Thoughts

A couple weeks ago, I attended the LA Times Book Fair, in large part because I’d read  Orson Scott Card was going to be speaking there.  My husband and sister joined me, both also big fans of Mr. Card and his books.  We splurged on reserved tickets.  Ok, the tickets cost only $3 total, but, hey, every dollar counts in my very limited budget right now.  We waited a half hour with those reserved tickets to get into the event "A Conversation with Orson Scott Card."

Mr. Card was, no other word for it, hilarious, along with his interviewer, and close friend/collaborator, Aaron Johnstone.  That hour flew by and it was our unanimous consensus that we could have probably listened to him talk for the rest of the day, or as long as our empty stomachs would’ve allowed.  Immediately after the Conversation, we ran, dodging people left and right, squeezing into every opening we spotted, to arrive at his signing, only to realize we would end up burning in the hot sun at the very back of a very long line.  But, we waited, our fortitude strengthened by the victuals my husband kindly procured for us at the nearby Carl’s Jr.  And waited.  And waited with barely-suppressed relief when we finally reached the shade of a large stand of trees, giving thanks to the genius minds behind sunscreen.  And waited some more, praying we would reach Mr. Card in time.  When asked, none of the volunteers could give us a clear answer as to our chances for meeting Mr. Card, only making vague noises of doubt and leaving it into our hands whether we wanted to abandon our pursuit for another avenue.  An hour into waiting, and only twenty or so people away, we were told abruptly that Mr. Card would be leaving to sign somewhere else and would we kindly leave the vicinity.  Immediately.

Read More »Meeting Orson Scott Card

It’s interesting the sheer diversity of people thrown together for a certain period of time on a train, so many lives all briefly travelling in… Read More »Know Your Ending

There are both easy and hard aspects to being a budding writer. Writing, itself, is easy because it is as natural to me as the regular inflation and deflation of my lungs. It is simply me taking bits and pieces of my self (my mind, my heart, my experiences, my hopes, my desires, my philosophy, my fears) and blending it through the lens of stories, both real and imagined, before pouring it out for public consumption.

Which leads me to the hardest part of writing: the rejection.

Rejection in more objective disciplines such as engineering or accounting tends to be straightforward. There is a right answer or a wrong one, it works or it doesn’t, the figures balance or they don’t. If there is a problem, one can figure out a solution, fix it, move on.

Rejection in a more subjective field such as art, music, dance, or writing is so different, and, for me, exponentially more devastating. Why? Because it is more personal. Each story I write contains so much of me in it, that I feel, whether this is logical or not, that they are rejecting me personally.

Read More »Dealing with Rejection

Looking back on the last year, I accomplished so much less and so much more than I anticipated. I learned about the frailties of the… Read More »And So Another Year Begins

There’s something I must admit.  It’s something I’m ashamed to be ashamed of, something that isn’t a vice but is often treated as one.

I love reading fan fiction.

Fan fiction, the term, is rather self-explanatory.  It is fiction written by fans about their favorite books, movies, and television shows.

But it goes beyond that.  It is a world created by fans with its own language and culture, where one can readily see that the word “fan” is derived from the word “fanatic” but in the most interesting way possible.

When I bring up the subject of fan fiction to the uninitiated, the first reaction is usually derision.  Most people are under the impression that fan fiction are written by people who can’t write proper fiction.  That those who can’t write, write fan fiction.  Of course there are the stories that are tedious to read, headache-inducing drivel full of ridiculous characters, but the percentage of these is equal to the amount of headache-inducing drivel full of ridiculous characters I find on the bookshelves of bookstores that still somehow make money.  More often, in thousands of fan fiction I have read, I find myself amazed by how fantastic the writing is.

Read More »Fan Fiction

I’m not sure whether you noticed or not, but it’s been fairly quiet on the writing front lately.  A large part of that is that… Read More »All Quiet on the Writing Front