Nerves

Long time no post, right? Sorry about that. I've had a lot of real life crap going on, and pretty much I tried to convince myself not to write anymore. But now I'm back! And so we move onto today's topic.

One of my good friends recently decided that she was going to actually start writing fics. Of course she won't tell me her user name, so I can't exactly post it here and send you people to go read her, but back on subject. I was talking to her a few days ago, and she said she really wanted to write a hetalia fic that was England/Queen Elizabeth. But she was also afraid that people would hate it. That she would be flamed for it.

Well, I have some news I shared with her that I shall share with you now. In my experience 98% of people online will not flame. In fact, they won't only not flame, but they also won't make suggestions, unless asked. And that 2% that will flame are laughable. They are the ones with no purpose in life other than to try to make you feel like crap. In all seriousness, I have only ever gotten 2 flames. 1, my most recent, I laughed at. The other, my first, I had a good cry over and moved on with life. That first one was almost a year and a half ago. As you can see, it didn't stop me from writing.

The other little tidbit I told her, was that people are weird. You can not predict what fans will like. Seriously. My two most popular stories, Haunted and Camisado, I swore I would get flamed for. Haunted was the first mpreg of Kuroshitsuji as far as I can tell, and Camisado was serious rape. For both of them I knew I would need hard skin to get through the flames. Neither of them have ever been flamed, and both of them gain so many reviews/favs/and alerts.

So my news for you? Write for yourself, not for others. The minute you start caring what others think of your writing is the minute you talk yourself out of writing it. Write what you want, what inspires you, and if people don't like it, they can just fuck off.

Outlining

Forgive me if this doesn't make since. I currently have the cold from hell.

So outlining. The very word sends some writers running for their life. And well, I hate to break it to you, outlining is an invaluable tool for writing anything that takes time.

Why is it that so many writers hate it? Because it's just to hairy of a problem. Take an mpreg story for example. You have 9 months of important events to write about. Not only will have to write about the standard drama of fictional life, but also about standard pregnancy, and find some way for your uke to have gotten knocked up. That's three seperate subplots that have to be combined into one HUGE plot.

But of course, there is a solution. Create a time line. Now, timelines on their own are a bit of a hairy mess, 'specially if your a perfectionist like me and like to see how big of gaps there are between important events. However there are some basic tools that make this process as painless as possible (which still feels a bit like child birth, by the way, it just numbs it a bit). The simpliest, and most useful of which is already on your computer. Excel.

I have this lovely little tutorial here that I'm following to create a timeline for one of my nano fics. So far it's going swimmingly.

On the note of Nanowrimo, anyone else doing it?

We do three types of jobs here...

Hello there! For once I'm actually updating my blog early! I know, miricles do happen. As you might have guessed, the topic of today's post, which I am skipping church to write, is the picture to the left.

As yaoi writers/fans we find three types of jobs to be effective at gaining readers, good and cheap, fast and cheap, or good and fast.

If you are looking for a good and cheap story, then expect it to update every month or so. If you want one that's fast and cheap, then there will be grammar mistakes, spelling errors, and some lovely OOCness. But if you want it to be good and fast, expect to be peroosing the local book stores manga self, and paying $10 for a yaoi novel.

Why? Because it's the way we as writers work. I personally write 4000 word chapters most of the time. They take me a few months to complete. Some writers, like Yami Dragoness of Light (I think) Manage to update every single day (or twice in a day) but write shorter chapters (I believe her's come out to be about 1000 a day. And I absolutely recomend you go to read her. She wrote a wonderful 5980 mpreg that I just finished reading, and I'm currently working through her Squalo/Xanxus mpreg. Both are quite good!) As far as I've been able to tell this is the general order of thing.

So pick one and deal with it. People will love you either way. Now I must go get to work. I have 3 stories on my to do list (one is due this tuesday, one was due 2 months ago, and one has a plot bunny biting my heels), so I must leave. Adios!

The importance of Diction

Long time no post. I know, I'm sorry! I had killer writer's block for all of July. But I cured it last night with some nice SBRL. It was quite fun. They woke up with a hang over, in the same bed, totally naked.

This sparked an idea. Have you ever realized how awkward a word naked is? Try to say it. It stops in your throat. However there's another word for the idea. Nude. But it's also awkward. Both those words just make you want to giggle. Which brings us to the topic of the day. Diction.

As writers, we use words. So therefore our word choice is extremely important. Every word has a conotation, or feelings that people attach to them. For example house is more impersonally than home, as is Mother to mum or mom. So if a character calls their mother Mother then there is more tension than if they called her mom or even mum. It effects the entire mood of the story. So hopefully you can see why it's important.

This topic gets more specific than that though. Occasionally in yaoi, a story will require a sex scene. For most writers this is quite a daunting task. After all, smut is pure action. You don't have time for a character to spend paragraph angsting, or to recite an epic poem. If you do, then the other character is doing something wrong.

