You believe this? Sucks for you Man.

So, I was over on Alicia Blade's live journal and I saw she had reviewed a writing book, Pep Talks, Warnings & Screeds: Indispensable Wisdom and Cautionary Advice for Writers, by George Singleton. And this book made the following points:
- Fan fiction is a waste of time.

- If you go to a coffeeshop to write, you're not a real writer.

- Bestsellers are to literary fiction as bologna is to filet mignon.

- People who major in creative writing have nothing to write about.

- You should never write anything that takes place in a foreign country or a big city.

- You shouldn't be friends with too many other writers because they might steal your ideas.

...Anger cannot begin to describe how I feel towards this man.

I'm going to try and address this point by point.

"Fanfiction is a waste of time." Really? Because, I've been told that any writing practice at all was good. You are practicing and refining part of your craft, whenever you write. No, You can't practice making your own characters. But that doesn't prevent you from practicing description, dialogue, plot, pacing and other generally important things. And you're not just practicing those things, your practicing getting inside a character's head and deciding how they'd react in the situation you've given them. No, this isn't the same as making characters, its no where close. But it's a start. I know when I write fanfiction I'm practicing everything but making characters, and sometimes I even do that.

"If you go to a coffeeshop to write, you're not a real writer." I can't personally attest to this one quite perfectly. I don't write at coffee shops, yet. However, I know J.K. Rowling did plenty of writing at various cafes near her home and I think we all know what happened to her career. Is her prose a shining beacon for those around her to look up to? No, not quite, but her plot was one of the most complex and intriguing things I have ever seen. Her characters were beautifully developed and highly realistic. Finally, the best cure I know of for writer's block is to change scenery. Not in the story, for yourself. For a long time I used to write primarily at home (I was trying to be a good little student). Now, I write a lot at school too. That place seems to be drying out, so I'll try another place.

"Bestsellers are to literary fiction as bologna is to filet mignon." Is every best seller out there going to be the most thoughtful, the most well written, and the best executed book out there? No. Twilight I'm looking at you. (BTW I know I used to like Twilight, but I'm over it. WAY over it.) But this does not mean that every bestseller is a piece of garbage. For example, the final book of the Malloreon, The Seeress of Kell, is a great book. The dialogue in any Eddings book is usually far better than most fantasy novels of the same genre and that is why its a best seller. People love his dialogue. His plots are old and used, he realizes that, but its the banter between the characters and the actual skill when he writes that brings his novels alive.

"People who major in creative writing have nothing to write about." ...I'm still in high school so I can't really say much. However, I read something by a writer (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2006/04/27/10-things-teenage-writers-should-know-about-writing/) that one doesn't necessarily need to major in English, Writing, Creative Writing to be a writer. I think that is a valid point. Saying they have NOTHING to write though? That seems a little extreme. My current, and favorite, English teacher says, "Everyone has something to write about" and I believe her. My Grandma, who never went on to have any education past high school and grew up in a town that barely exists anymore kept journal after journal and wrote pieces of a novel for herself. If there is one woman who shouldn't have had anything to write about it was her. Yet, she did.

"You should never write anything that takes place in a foreign country or a big city." I can understand why someone shouldn't write about places they've never been to (Again, Twilight I'm looking straight at you). It can make the locals very unhappy when you muck up their town/city/country. However, staying away from Big Cities and Foreign Countries all together? I don't think so. In one book I'm trying to read (as well as twenty others) The Painter from Shanghai, the author lives in America but has visited China, and Italy, and France several times and knows enough about the cultures in all of those places to keep it authentic (the main character lives at all of these places at one point). Could she get some details wrong? Probably, but doesn't every writer make some mistakes?

"You shouldn't be friends with too many other writers because they might steal your ideas." While there certainly might be some truth to this statement, as people are a vile disgusting lot (see previous entry), I don't see the point of it. I enjoy having other people who know what they're doing (or more importantly, what I should be doing) read over my work and give it a good honest critique. I'm happier when people tell me whats wrong with my work, then I can fix it and get better. Also, I think this has to do with quality of friends. If I kept certain people close to me I'd be worried about losing things too. However, if you have good friends they won't steal your work. For example, Dracula and Frankenstein written by two different people in the same group of friends. Took the same inspiration 'A Ghost Story' and ignited the Gothic Horror genre as we know it. I can see people might steal a kind of premise. But eventually every story boils down to roughly the same story.

