Writing Through the Night

The Addiction of Instant Affirmation

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I would rather write one-hundred thousand words of fan fiction than ten-thousand words of “original” fiction. Is it because I have fewer ideas for original stories? Is it because I prefer the writing process with fan fiction, or that writing fan fiction is in someway easier? Nope, nope, and not at all. The key is motivation – let me explain:

Ten-thousand words of a novel is ten-thousand words of a novel. It’s not a complete novel. Unfinished as it is, no one wants to read it*. And, generally speaking, you shouldn’t want to show it to people before it’s ready anyway. Posting it online severely lowers your chance of getting it accepted by a traditional publishing house. While giving friends and family a sneak peak can be a blessing or a curse, and there’s no way to tell until it’s too late.

So, basically, you’re left with ten-thousand words to worry over. Is it good enough? Will people like it? Even if you’re certain you’re penning a best seller (which you absolutely can not be sure of) you have to slog on and go through the long process to publication. It can take years, and it can be demoralizing.

Fan fiction, on the other hand? Because it’s not for profit you can share it online to your hearts content and, when you do, your heart is indeed content. You get reviews, and compliments, and people boast about you on Tumblr**. To me that kind of affirmation is like a drug***, and that’s why I do it. The fans. The community. People placing value on my work.

 

…I would rather write one-hundred thousand words of fan fiction than ten-thousand words of “original” fiction. This is a problem, because I have a novel to write. Can someone start paying me for Spike and Buffy stories?

Recommended Video: A TED Talk on Self Control (It’s vaguely related, and very interesting.)

*I’m throwing generalizations around, here.

**Okay, so you’re not guaranteed to get showered in praise but I’ve found that – excluding a few haters here and there – fan fiction readers are lovely, and if you come up with anything half decent you will no doubt get fans/followers.

***Disclaimer: drugs are bad. The high doesn’t last forever, and the following slump can be crippling. Same goes for writer’s block, though obviously to a lesser degree. Haters do hate, and they will kill you slowly if you let them.

Priorities

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Recently I read ‘Finish Your Damn Book’ and ‘Are You Finished Yet?’ – both great blog posts which I really recommend everyone else check out. Even for those who haven’t clicked the links, it should be pretty obvious from the titles what they’re about, namely: actually achieving your big goals instead of just thinking about it.

Trying to do everything and failing to get anything done is a pretty big hole to fall into. So, I’m aware it’s February and no longer New Year, but my writing goals for twenty fifteen are these:

  1. Toss out the tiny ideas that don’t matter, and clear the recesses of my mind of projects that are lurking back there that I know are nothing more than a fanciful waste of time.
  2. Actually sit down and force myself to finish the big projects.

Sounds simple, right? Well, simplicity is what I’m aiming for. We’ll see how it goes.

Eight Year Blogging Anniversary

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Photo of Birthday Cake
Photo by Aih

I first joined Blogger because the Internet used to be new and exciting. It can still be exciting, no doubt, but it’s grown up a bit, as have I. Back when I was in high school I joined every social media website I heard about, with the aim of having multiple profiles all over the web and being, therefore, cool.

I didn’t succeed in being cool. The only thing I actually achieved was having multiple profiles all over the place with childish usernames, awful grammar, and personal information that was best left unpublished. Oh, the follies of youth!

I’ve since spent many hours trying to access old email accounts in an effort to get these profiles taken down and, in many cases I’ve been successful, but not in all.

Anyway, back to blogging. When I first joined Blogger I didn’t know what a blog was, and I didn’t care. I just wanted a profile. So I made one, and then swiftly moved on.

Time passed and Facebook was born. I went to University and started writing Facebook “notes” to kind of document the experience. That was 2008, and in 2009 I rediscovered my actual blog, and started cross posting. I got feedback, telling me what I wrote was interesting (though, looking back, I quite disagree), and so I blogged more. I spent more time writing blog posts than actual university work and then, at the start of 2010, when I’d decided to drop out of university I had even more time to write. I went from one blog to three, separating out the mish-mash of everything that had been my main blog (aptly titled This and That) to a Creative Writing Blog (Writing Through the Night), and a place for posts about Christianity (what came to be known as my “God Blog”).  Continue reading →

Character Assassination

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I’m a member of Belfast Writer’s Group, and during a meeting a while back I suggested the following writing prompt:

Pick a fictional character you detest and kill them off.

