dividedbyblue | Have you written anything, fandom-related or original?

Entry tags:

Have you written anything, fandom-related or original?

Three weeks for Dreamwidth: Have you written anything, fandom-related or original?

I don’t consider myself a writer, but I wrote a few things. Concerning original work, I wrote some five short comic stories in my native language, Dutch, which I drew too. The shortest was four pages, and the longest, I think, was something like 30 pages. I often have ideas for short stories (mostly things that would work in a comic), and sometimes write short things down that come to mind. Some are ideas, others are just some sentences that I like the sound of, or the image they create in my mind. A few weeks ago, I wrote the text for two other short comics I could make in the future (a one-page and a two-page one).

Concerning fandom writing, when I was about 20 years old, I wanted to write a Xena fanfiction story—general fiction, not romance, because I didn’t consider myself able to write that then. I started writing it in Dutch and quickly realized that I would have no use for it, as most fanwork is in English, and I didn’t feel comfortable writing it in English. I stopped writing the story, and it’s still stored somewhere on my computer, unfinished.

A few years ago, however, I decided to try to write a fanfiction story in English. I had just finished watching Star Trek: Voyager, and knew that Janeway/Seven of Nine was a popular subtext ship way back when the show aired. I had an idea for a tiny story taking place at the end of the show, mixed in with some details present in the Star Trek: Voyager book 'Full Circle’, which I was reading at the time. I posted it on AO3. For anyone interested, it can be read HERE. Please be aware that I couldn’t find a beta-reader for it, and with English not being my first language, there will be grammar errors in it. I started another story after that, a Legends of Tomorrow fanfiction, of which I’ve currently written 2/7 chapters.

I must say that, as far as writing is concerned, be it original (comic) stories or fan stories, it is something that I need to explore more to feel comfortable with it. When I write something like fanfiction, I write very slowly. The (short) comics also always take more time than I expect them to (the drawing as well as the writing). It sometimes makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. I need to explore a bit how to plan it correctly. I also need to explore what I can do with the short comics I made. One of them, a 15 page story I wrote back in college for an assignment, was planned to have 30 pages but I decided to split it in two ‘cause the assignment was just for a 15 page comic, and only make the first part. I still want to make the second part for that, too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I am currently working on an original poem about an anthropomorphic cheetah working at a roadside zoo.

I'm trying to resist the temptation to write something short about giant bone collector caterpillars as spawn of Ungoliant.

That poem sounds amazing! I’d love to read it when it’s finished. Do you post your writings in your journal?

Giant bone collector caterpillars also sound nice! You have cool ideas. Do you write often?

>>That poem sounds amazing! <<

Thanks!

>>I’d love to read it when it’s finished. <<

I'm sure it'll get sponsored eventually.

>>Do you post your writings in your journal?<<

Yes. See the Fiction and Poem tags. I also have an author site with a Serial Poetry page for series-chronological listings, Shared Worlds, and other stuff. There is a LOT of material there, which is free for everyone to read once it's sponsored and posted. People have lost whole weekends down that rabbithole, so it's best to explore when you have some time.

>> Giant bone collector caterpillars also sound nice! <<

I'm still imagining the look on Thranduil's face.

>> You have cool ideas. <<

Thank you!

>>Do you write often?<<

All the time. If you're into fanfic, I've also got Love Is For Children (The Avengers), my most popular fanseries. Most of my work is original. I do a Poetry Fishbowl on the first Tuesday of each month. Next up will be "Ethical Supervillains" on May 6. I usually do the

crowdfunding Creative Jam mid-month; next up will be May 17-18 with a theme of "Facing Darkness." Drop by and prompt me for what you'd like to read!

I did not know about the existence of serial poetry—that's interesting! I looked at the website; it seems intriguing!

I am not familiar with The Avengers universe, but I looked at your journal and just read your most recent poem, "Kittens, Cocoa, and Cuddles." It's beautiful. You create a lovely image there with the coziness, autumn, and the accompanying brown hues in your imagery. I subscribed to your journal, looking forward to reading more of your poetry!

>>I did not know about the existence of serial poetry—that's interesting! <<

I didn't even plan it. I had friends who were crowdfunding serial fiction, and I kind of envied those projects. I was doing the Poetry Fishbowl with individual poems. And then someone asked me to write a followup to a previously posted poem, and next thing I knew, everyone was doing that and I had a bunch of series. Most of it's narrative poetry so it hangs together well.

>>I looked at the website; it seems intriguing!<<

Yay! :D

>> I am not familiar with The Avengers universe, but I looked at your journal and just read your most recent poem, "Kittens, Cocoa, and Cuddles." It's beautiful. You create a lovely image there with the coziness, autumn, and the accompanying brown hues in your imagery.<<

That's exactly what I was aiming for. \o/

>> I subscribed to your journal, looking forward to reading more of your poetry!<<

I hope you enjoy it.

someone asked me to write a followup to a previously posted poem, and next thing I knew, everyone was doing that and I had a bunch of series

It’s great how people can inspire one in the creative process. It’s something that can be so motivating, either be inspired by other creators or by people who genuinely like what you’re making. We’re never in a vacuum.

