Fanfiction: Feeding Your Brain

Good evening everyone and welcome to The Magical Mystery Blog.

As many of you may or may not know, I write fanfiction. I used to write fanfiction heavily as a teenager for venting, character exploration, and to hone my writing skills. This past year I returned to writing fanfiction after a long hiatus and I still question why I left writing fics. Tonight, I’m going to share with you the reasons why you should write fanfiction.

5. Boosts Your Writing Skills

The more you write, the better you will be. I never believed this back then, but I find that the statement holds true. What’s even better about writing fanfiction is that you receive comments and critiques on your works. When you publish your fanfiction on sites like fanfiction.net, archiveofourown.org, or wattpad.com, you are sharing your work with the entire world. That is a ton of people to stumble upon your work, read it, and offer you some helpful feedback.

Furthermore, researching characters, their flaws, their disorders (if they have any), and their unique traits will help you in character development. What you experience through writing fanfiction you can use later on when writing your more serious works such as character creation, character development, plot development, and so many other useful and necessary writing features.

It’s all right if you’re possibly terrible writer at first, but when writing fanfiction and receiving critiques, you will be better in due time.

4. Writing Exercises

I actually use fanfictions as a writing exercise for my more serious works that I would like to publish someday. By writing fanfiction, it allows the gears to start turning, ideas to start forming, and something wonderful to begin. What’s even better is that there’s no limit to fanfiction for writing exercises – you can create a fifty word drabble or a sixty thousand word chapter fic. You can also choose various categories that your piece fits. By crafting fanfiction, you expose yourselves to various genres, characters, and plots which you can utilize for more writing exercises.


3.Venting

They say writing is the best medium because you’re physically typing out what you’re feeling. The emotion rushes from your brain and to your finger tips and from them emerge words that fit exactly what’s on your mind. You can be as raw and as rough as you like when you’re writing fanfiction as a means of venting. Plus when your internal storm has passed you can look at what you have created and edit it so that it’s better or leave it as is and bear your soul to the world.

2.Exploration

A while back I read an article on how women used fanfiction to explore their sexualities. Like men who view porn, women used fanfiction to explore themselves. They believed porn to be unrealistic and fanfiction to have more realism. Like porn, fanfiction became taboo – something forbidden, but enticing. Its taboo, but understanding nature encouraged women to write fanfiction, to further explore their sexualities, to comprehend what the body can and cannot do when it came to sex, and to understand how things worked. Fanfiction for them was something easier to hide as opposed to pictures of lewd acts on a screen, thus allowing fanfiction to be read anywhere. Fanfiction became a safe haven and allowed readers and writers to utilize research of biological sexual functions and incorporate them into fics to further understand their characters and themselves as well.

From crafting sexual fanfictions, writers and even readers can live out their private sexual fantasies. It’s a way for them to experience (or imagine) things that they cannot do in reality for whatever reason. They also write fanfiction to further explore other sexual orientations like homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, and so many others just to appease their appetite and curiosity. Fanfiction became an educational escape to further understand themselves and enjoy literary porn. 

1. Building an Audience

So you want to be a writer. That’s fantastic – now where’s your audience? Drawing an audience to your work is not the easiest thing in the world – unless it deals with something that’s already incredibly popular. Enter fanfiction – where by crafting stories regarding popular characters you can build an audience. By building your audience with work regarding characters they adore, readers will grow accustomed to your writing style, and may enjoy it. When you publish more serious pieces (like an original short story), the readers will recognize you because of what you have written on fanfiction and will already be familiar with your writing style and want to read more of your work. Yes, it may not be about the 10^th Doctor having intercourse with Captain Jack Harkness, but it will be something new and original for them to enjoy as fans of your work.


Thank you for reading tonight’s entry. If you enjoyed it, feel free to share, subscribe, comment, and/or critique.

So tell me, do you write fanfiction and why?

Breaking Writer's Block

Good evening everyone and welcome to The Magical Mystery Blog.

In life, there are some terrible things that we encounter. Food poisoning, roadkill, and idiots are just to name a few. However, there’s one horrible thing that occurs when we least expect it, like a shark attack. It’s something unexpected like most things in life and about as satisfying as a plate of expired chicken. What is this ungodly occurrence you ask? Why it’s simply known as writer’s block. Most of you know about writer’s block. It’s when you want to write and the ideas are present, but your brain refuses to cooperate.  This is something everyone endures and like puberty, it’s just as terrible.

There are many methods to combat writer’s block, but I’ve discovered a method that the iconic writer Ray Bradbury used and helped.  Now normally, I don’t do other things that famous writers have done to help them, but this technique I found has actually helped me.

Ray Bradbury used to make lists to get out of his writer’s block and it definitely works for me as well. The best way to create your list is to physically write it out because it awakens your brain. It can be a list about anything; a grocery list, things you have to grab when you go to Walmart, a Christmas list, things that make you happy, anything. By crafting your list, your brain is stimulated and generates various topics that you can write about. Your brain is also focused on writing more and is ready to take on whatever projects you’ve had in mind.  

So if you ever find yourself in a case of writer’s block, feel free to go ahead and try this technique out.

Thanks for reading tonight’s entry. If you enjoyed it feel free to subscribe, share, comment, and critique.

So tell me, what helps you break writer’s block?

The 5 Stages of Submission

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to The Magical Mystery Blog.