Simple as that, but bonus points if you could do it without specifically naming the character and yet have everyone know who they were just from your description. My own response to the prompt is below. Not only should you be able to guess who’s being killed, but who’s doing the killing. Here we go:

Sparkliness. Idiocy. Creepiness. Those were his three main crimes – in that specific order. He was everything both a boyfriend and a beast should never be, and it was why she hunted him; why she had to end the mockery he was making of the real monsters that defined her existence. With walking around in broad daylight – albeit under heavy cloud, which she so did not appreciate – he was easy to find. The difficulty only really lay in deciding the best way to dispatch him.

After having thoroughly considered all of the classics, she didn’t think any of them quite seemed right. In being the antithesis of everything he should represent she decided that his death should be equally unnatural.

A railroad spike replaced her usual stake, Bourbon was picked in place of holy water, and fire was kept as a staple, though in a different form than she would usually use it. After beating him around the head with a statue of Buddha, she pinned him in place with the spike, poured on the alcohol, and let the Zippo lighter finish the job.

Disclaimer: this is just for fun. No offense is intended, if the fictional character I don’t like is one that you love.

In Defence of Fan Fiction

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

In Defense of Fan Fiction Blog ImageThe bad thing about fan fiction is that anyone can write it, and the good thing is that anyone can write it. But isn’t that the same with any kind of creative work?

It’s true that while traditional fiction only allows writers to subject their own characters to a range of emotional ups and downs, fan fiction authors can – and do – take characters that you love and do what they like with them. But, then, so can you. It’s a double-edged sword, and I think it’s a great one – if that weren’t already obvious.

I don’t like the fact that all fan fiction is grouped together and looked down upon. Not when there’s so much variety, and not when a lot of what’s on offer is actually very good.

Some people tell me I’m wasting my time writing fan fiction, because I’m never going to be paid for it, but is it really a waste if I love it? I consider it practice, if nothing else.

In a sense – because there is no monetary motivation – writers of fan fiction are better than a lot of writers of traditional stories, because they do it for the right reasons. There are thirteen-year-olds out there who have written several novel-length works and just given them to the world. I don’t find that a thing of shame, I’m impressed by it!

If you want to read more on this topic I suggest you check out this post, for a much better (more objective, less opinion-based) defence of fan fiction than I could ever hope to write.

The Need for a PA

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I’ve been stressed these past two days. Very stressed, actually, and it doesn’t help that I’m not feeling well. (When am I ever feeling well? I ask myself.) There’s a lot of unexpected paperwork needing done, and right now I feel like all of my energy is tied up in trying to be a human person. (No doubt other sufferers of depression will understand that one.) So I often think to myself how great it would be, to have a personal assistant. Except that’s not the real daydream. What I would really like? To be appointed as my own PA, which I guess I already am, but to have someone else live the life bits of life for me. I’ll do the book-keeping and business emails if someone else can keep the eating, sleeping, and social engagements going in a regular pattern. Deal?

Words

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Typography Design - wordsSometimes my head gets a little crowded, and I purge the excess words upon a page. And sometimes those words resonate with others, and that’s the start of something beautiful.

That’s what writing is about: connecting.

Sometimes you need to do it just to connect with yourself, and that’s cool, too, when it works.

Words are just pretty awesome, really.

Welcome!

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Welcome, one and all, to my new website, now with integrated blog! I’ve been stumbling around the internet making pages and writing posts for longer than I care to remember, but now I am here, and it’s a fresh start. Perfect timing, I’d say, to go along with the new year. But that’s not to say all the things of the past have gone, or that they were all bad. Certain posts are being polished up and will be archived here in the coming days, after which you’ll notice my old blogs begin to disappear. (And, yes, I mean blogs, not blog posts – well, not just blog posts.) My “God Blog” is in the process of moving, and the blog I set up for Bible Study and Sermon Notes is vanishing (with the posts being merged into the aforementioned God Blog). Meanwhile, my creative writing blog (formally titled ‘Writing Through the Night’) and my main blog (‘This and That’) are being merged and moved here. Exciting, eh?