Why Write Fan Fiction When You Could Write Something that REALLY Blows? by Vanessa C. Hawkins

 Vanessa Hawkins Author Page

Get it? Blows... if not then read the title again, and strap in for a punderful time with your favorite fun-loving blogger/extrovert, needs-to-get-out-in-the-sun-more, weirdo. 

I know, I know... I only have one... and it's in my room.

So for those of you who don't know what fan fiction is, allow me to explain. Fan fiction is when you watch the first four seasons of Supernatural, realize that the subsequent seasons suck and Dean is obviously meant to be with Castiel, and finally after a stupid amount of time writing alternate realities in your mind, you post these alternate realities--which are obviously better and why the producers of the show didn't contact me about my ideas, I'll never know-- on the internet. 

Did you catch that? No? Okay... how about this!

Though I must admit I never actually posted my fan fiction on the internet, in retrospect I'm glad I didn't. It was entirely the fault of dial-up, mind you--the age old tradition of using one's phone line to obtain a crappy internet connection. But it was enough to keep my alternate ideas away from the public eye or becoming something like Fifty Shades. 

Yes, that's right. I'm old. PlayStation 1 old...

There's a PlayStation 5 now?!

Also yes, Fifty Shades started out as a fan fiction... and yes... UGH! I still hate it.

So, I'm not saying that fan fiction is lame. I mean a lot of it is... and a lot of it's just smutty bullhump that some people like ejaculating online, *COUGH!* E. L. James **COUGH COUGH!** but not all of it's bad! I promise! In fact, my first foray into writing fanfics--that's a little word we pros like to use to seem like we know a thing or two--was definitely what got me on the path to published writer bliss! And despite my fan fiction being anything BUT cool, it was practice, and practice makes perfect...

or at least it made me a less crappy writer...

Ahem! You weren't supposed to laugh at that...

But my point--and yes I sometimes DO have one--is that although fan fiction is a self-indulgent mess that we love developing and getting into, sometimes we ought to turn off Pornhub, go out into the world, and find a human being by ourselves that we can love and cherish and make ours forever and ever and ever!

Buffalo Bill gets what I'm sayin'!

I mean, copyright aside, I'd be cool with peeps writing fan fiction of MY work. It meant I had a fan! But then again, I'm not so sure I'd recommend any aspiring writer to get one foot in the door by doing that unless you want to change pretty much everything to avoid lawsuits. 

Did you know Christian Gray was really Edward Cullen? Did you know what's-her-face was really Bella Swan? E. L. James proves that anything can be possible! But I wouldn't bank on those re-written fanfic bucks just yet...

In fact, some writer's vehemently oppose it. Look at ol' George...

We would the blog be without George? 

He believes that it's a bad route to being a professional writer. Build your own worlds and characters! he says! I tend to agree with him... though I also agree actually finishing what you started to write is good advice too... *hint hint George* 

So! I guess the moral of the story is: Write Fan Fiction! Make bucks! But be sure to change just enough around so Lionel Huts doesn't come knocking at your door...                                                                                                Or!--the alternative--Don't Write Fan Fiction! Don't even finish your series! Make bucks! Sell out and help produce a great series on HBO that ends like a blind date with bad breath. 

Yes... I signed the Game of Thrones Petition...

And no, I have no idea what I'm doing. No one does. At least that's what I tell myself at night to feel better. 

Just do you and have fun so later you can go back to crying over your manuscript in peace...

Where are my fan fiction or didn't finish my work in progress BUCKS? *cries*

 

Weather Expressions by J. S. Marlo

 

J. S. Marlo's BWL Books

I’m in Calgary visiting my son. It’s 38C (100F) outside and it’s not 3pm yet. It wouldn’t have mattered if I stayed home in Northern Alberta since the heat wave is pretty much cooking the entire province to a crisp.

 

I’m not a summer person and I don’t function well in the heat. I would pick -40C (-40F) over +40C (+104F) any day of the year. I stumbled onto that quote yesterday: “I better get my act together…I couldn’t take hell’s heat”. I’m not sure I want to get my act together, but I don’t doubt this Canadian girl would never survive hell’s heat LOLOL

 

Since I have a few hours to kill until I must take granddoggie for a quick walk, I decided to browse the Internet for weather expressions and their meanings. Here’s what I found...

 

-       If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

Meaning: If you can't cope with or handle the pressure in a given situation, you should remove yourself from that​ situation

 

-       To turn the heat on someone

Meaning: To pressure someone

 

-       In the heat of the moment

Meaning: At a moment when one is overly angry, excited, or eager, without pausing to consider the consequences

 

-       A breath of fresh air

Meaning: A relief in the form of a person or a situation

 

-       A ray of sunshine

Meaning: Someone or something that brings happiness

 

-       To be on cloud nine

Meaning: To be very happy

 

-       To have your head in the clouds

Meaning: To not know what is going on around you

 

-       To chase rainbows

Meaning: To pursue unrealistic goals

 

-       When it rains, it pours

Meaning: When one thing goes wrong, some other things will also go wrong

 

-       To take a rain check

Meaning: To decline an invitation that you may accept another time

 

-       To rain cats and dogs

Meaning: To rain heavily

 

-       To spit in the wind

Meaning: To waste time on something futile

 

-       To steal someone’s thunder

Meaning: To upstage someone

 

-       To feel under the weather

Meaning: To feel unwell or ill

 

-       To weather a storm

Meaning: To survive a dangerous or difficult time

 

-       A storm in a teacup

Meaning: Unnecessary anger or worry about an unimportant or trivial matter

 

-       To knock someone cold

Meaning: To strike someone so hard that they lose consciousness.

