Little Miss Scary (or rather, INSANE)

Weeeeeeeee!!!!! After all these months of bottled up anger and stress, I think I've finally gone insane. Everything seems strangely emotional to me nowadays, even "Spongebob Squarepants" seems strangely touching. All the people that want to "look at my work" in socials class tempt me to throw a loud temper tantrum on the spot. All of a sudden, when I think about Theatre Company, I want to laugh. A friend pointed out to me a few days ago that we're all in Theatre Company because we need to mask our insecurities with being in the spotlight but once one of us actually gets the spotlight and the attention, we have to go about bringing that person down because we can't stand the idea of anyone but ourselves in the spotlight. Doesn't this seem funny? Deep inside, we're all a bunch of school yard bullies with attention-whore complexes. I spent most of today watching alternating episodes of "Prison Break" and "Sex and the City", two things that do not mix at all. While watching and even right now, I kept playing with my tape measure keychain, trying to see how long I can stretch the tape measure and then pulling the button back without getting lashed by the tape measure. Meanwhile I am also ignoring the fact that I have alot of homework to do and instead, am slacking off. I feel extremely blocked in terms of fanfiction right now and I feel almost like giving up. Today I spent hours in the mall testing various brands of foundation on my hand and trying out perfumes by spraying it on those little cardboard. The result: my hand smelled like alot of perfumes (primarily the Calvin Klein ones) mixed together. I felt like I was having a girly day out with myself.

If by now you're still reading this post, I think you realize that none of this makes any sense at all.

LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA

No Life in April

See those orange X's? Thats all the days I have to stay after school for Theatre Company rehearsals. As you can see, I will have no life at all in April and no time for fanfiction. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Fanfiction in Wall Street Journal

I saw this link on somebody's blog:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115836001321164886-GZsZGW_ngbeAjqwMADJDX2w0frg_20070916.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

It would be so cool if people actually came out with HP fanfiction books, but I would still prefer reading them for free online.

One Year Of Fanfiction Writing

Whadya know? I just noticed that today, I have officially been a member of HPFF for one year. Of course, I was reading fanfiction for at least a month before that, but it seems so weird that I've done it for a year now. It doesn't feel like that long and I actually haven't read fics at HPFF for awhile. I can't believe I've been a somewhat obsessive HP fan for over a year. I mean, I've always been a fan of the books but it wasn't until after HBP out and I discovered fanfiction that I really began to switch from ordinary fan mode to obessive mode.

Yes, obsession is very unhealthy.

Ah well, might as well say happy birthday to my fanfiction while I'm at it.

Fanfiction Confusion

I don't normally discuss fanfiction outside the forums on the site, simply because I think I obsess about it enough normally that I don't need to obsess anymore on my blog, but today, its not about my obsession, its more about what I want to do with writing.

When I first discovered fanfiction last year, it felt like there was this whole new world of people and stories out there. It was new, refreshing, different. In the beginning, I was just reading and I thought: I want to be like these fanfiction authors, I want to get reviews, I want to write a great story. So I finally got an idea and the guts to write my first chapter and I sent it in at the end of August. It was my first submission, I felt that if it got validated, I would be happy. It got validated, I felt that if I got hits, I would be happy. I got thirty hits on the first day, which I felt was alright, it was my first chapter with only about 800 words and no banner. Then I wanted reviews, I got two reviews in the first week. It felt good to answer them, then I saw other authors with stories in the same category with fifty reviews per chapter. I wanted to be like that. Suddenly, two reviews and thirty hits felt like nothing. I felt like such a loser compared to these writers with seven stories already written and this one with 2000 words per chapter.

So I finished my first story and started writing my second and eventually a one-shot before my third. I have to admit that reviews are very important and they help me update faster simply because I would feel bad if I left my readers hanging too long. And after answering a dozen lovely reviews, I feel good about myself. But I always feel that there's a bit of pressure. I always feel slightly afraid whenever I send in a new chapter that it won't measure up to the ones before or nobody will read the next chapter. I mean, it feels great that people are telling me this is the best _____ fic they have ever read, but then when I work on the next chapter, I would think: would they be disappointed? Or sometimes, I would be reading another author's story and I would feel that my writing would never be as good as theirs. Sometimes I don't know if fanfiction is good for me or bad for me.

Sometimes, I feel like there are a lot of boundaries when it comes to fanfiction. There's the whole OOC thing, like I have to write a character in a certain way and it always feels like I'm borrowing the story from someone, it always feels like the story is never completely mine because I wasn't the one that invented Harry Potter. I think I'm starting to see the dangers of writing fanfiction. When I first started and I read an editorial on Mugglenet talking about the bad side of fanfiction, I totally disagreed. But now I can kind of see the writer's points. I feel like I can't create original characters or write stories that are not taking place in the HP world because I'm so used to it. I feel almost like every story has to take place in Hogwarts. I'm even used to the format, the layout of the chapters where I press enter twice instead of indenting my paragraphs.

I want to be an author someday and publish books, fanfiction is a wonderful place to practice, but I wonder if the practice is worth it if it means it will be affecting the skill to create characters, settings, and original plotlines.