SO Mr. Bigshot, I don't see your point. I didn't read your book, if this isn't what you meant by any of it correct me. Until then, I see your points as null and void.

The Internet Scares Me

Woah. I read this story about this crazy chick who goes by the handle MsScribe. I can't get my mind off of it.

Before anyone asks, I'm not her in any way shape or form. I'm just an innocent bystander who found her story via hitting random on TV Tropes and coming across the sock puppet page. ( The MS Scribe tale is compiled wonderfully here: http://www.journalfen.net/users/charlottelennox/784.html.) Honest, at that time my involvement in fandom meant checking Mugglenet once a day (if not more) and Going to my first Midnight Book release. In 2003 I was 12-13ish, and far too shy on top of the fact I wasn't really allowed to join any websites at the time.

For those of you who subscribe to the TL;DR (Too long; didn't read) method of internet inquiry I'll do my best to summarize:

One Woman to Rule them all. One Woman to Find Them.
One Woman to rule them all and in the Darkness bind them.

I'm not exaggerating. One woman created (hold on let me tally) HOLY SHIT! Nearly 30 (probably more though as I'm sure I'm missing some) sock puppets. That's fake accounts for all those internet illiterate or naive. But not just the normal "OMG this person (who totally isn't me) is so fantastic isn't she?" way (which is usually executed with 1 puppet, of course she had many more) but ALSO in the "Wounded Gazelle" way. Self attack in order to gain sympathy (again usually one, maybe two. Oh no she had far more).

Why? For the sake of internet celebrity of course. Now, I'm sure we all want a little attention or 15 minutes of fame now and then. Some people are willing to go to more extreme lengths (Ala Baloon Boy, the White House gate Crashers, I call that Gate Gate).

But even in typing that I realized something. Now is the rest of the world interested in people doing stupid shit for the sake of fame. It's been happening on the internet for YEARS! Literally! Earth to real world, you think the internet is backwards and misinformed, look at yourself in comparison to what fandoms have been dealing with.

Which brings me to the title of this post, "The Internet Scares Me."

Because it does. In real life you have to do major stuff that can get you caught and reprimanded easily. The internet, not so much. All you have to do is not be overly obvious about the whole thing and you can become a BNF, which in the grand scale of internet celebrity I'm not sure where this lies. It took a grand total of six months for people to get suspicious of MsScribe and one more month to get serious accusations leveled at her. And THEN it takes a grand total of 3 1/2 years for her to finally disappear for good (kinda). It also takes about that long for people to accept and/or realize she's been pulling these stunts.

You know when your teachers told you the internet is the underbelly of society and that the worst of the worst are there and you scoffed? or at least were dubious because of the friends you made? Sometimes I wonder if that's true.

Yes, I know I can't trust EVERYONE out there, but I used to be optimistic.

I used to sit quietly in the back and observe to learn the rules of the game and be a respectful observer.

Now I'll sit back wondering how many of you are the same person.

Stage Fright

SO I have my camera. Now I'm not sure I want to do this whole video blog thing. I know I can do it. I just feel uncertain of myself randomly.

Text provides anonymity that a video blog does not.

Yet, on the other hand, I'm an actress. Performing is nothing. I have a feeling I'll do this anyway. Just needed to write it out.

Moving Goalposts

I wanted to be a Theater Major. My mother wanted me to do something practical.

I decide to be an English major, because I enjoy it and I can do anything. My mother decides I we're not getting any loans, because it would be silly and I couldn't do anything with an English Degree.

I took a journalism class and enjoyed it and the fame it brought. My mother took the credit and only enjoyed two of my videos.

I was going to pay for my own camera to start my vlog, but found a better model for cheaper online. My mother won't let me buy myself a camera until I actually put forth effort into creating it.

A Bigger Fish has just appeared in the area

I'm going to start vlogging. Video Blogging for the hermits of the world.

Why? I hear some of you crying. Maybe...

Well, I'm funny when I get angry and when I gush. It shows in my writing, but I'm a better speaker than writer. This is the wise decision.

So, what does this mean for here? I will write either transcriptions or commentaries of the video blogs (like the commentaries for my old fanfic). I'll keep my personal life stuff here primarily. I have a feeling my friends will be more likely to see the videos, not these ramblings. Some of these rants I don't want friends seeing. Simple enough really. And I'll be doing my fanfic updates and reminders through here.

Day of the First blog? When I get my new camera.