I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you ^^

The Poetry Fishbowl is hugely interactive and I love it. :D

I take forever to draw even a single comic page sometimes so your 30-page comic sounds like quite a feat to me!

Despite it being quite some time ago, do you think you'll ever reconsider finishing your Xena fic in Dutch? Sure, most fanworks are in English but if we never take the first step then we'll never see them written in other languages... ;) (I've been learning Dutch so if by any chance you do ever go back to it I'll have fic about characters I already love to read, hehe!)

And we all go at our own pace, you know. I consider myself a slow artist all in all too -- the important thing is that we make what we want to make, whether that's writing or drawing :)

Cool that you’re learning Dutch! If you have any questions about the language, don’t hesitate to ask me ^^

That’s true. In making art, we all have our own pace, and being able to make it at our own speed should be important. Thanks for sharing your insight.

Regarding the Xena fanfic, I still sometimes think about this story and wonder what to do with it. It was called ‘De schimmen van Chronos’ (The spectres/ghosts of Chronos). Hades contacts Xena to investigate a phenomenon. In a Greek village at the base of a mountain, spectres sometimes roam the streets at night. The spectres are not always hostile, but disoriented, and appear to be from different times. Xena and Gabrielle head towards the village to look into it, and things start happening.

I planned it to be gen fic, but with a bit of subtext like in the show. I didn’t plan the story/chapters before I started writing, so I had no idea how long the story would be. Maybe I’ll pick it up again and try to finish it; knowing that I have a potential reader is always encouraging ;)

Ah, dat is lief van u, heel bedankt <3 I should actually practise a lot more as there's only so much Duolingo can do, haha.

That sounds like a very cool premise, actually, like it could be an episode from the show! Keeping the Xena/Gabby as subtext would only strengthen the impression and that's not a bad thing at all, I think. I'd read it, I'll tell you that :) And sometimes writing without pre-planning everything can be very exciting -- I used to plan a whole lot more than I do now, when I'll usually only have an idea of how something starts and how it ends. Everything else I'll figure out as I go as it keeps me on my toes and cuts down on the chance I'll abandon a fic midway!

Graag gedaan ^^ I also use Duolingo, but to learn Spanish. I like it a lot, it certainly helps, especially with the motivation needed in learning a language. But I agree that it has its limitations :)

Thank you! That was a bit the vibe I was going for, I think, that the story would read like something you could see happening in the show.

It’s a bit of the opposite evolution for me. I used not to plan much and just go with it whenever I made something. I think I used to trust myself more with a story or a drawing back then, but now I feel like I need a good plan for it to work out well. I’d love to find a bit of that freedom again that I had when I was younger.

I also like it how Duo makes us do something every day, even just a little bit -- I've carried that into my writing habits and it's helped me immensely, most of all when I feel I'm at that point in a story where I want to give up. It's like, "no, I'll just do a single word, a single line or paragraph, because any progress is better than no progress at all" and, like magic, I survive the slump and get the work done.

¡Buena suerte! No puedo decir que hablo el español, pero si una lengua hermana, entonces tengo una cierta intuición lingüística y puedo comprenderlo 90% de las veces (o escribir unas poquitas palabras como estas :) )

That's interesting! Would you say there's an influence of a lingering sense of perfectionism, by any chance? Because I had a lot of that to contend with and reminding myself that I like drawing to be fun rather than a chore did me good. I'd allow myself to just do a bad doodle sometimes, with very little concern for anatomy, for instance, if it meant I could make a friend laugh. With writing, participating in low-pressure writing challenges which nonetheless have a time limit to them (like

fan_flashworks or

femslashfete) also helped me view everything through other lenses and loosen up a little. Perhaps trying out other methods of creating could also be of interest to you...? Either way, I hope things work out and you can reconnect to the joy of making things more freely <3

Yes, I agree that accountability for doing at least one lesson or practice session a day really helps.

"no, I'll just do a single word, a single line or paragraph, because any progress is better than no progress at all" and, like magic, I survive the slump and get the work done.

That’s a powerful method! At the beginning of this year, I did something similar, trying to get out of a period in which I didn’t draw much by forcing myself to draw for at least five minutes a day. Sometimes, it set me up, and I got into a flow state, creating something fun, and other times, when I didn’t feel like it, I did a five-minute pose on the website Line of Action (https://line-of-action.com/). So then it was still a very short practice session. Nowadays, I don’t do the 5-minute drawing session anymore, but it’s because, thanks to it, I got into the practice again. I draw almost every day now.

¡Gracias! Tengo mucho que aprender, pero me gusta el idioma. A veces intento leer fanfics en español :). Leer y comprender es mucho más fácil que hablar o escribir.

It’s cool that you can understand and speak Spanish thanks to knowing a similar language. I have that sometimes with German. I only have a very basic knowledge of it, but because it’s so similar to Dutch, I can sometimes understand things :)

Thank you. Perfectionism is definitely part of it. I also sometimes am very unsure about my work and its quality, and then I stick too much to reference pics, for instance. I have difficulty drawing something from inspiration, and I used to be able to do that in my youth. I think I should dedicate a sketchbook to practising it and accept that the quality will maybe not be good for the first month or so. But perhaps that will give me some confidence if I stick to it.

