Review of 2013

Actually, not so much of a review as a bit of a ramble.

I've been living inside my own head for a few days. The reviews for 'Alien Christmas' really upset me - like, unable to write upset me.  There's no point in going on a long diatribe as to why they've upset me - I'm pretty sure that anyone who's created anything and had to read/listen to other people's views on it will get it - the need to defend and explain that in the end won't make any difference to the reviews you've already got and could prejudice anything for the future. So, suffice it to say that I've had to promise Stripelessz that I won't go off into a fit of depression over every negative review or consider it the end of my writing career as I know it.

I write because I need to. I write what I like, what I enjoy, what I would want to read. And there are going to be people who like it and people who don't. I'm loving writing fanfic at the moment but I also have about four different original stories that I would like to finish and maybe send off to be considered and I won't do that if I keep living in my head.

On a private note, we might be getting a flat which means packing up a four bedroom Victorian house and moving to a small three bedroom flat. Better for us financially and security-wise, but still going to make the next couple of months busy, full of hassle and financially draining in the first instance. I want to make sure I keep writing but I need to start weeding through my stuff - dvds, books, clothes, etc - and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I did it 18 months ago but there is still so much stuff there. I need to let go of the past - anything not used/worn in the last 18 months needs to go - gulp!

Christmas was lovely as I spent it surrounded by various members of family. I've not been as sick either - at the moment, it's just a slight throat infection, lightheadedness and a temperature so for me, pretty darn good.

I have an idea for my first taming the muse for this week - the prompt is Cox swain which I must admit made my head spin in several directions as I debated dropping out of the entire thing as I tried to figure out how I was going to shoe-horn that into anything I'm in the middle of writing. The first one is going to be a complete one-shot because getting coxswain into any of my current stories may be above my capabilities!!

It's back to being me, Striplessz and Gidget at home which is good - school starts next week, and there are hospital appointments at the end of this week. I think we're all going through variations of coming down from Christmas so we're living in jimjams and trying to be nice to each other. Can't ask for a better start to the year than that.

Resolutions:
* prove that getting a story published wasn't a fluke;
* stop melting down at every negative review - a work in slow progress;
* finish 'Parental Units' and accept that it may well be one of the last bits of Spander fanfic that I write. I need to finish 'Refuge' with The Lady and I signed up for 'Spangel Rekindled' at the end of January but I think that's pretty much it.
* get back into Atkins and lose some weight.

Hmm, they may be a tad weighted in the writing department - can I consider them as personal growth or do I need to look at other areas of my life too? If you've made it to the end of this, well done on wading through my crap!

I wish you a lovely end to 2013 and hope your 2014 brings you everything you truly need and desire.

S x

Sunnydale Memorial Awards - Round 29

Ultraviolet won some awards!!

Wicked Awards on Livejournal

I won some awards on Livejournal for some of my fanfic.  Here are my pretties!!

 & 

 & 

Hmmmmm, Seer didn't happen.....

...but I managed 1500 words of fanfic so not a complete epic fail! Of course, it would really help if I stopped spending hours at a time on Tumblr - talk about eating my brain! The problem is, there are so many absolutely gorgeous images on there that it's easy to lose time.

I need to be more disciplined, a lot more writing and a lot less 'oh look, something sparkly'!

Home - Spike/Xander - NC17

Watching 'Side Effects' again (or trying to), I remembered that last time it inspired me to write a short Spike/Xander fanfiction piece.  It wasn't in my usual style at all - the writing was different, the tone--but I really loved it. I posted it over on Goodreads but wanted to put it here too.

The Spike/Xander story that ate my brain - Master!post for Ultraviolet

Title: → Ultraviolet
Rating:→ NC17
Pairing: → Spike/Xander 
Fandom:→ Buffy the Vampire Slayer 
Genre: → AU 
Beta (s):→ Unbeta'd 
Disclaimer:→ Not mine. 
Summary: → Spike is called to Oxnard to claim something his Grand-sire gave to him with nasty results for Xander. 
Graphics: → Banners by 
A/N: → This features Original!Spike – nasty bastard, un-chipped, unrepentant demon. This is definitely non-con and not even remotely romantic. You have been warned.

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PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR

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156 weeks writing & new banner.....

Received my 156 weeks award at Taming the Muse and am really chuffed. I can't believe I have written at least 500 words every week for the last three years - I am blown away!!

And as part of my dragging my writing partner into this whole 'let's write something original and expose our delicate, sensitive psyches to even more people who can crush us with their rejection, I sent my lovely sis TLM the following banner in an attempt to tempt her into writing an original story with me!!

I started it as my original Christmas Anthology for Dreamspinner but found I wanted to write it with TLM so we held off. But I would really be interested in using it to write our taming prompts and see if we could actually do this thing together.  All I need now is her pseudonym.....oh, and to make her write something! Subtle I'm not!!

Still behind on my word count - not looking like I'm going to make 45,000 words in August but I have written a few drabbles over the last couple of days that I am pleased with.

Tomorrow is exam results day - I wonder if that's why I'm not sleeping.....

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....