Shipping Will Be The Death Of My Work Ethic

I used to write a fair bit of fanfiction - much of which didn't make it to the interwebs due to a failure to be any good - and though I've had to put it on the backburner for a while, I still love to trawl the archives of fanfiction.net, LiveJournal and Twice Bitten (a lovely fanfiction archive specifically for cancelled Canadian show Blood Ties) to get my escapism fix.

I like most things really, so long as it's not PWP or too fluffy, but recently I've taken to reading shippers like some sort of lovestruck teenager, and the only explanation I currently have is that there are so many awesome couples being shipped out there at the moment that it's difficult not to get all swept up and swoony about them. I used to read general fics; now I'm a complete shipster. Someone please shoot me before I start waxing lyrical about Lost Girl's Doccubus, Once Upon a Time's Regina/Emma (for all the ihateyouiloveyouifancyyouKISSME! scenes), Rizzoli & Isles' Rizzles, Legend of the Seeker's Kahlan/Cara and The Secret Circle's Cassie/Faye, because I could literally be here all evening - and all I would do is talk you to a very femslash-y, often subtexty death. I love it so much that I even ship Katherine/Caroline though I don't watch The Vampire Diaries - it was basically a case of 'ooooh, they are somewhat attractive, are both vampires and a little badass. Why not?!'

The only problem with ship/femslash fics - and this is a big problem - is the sex scenes. I don't know why, but I've always been funny about how sex scenes are written, mainly because most of what you see on TV, for example the adpsjsglkasjghOMFG factor of Doccubus as of LG 2.06, is impossible to translate into language hot enough, unless said language was actually sizzling. It just loses something on translation, and is not helped by fanfic authors either a) getting a little too creative when describing various, um, parts (thus causing unintended hilarity) or b) just getting it WRONG.

You know what's sometimes a little sexier than writing about everything that happens in the bedroom? Writing about the events that lead up to it, creating a bit of reader tension, and letting your characters go into the bedroom - without you. A fair amount of fanfiction is, arguably, based on the escapist fantasies of its fans (not always in a sex-type way, of course), but the key to good fic writing in this regard is knowing how much flesh to flash. There's nothing that kills the magic of a romantic moment more than a poorly chosen word; you can have that one for free...

Fangirl Friday

I'm so psyched right now, I'm not quite sure how to wipe the smile off my face. Not only is it the end of the working week, but it's the start of a new venture - I'm blogging about TV for the marvellous new website When Sally Met Sally, in a weekly feature called Fangirl Friday (which you'll remember from the last post!). Please do check it out and let me know what you think about it, and while you're there make sure you check out the other fab sections too :)

It might seem silly, but to actually get hosted on a site and getting to write about something you love is just an amazing thing to me. I've blogged, Tweeted and Facebooked for years, following bloggers and writers I admire, and now to be able to say 'hey, I'm a writer too!' sounds narcissistic but feels awesome.

In other news, my NaNoWriMo project is flailing like a Priest in a brothel, but at least I've got this weekend to catch up. I'm not looking at WriteChain until I have tissues handy to mop up the tears of guilt...

Decisions, Decisions

Okay, so I really fancy having a go at writing for a website, all regular-like, and the excellent up-and-coming gay gal website When Sally Met Sally is looking for writers. So far, so fabulous - but what on earth am I going to write about?

There are so many things I'm interested in that it's difficult to specify just one thing - I love music, gaming, TV etc, but I can't help but worry if these kind of things have been done before. I mean, I could do a weekly article on new game releases or something, possibly doing reviews etc, but I don't really have the disposable income to buy oodles of new games when they come out, which is kind of a pre-requisite for reviewing them...

Then there's TV. I love TV with all the energy the fangirl inside me can muster. Maybe something like 'Fangirl Fridays', a review of the week's happenings in TV? That sounds alright, actually. I think I just answered my own question, which means I'll be watching even more TV from now on. Good times!

In other news, today is the start of NaNoWriMo, and I made the split second decision at approximately 7.15am this morning (after being in work a mere 15 minutes) to join in again this year - if you wanna be writing buddies, feel free to add me: madascheese :). I'm a veteran of the 'joining in and trying' club, having tried since 2008, but I have never won it. Not even once. Embarrassing. I'm not going to bother to vow that this year will be different, but I like to think I've got an ace up my sleeve with the wondrous magic that is WriteChain, a marvellous little iPhone app that encourages you to write a set number of words each day and not to break the chain. I don't think anything happens if you do break the chain, though I think the threat the app booting to show a sad face might make me feel guilty enough to not do it...

Breakthrough!

To say I've been struggling with the dreaded writer's block lately would be something of an understatement. I've been plagued by the terror of a blank screen for weeks now, and deciding to just type whatever comes into my head always seems to turn into a paragraph of such utter shite that even a dog would bark at it with disgust. So far, so typical.

Then the strangest thing happened - I've been in Caffe Nero for the past hour...and I've been writing. Writing actual words that even form sentences, which are part of paragraphs that aren't completely repugnant and worthless! Huzzah! All it took was a simple switch from the blank white screen to a blank page of a narrow-lined notebook, and the rest just came. Easy.

Even weirder than the lifting of the block though was what came out through my pen. You should know at this point that I never, ever physically plan anything I write, though I usually come up with a fairly detailed plot/character outline(s) in my head before I start writing things down. What came out today though was something I don't recall even having thought about before; it's writing what I know, I suppose, but it's so weird and a little eerie that this narrative exists now when I didn't even know what I was writing before I started. I just...well, started.

...but at least now I have something to work on during NaNoWriMo! Unless my strange ideas of inexplicable origin dry up between now and Tuesday, of course ;)