These writing challenges seem fun! Good that it helped you become more relaxed with writing. I’ve seen there is something that appears similar, but then for drawing,

drawesome

Ah, yeah, that's precisely it, creating the habit! I might grab your idea of using Line of Action to practise when no ideas come up and I want to draw, though, because I love that site but had never thought of doing something similar to get out of a drawing funk...

Inderdaad!

I have a German reader who said the very same thing about how they can grasp much of Dutch without really knowing it. My Dutch is not very advanced (yet) but there are a few little things in German that have become more understandable even to me, not counting the more obvious ones (like kaas - Käse, haha, that's easy).

A sketchbook for putting ideas on paper without caring to make them look perfect seems like a good strategy. Just don't get a fancy sketchbook because that fear of messing up the first page of something that's too pretty is real! I always skip the first page myself so i don't deal with the anxiety of needing to draw something beautiful to greet whoever opens up my sketchbook.

And ah, damn, this is why I shouldn't type messages when someone is speaking to me IRL -- those comms I mentioned are not just for writing, they welcome multimedia fills to their prompts! Hell, I've done drawings for both of them, haha. But I see must explore

drawesome more closely, thank you for mentioning it :)

Line of Action is really useful. If you like this site, Quickposes (https://quickposes.com/en) is similar. I used that before I knew of Line of Action.

Yes, the kaas-käse is indeed close. :) In my local dialect, our word for ‘kaas’ even sounds like the German word, but without the ‘e’ at the end. :) It’s fun that learning one language can also help you understand another one a bit. Someone told me that the more Spanish I’ll know, the more I will also be able to understand Portuguese.

Just don't get a fancy sketchbook because that fear of messing up the first page of something that's too pretty is real!

That’s a good tip :) I also always feel a bit insecure working in a nice sketchbook. I’m thinking of doing the loose sketches in a Canson Croquis XL ringed sketchbook. I’ve used them before; they have pretty large sizes, and while the paper is thin, it’s nice to work on with pencils. The paper has a yellow tint. And I don’t find them intimidating :)

those comms I mentioned are not just for writing,

Good to know, I’ll check them out!

Ahh, yes, I’m familiar with Quickposes! I like its time practise feature quite a lot, though I have shamefully not used it as much as I probably should in recent times just because I haven’t drawn as much as I’d like.

Oh, that is fascinating! At the same time that regional variations seem very daunting to foreign learners (“wait, why can’t I understand this person when I’ve studied this language for three years already??” haha), they lend so much vibrancy to languages too. As for Portuguese… Sim, isso é verdade. Aposto que você consegue entender estas palavras perfeitamente bem! Só não conte a ninguém que eu as escrevi… I don’t like to reveal the fact that I speak that and actually very, very few people online know about it ;)

I know that one! I use a smaller, bound Canson sketchbook myself. It technically doesn’t lend itself well to anything but pencils but I’ve used it with other materials and it’s behaved better than I expected, especially when I applied watered-down Chinese ink. The paper does wrinkle a little bit in that case but not enough to convince me to stop, hehe.

! At the same time, regional variations seem very daunting to foreign learners

Sadly, the Dutch spoken in Flanders (Belgium) is notorious for this. There are a lot of local dialects that influence how people talk, but it’s been less noticeable with younger people :)

As for Portuguese…

I understood that without looking something up yay ^^ I won’t tell anyone you know Portuguese ;)

Canson is an excellent brand for papers. Even their lowest-tier sketchbook is still good, in my opinion.

I checked your profile to look at your art, and it's gorgeous!! Your inks and linework are incredibly clean and beautiful, and your pencilwork is really good as well! Do you post your comics anywhere? I don't see them on your instagrams, and would like to check them out.

Also I'm always very sorry to see people in fan-spaces who aren't native English speakers mention that they're forced to write in English to find an audience... it's very unfortunate. These spaces are very anglo-centric to begin with, aren't they? Hopefully you could find a broader audience in Dutch one day!

Thank you so much! ^^

I have a few bits of four comics online. I used to only make black and white comics, only my most recent one is in color. You can see them HERE. I must add that, apart from the most recent one ('Gekliefd'), the others are made quite a few years ago. I'm only now thinking of making new (short) comics again. In that regard, I'm currently working on a collaboration with a few poet friends to make a comic together. That will be a fun project :)

It's true that a lot of fandom spaces are in English. Right now I'm watching a Spanish show and a lot of fanfiction in that fandom is in Spanish. As far as Dutch is concerned, I think the language community is very small and for fandom, too small I fear. Most Dutch speaking people I know that are into fandom stuff read in English.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Have you written anything, fandom-related or original?

Yes ...

Re: Yes ...

Re: Yes ...

Re: Yes ...

Re: Yes ...

Re: Yes ...

Re: Yes ...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject