsoever, beagles are clearly hiding springs in their bottoms.

I learned to push a dehydrator to the back of the counter when making beef heart dog treats, unless I wanted all those treats to be eaten by one enterprising tigger.

I learned the basics of clicker training, and positive reinforcement.

… and then my next job was as an ASP developer. And the job after that was also programming. And so on and so forth.

Part of me, though? Can’t help but add in just a little bit at the bottom of my resume about my time at Housebreak Hotel. It’s not relevant, but at the same time? It will always be relevant.

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[Perry] The Delicate Art of Fanfiction

Fanfiction is hard.

I’m well aware of the prevalent opinion out there, in the wilds of the internets about fanfiction. That it’s generally a breeding ground for bad writers with even worse ideas to congregate and basically shit on beloved characters and worlds.

I…can’t really deny this claim. By and large, it’s easy to just piggy-back off of someone’s else’s meticulous back stories and world building when you’re starting out.

If you think about it, when thinking about people who draw or paint as a hobby, how do they tend to start out?

Generally, they start by drawing characters or models that are familiar to them. They work off of a template, and as they get better, they start branching out and creating wholly original works of art.

I think fanfiction is much the same way.

For many, it’s a way of lengthening the story. It’s for people who have grown to love certain characters or worlds and can’t bear to part with them once the story’s done. They continue it on, maybe with technical skill and merit, but with a lot of heart.

For others, it’s a way of putting characters into situations they never would have gotten into originally. Sometimes, this turns out pretty horrifically. There was a piece of Harry Potter fan fiction I’d heard of once about a lonely giant octopus in the lake around Hogwarts that starts getting…amorous, with the castle.

With the castle.

No, I won’t provide a link to it. If you want to be scarred for life, I’m sure you can find it yourself. I doubt you’ll be deluged with links if you search for that in Google…and if you ARE? I do NOT want to know about it.

But generally speaking…it’s for people that have trouble letting go of beloved characters.

Something I’ve learned from my own forays into the genre (still waiting for more Choose), is that it’s hard.

I actually found it harder than writing my own original stories.

When you really care about a character, there’s a fear that comes to you while you’re writing. Fear that you’ll make them do or say something they never really would. Fear that you’ll break them somehow, as if they aren’t made of words and imagination.

If you know the author? There’s also a healthy fear that they’ll denounce you for scribbling all over their masterpiece and that you’ll no longer be friends once she reads the finished product.

There’s hard work involved, if you want to try and capture an authentic sort of feel of the original. There’s a lot of sifting through the source material with a fine-toothed comb, trying to find little phrases or references to things that you can include to increase the sense of being true to form.

There’s the whole problem of trying to capture someone’s manner of speech from someone else’s writing style. It’s a transcription problem, you know? It’s like trying to draw an accurate picture of someone’s face from the story they told about him from the image they had of the character in their mind.

There are many removed layers and all you can do is close your eyes, smash your fingers across the keyboard and hope that it kind of somehow comes at least a little close.

On top of all of that? You don’t want to be a slave to the original format. You want to try and bring something new to the table. You want your work to have a reason for existing, to provide an alternate view of things. You want to try and show the audience something that they couldn’t have gotten from the original material.

There are a lot of things to take into consideration…and it’s definitely difficult at times. There’s a lot more second-guessing as you write than would likely happen when you’re writing something original.

But at the end of the day…if it works, it feels good. Like you’ve captured a rare species of butterfly or something.

You don’t get those feelings for long. The doubts and concerns and the surety that people will hate it comes in waves…but you do what you can, if you feel strongly enough about something.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that writing fanfiction is a lot damned harder than I thought. I have a better opinion of those who turn their hands to it than I did before, now that I’ve seriously tried it myself, and I just wanted to share that realization with you all.

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[Perry] Choose Fanfiction – Beginnings
When Momentum Isn’t a Problem
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[Steven] Videorama – Music Series Part 5 – Nier Soundtrack

(Tami’s Editor Note : I ALWAYS write to this music)

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[Steven] Videorama – Music Series Part 2 – Mr. Curly and the Carrot Clarinet
[Steven] Videorama – Music Series Part 3 – Jarle Bernhoft