But more specifically smut has words that are almost necissary to use. If you're trying to write hot sex you can't use some euphamisms, such as pee-pee. It'll make your readers fall out of their chair laughing at the stupidity. You have to be comfortable enough to use words such as cock, dick, length, member, groan, moan, pant, cry out, ass, anus, anal, come, nipple, or phalus. (Surpirisingly enough the word Penis still causes laughter. I don't know why...)

So choose your words carefully. They effect everything about your writing.

The Most Ignored/important Thing

Don't do It

As the time of Tsuna's death drawls near, he tells his lover of his impeding doom. But what happens when all negotiations go Wrong...

Sounds interesting doesn't it? I'm sure it could be a lovely fic. It could be the best damn fic the world has ever seen. But I would not read it.

Why? Just look at that summary. The title isn't capitalized right. The description isn't spell checked and I can promise you that "Wrong" shouldn't be capitalized. And the whole rhetorical question makes it sound like they don't know what they're doing.

Now before someone starts complaining about me tearing apart someone summery and title, let me tell you something. "Don't Do It," doesn't exist yet. This is a description I wrote in five seconds after looking at my prompt list and choosing a random one. And I did it to make a point.

Too many times we spend hours or even days working on a fanfic, to blow over the title and description. Why do we do this? Because we are tired of working in the story, and we want to get it out to the world so we can collect our glorious reviews and favs.

But the summary and title are the first things people will see of the story. They are what people will judge your fic on before they take the time to open it and read the first paragraph.

In my oh so humble opinion, you should present three things to an audience - Title, Summary, basic warnings.

1. Title - The title should almost be an initial summary of the story. It should have meaning, and depth. If you have a major motif working its way through your story then try to fit it into the title, or even call the story by it. Did a song inspire it, or happen to match up wiht the plot of the story almost exactly? Then you can use the song title. For example I was working on a Sora mpreg where almost every phrase of the popular Panic! At the Disco song "Camisado" fit one character or another. Phantom-chick's Poison is another good example of this. She titled her story Poison, because that song inspired it I believe. Or a good phrase. For example one lovely pwp I wrote was called "Gorgeously Warm and Delicious" - which just so happened to be a phrase I used to describe one of my characters. Another one is "Like Father Like Child," which is related to the last phrase of the story - "Yes, looks just like her father." The title should be inventive, but most importantly formatted right. Capitalize all major words, and PLEASE SPELL THEM CORRECTLY! No one wants to see "A tail of Love and Hattered"
   
2. Summary - Be creative. Be unique. But most importantly - Be correct. Reread over your summary after you've written it. If you spell something wrong in the summary then people will think you probably spelled plenty of things wrong in the fic. Try not to give away the joke, or major plot twist, but at least tell the reader what to expect. And don't be cheesy about it. Avoid cliches such as "love at first sight," and "deep dark secret." Also avoid the rhetorical questions. There is no reason to ask what will happen. That's what the reader should be asking.
3. Warnings - Some people might claim that you don't want warnings, because then people will know what they're opening up. But you want basic warnings on the summary so that people will know what they're opening up. Often times when I start hunting for fics to read I am look for particular phrases depending on my mood. Often times these will be PWP, Lemon, Mpreg, or Fluff. It's so much quicker if these words on on the summary at the end so I don't have to scan a description, or open a fic. By all means have another warning section in the fic, but please put a few out there so we know what we're looking at before we look.

And there is my rant for the day. I hope it helped, and I hope you comment. I honestly have no idea if anyone ever looks here, because no one comments. I know I promised some reviews several days ago, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I will try to soon, but at the moment I have a 7 chapter fic and 7 day deadline staring me in the face. So I probably won't have time for a few days. But I will see ya'll next week with yet another post!

The way Non-con should be

In the yaoi community, there is a particular topic that most of us like to pretend doesn't exist - rape. We cover up this topic with other phrases like "non-con" and pretend that the uke really did enjoy having a large organ shoved up his ass without preparation. And then of course they fall in love, because what noncon is complete without the uke falling for the man that gave him so much pain, and in some cases perminant damage?

If you can't tell, I hate non-con. I hate it because that won't happen in real life. I know that's a bit hypocritcal, considering how much I love men getting pregnant, which will also never happen, but I can explain this I think.

See, for me yaoi is about two things. Sex and emotion. The sex part is pretty obvious. I enjoy reading the porny side of it. As for emotions, I enjoy watching the emotions these two boys feel as they fall head over heels for each other. I love fics that make these emotions feel real. A good fic in my opinion should be able to leave you emotionally bankrupt as well.

