OMG I did it!!

I have just officially pressed send on my first submission for publication!! The story is just under 11000 words long and I have submitted for a Christmas anthology. The deadline for sending in submissions is tomorrow.

I still can't quite believe I managed to finish it in time. I've been working on it every day for a while but the words were being dragged out of me. Somehow, yesterday and today they just flowed.

Of course, I've left it much too late for anyone to do a tidy up/ beta for me which is a shame, but I am just so chuffed that I did what I said i was going to do - I beat the deadline and I submitted something.

I need to lie down - now I feel ill at the thought of professional strangers reading my story and laughing their heads off at me for even thinking I might have some talent!

Copyright Controversy

Enough to send a shiver of fear into the heart of any fanfic writer, someone within the BtVS fandom had a story tagged as copyright violation and was told to stop posting it. It's kinda horrid when you think about it - obviously the writer and her fans were upset. She must have put a LOT of time into writing the story and her readers had been able to get a taste of what she was doing/where she was going with it. So of course, they're disappointed.

There was a little bit of vague finger pointing as to who reported it and wishes for karma to bite whoever reported it on the ass, but things seem to have settled down again.Apparently the only person who can raise a claim under copyright would be the author or a representative, so it might just be a case of this story caught their eye. Who the heck knows? I can't imagine anyone I know within the fandom going through the effort of contacting the author, providing links, etc all within the time it took to post three chapters just to get the story stopped. I know my life is way too busy to be that interested in anyone else!!

But it does raise the question: when does fair use become copyright theft? A disclaimer was used and there was zero intent to make profit. But the original story/characters do belong to someone else. And that person has the right to say 'please don't use them'.

It's a bit of a 'you can't play in my sandbox cos I bought the sand' kinda thing, but it is understandable. I have been going around in circles thinking about this because one of the stories I am working on was inspired by a book I read nearly 20 years ago. I can't even say whether it's changed enough from the original to be an homage rather than an adaptation. If the author wanted to, and if someone reported me, she could request I take it down. And there's nothing I could do about it but stop writing it.

Spoilsport? Yes. Within their rights? Yes. Brain explosion going round in circles? Triple yes.

I guess ultimately as someone who wants to be published, I have to be on the side of the original writer. Because I think if I put my heart/soul into writing something and was relying on the money from it being published, then discovered someone else was using my characters, my world, my storyline (even vaguely), I would wonder if people would decide to read the free version rather than pay for mine. And I guess I would say please don't play in my sandbox.

As a fanfic writer, that makes me feel a bit hypocritical and that doesn't sit well. I can  tell this is going to go round and round in the washing machine of my mind for a while yet....

Coming up on deadlines.....

...and I appear to have written absolutely loads this month but I haven't actually finished anything!

So far this month, I have written just over 32000 words but I still have two separate Christmas stories that I haven't finished when there's a deadline of 1st August for submission. Part of it is because I decided to write one of them with my writing partner and we haven't managed to get our asses in gear. The second one is because no matter how quickly I write, the story seems to be growing and just not ending. There is a limit of 18,000 words and I haven't made it to 5,000 words yet but it already feels longer than I had originally intended.

Sometimes I think I do this on purpose - set myself up to fail. But I don't mean to.

All of the reading I have done this month just seems to confirm that I can't write as well as the authors I admire. And I know that I should take that as motivation to keep going, to improve. But instead it just seems to be something that presses me down!

Ah, to hell with it. 32000 words and I have another 8 days before the deadline. Let's see if I can finish just one of these stories by then!

More fanfic, no original.....

...pretty much all in the title.  Waiting to hear back from my writing partner as to what she thought of the 2000 words I sent to her and whether or not it has triggered her muse.

in the meantime, the semi original fanfic has yet another chapter. five in all.  Slightly depressing inasmuch as only one person is commenting on it so I have no idea if anyone else is reading it. But I like how it's going and another 1500 isn't to be sneezed at.

Still filling in my July word count spreadsheet and determined to write something every day.

Another day over.....

The runaway muse.....

.....I spoke too soon.  I wonder if it can be tempted back with muffins or large glasses of pepsi max in ice....

Another day, another 1800 words....

....this time in the form of a bit of fanfiction dedicated to a friend. Scary how easy it is to fall instantly back into fanfiction mode: no description of the character's background because everyone knows it; no physical description because the readers know exactly what these guys look like. 

Lazy?  I don't think so - this was just a little piece for a friend, to kinda say thank you for everything he's done for me. 

A lot going on in R/L so it's actually a relief to discover the muse is more than happy to write if I let it - long may this reign!

Writing for Christmas in July....

It actually started because I thought I had an amazing idea for a story for the open submission that Riptide Publishing are holding in October.

I got myself seriously excited, started with chapter outlines and characters blocking - I even had a fabulous friend or two ready to pre-read it for me.  But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong - that it couldn't be that easy.  And I was right.

I was "channelling"  a book I had read in 1995 - not word for word, but I obviously had the structure in my head because the first couple of chapters of my brand new opus ran along the exact same lines.

Having read up on plagiarism - what counts as plagiarism, etc - as part of my brain meanderings, I realised there was just NO way I could write this and submit it for publication.  Yes, the protagonists are two men rather than a heterosexual couple; the storyline could well completely veer off as I am writing it; it could be considered an homage.  But in the end, I just feel so guilty that I got even this far with the idea that I can't see me ever submitting it anywhere.

I'm continuing it as fanfiction so the story that's bouncing around in my head will hopefully be finished but only for me and a few friends to read.

TAKE TWO

An anthology over at Dreamspinner is open for submissions.  Closer deadline (1st August) and the subject matter has to include something heart warming for Christmas.  I should be able to write something for this right?  Well, yes and no.  Somehow it's started off like something out of a Sci-Fi novel including time travel.  Yep, no Christmas yet but we're travelling through time so you know, Christmas could happen at any moment (pun intended sadly).

And because I have zero confidence in myself and feel much happier/confident when I am writing with a dear friend, I have dragged her into my deadline!! I've sent off the first chunk (about 2000 words) and have asked her if she will consider co-writing it with me.  I even admitted why - that I feel like something is missing, that I need her touch, her way with words to bring the story properly to life.  So fingers crossed, what I've written can spark her muse into action and she can do something with it.

Surely this counts as me doing something to get published?  I have a little contest going on with my sister - I will send something off to be published before she manages to redo her bathroom.  So far, we're neck and neck which isn't good.  But either way, I have two stories battling for dominance in my head which is kinda nice as my head hasn't been a good place to be for a while.

Now I just need to get into the Christmas spirit....