Most artists and writers submit their work to various sites for publication or as a part of their portfolio. Portfolios are often used as samples of work to get into college or some grand institute. It’s a wonderful dream that most people have and often pursue. As a writer, I know what submitting work feels like all too well.  Much like there is the five stages of grieving, I’ve complied the five stages of submission.

1. Preparation (Motivation)

All your gear is ready. Pencils sharpened, your favorite beverage near you, music playing, ideas buzzing like bees in your head. You are ready to take on anything.  You immediately focus on those ideas and nothing else as you begin what you consider your magnum opus. When people see your submissions they will praise you like the God you are and you will immediately gain acceptance and/or prizes. You are on top of the world and nothing will stop you.

2.  Working on It (Confidence)

Everything is going to plan. The shading is perfect, the words are pure magic, the writing is classic and original. It’s gorgeous and your brain is your coach, telling you to press onward, work until your fingers grow numb, and reminding you why you’re doing this. The college you’ve always dreamed of, that prize money, it’s all shining like diamonds in your head, and you know you have the skills to take it all.

3. Everything Goes Wrong (Anxiety)

And just like that it all goes down the drain. You notice your grammar is terrible and you know you can do better. You notice a tiny line of color has gone out of line. You think of another idea to write about just as you’re finishing your current one. You contemplate redoing your entire submission as new ideas start to brew in your head. Cursing your brain, you’re wondering why they weren’t there before. Maybe those ideas would be better, maybe you weren’t paying attention; everything starts to crumble and you don’t know how to fix it. (Now would be a good time to take a break from your work and clear your head).

4. Editing (Self Doubt)

We are own worst critics, especially when it comes to editing. We judge ourselves too harshly and believe we can seek the advice of others. Most of the time it works, but sometimes they don’t see your vision.  Sure, we follow their advice, but we still hear our own nagging voices in our head. Fix that, that line sounds terrible, why is that colored weirdly, and while they seem encouraging, they actually doubt our skills. But of course, there is that small grasp of relief and joy that eventually blossoms when we realize that maybe our work isn’t so bad. That maybe after the harrowing experience, we still may have a shot. We edited all we could through the late nights and hours just before the deadline. Now it’s time to take the final step.

5. Submitting (Acceptance)

That’s it. You’ve done everything you could. You’ve written the best to your ability, you’ve drawn to the very brink of your sanity, and you have done everything possible to be as good as you can be.  As you enter your contact information and any other necessary data, your brain starts to bubble. What if it isn’t good enough, what if you aren’t good enough, what if you missed the objective completely, or what if you just overall failed?

Well, it’s okay if you did.

In our lives all we can do is our best. We push ourselves to produce better work and from it we learn more about ourselves. We learn what our style and approach to our craft is. We learn how far we are willing to go just to obtain that big college dream we’ve had since we were teenagers or how far we’re willing to force ourselves to be better than good; to be great, wonderful, fantastic.  We learn from our failures, we learn from what we did wrong, or what we should have done. It’s all a part of life’s wondrous journey and it’s completely normal.

There will always be someone out there who’s probably better and that’s okay. It means their life is different than yours; maybe they went to an advanced art school or devoted all their time to their work. And it’s okay, that’s who they chose to be. You cannot be them, but you can definitely try to be better in your own fashion, regardless of what you do.

So go ahead. Take a deep breath. Enter your submission and hit ‘submit’. You could gain what you so desired or you could fail, but either way, it’ll be a learning experience. May the best come your way and always fight to do better, be better, and be awesome.

Thanks for reading today’s entry. If you liked it, feel free to comment, share, and critique.

So tell me, what do you do to motivate yourself when it comes to your craft?

2015 New Years Resolutions

Good evening everyone and welcome to a new year at The Magical Mystery Blog.

Last night we celebrated the end of 2014 and welcomed 2015. 2015 is a new year to make a difference, a new year to succeed and be happier with our lives, a new year to live and work.  While I’m sure many of you made your resolutions last night, I was unable to do so (mostly due to the beer and dancing). So tonight, in the start of the new year, I will make my resolutions.

• Living. I’ve always believed in living and carpe dieming, but I have only started acting upon this notion in 2014. As one of the highest beings on the food chain, humans are designed to survive. But life isn’t always a matter of surviving financially and with essential needs (food, clothing, shelter, and warmth.) It’s also a matter of living. We must embrace this one life we have to do as we please before our time runs short and we’re hopefully incarnated into something better if not equally as good.
  
  
• Settling is for suckers. Never settle for anything. Settling will not only make you lower your standards for someone or something you disapprove of, but it will make you miserable and regret your actions.
  
  
• Stay motivated. In my life I know I want to be a writer and obtain a full time job. My motivation comes from the fact that writing has been my dream job since I was a child and I fell in love with reading. The ideas that the words produced, how the imagination grew with every sentence, and how the writer spoke to me while I read their craft; those are the reasons why I chose to walk this road and why I will always travel it.
  
  
• Be more confident. I will be confident with the things I want to do in life and know that they make me happy. I will be confident in the things I want to do, the events I want to experience, and allow them to show me more of myself, which will add to my confidence. I know I can be a confident individual and I understand that I can be that, but I always want to be confident, and let nothing strike me down.
  

If you have anything you’d like to see discussed or have feedback, feel free to contact me.

What are your resolutions?