But a noncon in which the uke loves every minute of it isn't going to get that emotional pull. So if the writer wants me to enjoy it they better have some fucking awesome sex scenes, which is even harder, because for me rape is a major turn off. (To this date there is only one non-con I have read and liked, despite it falling into this category. I believe it is called Under the Chains, and it is on Fanfiction.net. It is a Cloud/Seph fic, and I believe it is in the Kingdom Hearts category, because it has a lot of Kingdom Heart characters. )

Rarely do I find a story that is rape where it manages to pull off the emotional side of it. Why? Because rape is a complex thing. Not only do you have to find a reason for Character X to rape Character Y, but then Character Y has to deal with the aftermath. Character Y should feel dirty. Perhaps Y think's it's his fault he was raped? Or maybe he is afraid of his friends finding out? Did Y know X before it happened? How does Y react to X now?

As always I urge you to do your research before you write. Even just reading the wikipedia page on rape will tell you some basic things Y should go through. Try to find a story someone told about themselves being raped. Put yourself in the situation. What would you do if your best friend raped you? Could you forgive them? Would you be able to interact with them again?

In closing I want to send you all to an amazing rape fic (it's Draco/Harry with Vernon/Harry rape). This one fic can honestly help you more than I can by asking questions. I have only made it halfway through chapter 2 at the time of posting this, but I believe it will continue it's amazing portrayal of how someone reacts to rape.

Muse Hunting

Deep in the jungles of Africa there lives an exotic mystic beast called inspiration. This beast is akin to the plot bunnies - rabid pink beast that bite unsespecting victims filling them with a posionous urge to write. However, unlike the plot bunny, whom writers curse for their frequent biting, the inspiration is sought after and hunted - generally with pen and paper made weaponry. Why are they hunted? Because their rare feathers are required for a story to be created.

By now, some of you are probably wondering why you're reading my insanity. Part of this insanity was brought on by a whole day in front of the computer going "I want to write. What should I write?" I have a list of 25 (and growing!) plot ideas some of which date all the way back to December. They span three fandoms and at least 10 pairings. They range in depth from PWP (porn without point) to deep angishing motif filled philosophy. And yet I couldn't write.

I had no inspiration. I would choose a prompt, and the scenes would start to fill my head, but I couldn't figure out where to start describing them. The words wouldn't come. I sat there for 5 hours, fingers poised, waiting for some sort of story to start writing itself.

There has to be some sort of solution to this. I hate days like these when I want to write, and can see the great potential of an idea, but yet not be able to get it out. Luckily there is. It's just that in my stupidity I decided against using one of these cures.

1. Do something else for a while - In essence I am doing that now, by writing this, but whenever the ideas won't come, get up and go do something else. Get out of the fandom! Honestly reading Ciel/Sebastian fics didn't help me write one. Reading Yamamoto/Gokudera doujinshi didn't help me write the story that I have promised someont for tomorrow. (Not that I want to work on that one anyways. The prompt is Yama/Goku and leapard print socks. Not good when my mind wants to angst.) I find it quite helpful to get up and do some exercise. It gets the chemicals in my brain flowing better.
   
2. Change something - Especially if your sitting at a desktop, you probably have the same view, the same music, and the same people around you. Change it up a bit. Switch to a new artist. Change the decorations. Move to another room. Do something. Get something new to flood your senses.
3. Smelly good stuff- Your sense of smell is amazing. If I'm ever stuck I open some windows and light some insense. Insense will flood a room faster than a candle, and stick around longer. (Hence me opening the windows so it doesn't still smell like "romance" three days later) Smells and candles will help to create a more romantic mood, especially good for writing yaoi romance. (Not quite so good for writing Non-con, or adventure. Generally those don't have passionate romance in them.)
4. Write by Hand - Yes, I know that you'll then have to type it up, but thus is the curse of writing. Hand writing is more personal than typing. It allows you to doodle on the page edges, write questions to your self, and fling your pen and paper across the room with minimum monetary damage. It also makes your brain slow down and think more because it'll take longer to commit each sentense to a medium. (If you really want to slow down, try writing with your nondominant hand. It cuts me down to half speed, and I'm pretty dexerous with both hands!)
5. Plot something new - This is the one that broke me out of my curse. My co-conspirator Kenzie texted me, and we started talking about foot fetishes. This topic molded into a story, which molded into a series, all based on Mukuro having fetishes. Around this time, the dam on my thoughts broke, and I was finally able to start slowly working on fixing my Gokudera/Tsuna non-con. (Coming to a FFn account near you!)
   

So there are some tips, to find your inspiration. I really hope they help, and I'll probably be posting something new in a few days. (Either my essay on mpreg once I clean that up, or my review of JPqueen's store and the 4 doujinshi I bought from them.) Thanks for reading, and good writing!

Also if you read, please comment, and leave a link to any of your writing! I would love to see what you've done!