 

-       Revenge is a dish best served cold

Meaning: Revenge that takes place far in the future, after the offending party has forgotten how they wronged someone, is much more satisfying.

 

-       To be snowed under

Meaning: To be extremely busy with work or things to do

 

-       A snowbird

Meaning: Someone who leaves their home to stay in a warmer climate during the winter months.

 

-       In the dead of winter

Meaning: The coldest, darkest part of winter

 

I like winter and I’m French Canadian, so my favorite weather is actually a French expression: Faire un froid de canard. It means “to be bitterly cold”, but it literally translates to “to be a duck’s cold”.

When it’s really, really cold, we say “Il fait un froid de canard” (“It’s duck’s cold”). Why? Because the best duck hunting days are in the winter, when hunters have to keep still for long periods in freezing cold weather in order to allow their prey to get close enough to be shot. Thus, that bitter cold that seeps into the bones is known as un froid de canard.

 

Side note: I didn’t know the origin of the saying until I looked it up ten minutes ago, but my father loved saying it.

 

My brain is fried and I have a doggie to take outside, so that will be all for today.

 

Stay cool and stay safe! Happy reading!

JS 

 

 

 

J. S. Marlo's Website

 

Low Tide, High Hopes by Jay Lang

 

Jay Lang BWL Author page https://www.bookswelove.com/lang-jay/

In an overstuffed creative writing class, I managed to extract one impactful sentence out of the day’s instruction: “Write about what you know.” With this in mind, I embarked upon my first novel, Hush, and set it against the rustic backdrop of Gabriola Island. I lived there with my father and his then wife when I was in my late teens. Imprinted in my memory as a magical place were the serene beaches and the untouched forests – the perfect setting for my first book. 

 

Delving into my memory of the small island, I outlined a murder plot, creating diverse, colorful characters, and then put pen to paper (or fingers to keys.) By the time I'd finished the first paragraph, I was already transported to Silva Bay, my bare feet in the cool sand, soft summer wind dancing around me, and at my ear the cadence of the small swells landing on the shore. I had started out on my journey. 

 

To their credit and my benefit, the locals were open and generous with information about Gabriola. They were excited that my story took place on their little island. The local newspaper even did a great interview with me about my upcoming novel. 

Like any first-time writer, I was insecure about how Hush would be received. However, when I saw messages on my Facebook page from those who’d read it and then gone to Gabriola to find the locations mentioned in the story, I realized the response was very positive. Some people were kind enough to send pictures of their findings. Very cool!

 https://www.bookswelove.com/lang-jay/

 

Women's Fashions in the First Half of the 14th Century ~ Part Two by Rosemary Morris

 

To see more of Rosemary's work please click on the cover.

 

Women’s Fashion in the First Half of the 14^th Century

Part Two

 

In my novels Yvonne, Lady of Cassio, Volume One of The Lovages of Cassio, and in Grace, Lady of Cassio, Volume Two, which begins in 1331, (to be published in August 2021) I describe the characters’ clothes to help readers visualise the protagonists. As I write, I imagine the contrasts between wealthy ladies’ sumptuous apparel, well-to-do women, and poor people’s clothes.

Stockings

Stockings were supported by garters, strips of wool or linen, often embroidered, above or below the knees. Women who could afford them wore stockings made from either wool or linen. Poor women wore coarse woollen ones which, I imagine, were itchy.

Footwear

Shoes with points at the big toe were cut well and shaped to fit either foot around the ankle. They were fastened with laces on the inner or outer edge. Other shoes were designed like slippers, cut away over the instep and fastened with a strap and buckle around the ankle.

Wealthy women’s footwear was often embellished either with embroidery or charming patterns of squares, dots or flowers punched into the leather.

Short boots for walking, and possibly riding, ended below the calf, and were usually laced on the inner side or, occasionally on the outer.

Hair and Headwear

Women plaited their hair and coiled it around their ears. Their hair was always completely covered in various ways.

A veil and wimple.

A veil held in place by a fillet.

A barbette, a strip of linen passed under the chin and on either side of the face over a hairnet secured by hairpins.

A fret, hairnet, often brightly coloured.

Many pins were required to secure each of these headdresses.

Hoods were always worn by country women, and by other women when travelling and for warmth.

Accessories

Gloves were worn by women of every class. Wealthy ladies wore linen gloves to protect their hands from sunburn.

Aprons did not have bibs and tied around the waist. They were worn by ladies to protect expensive clothes and by working class women. Sometimes a band of embroidery decorated them below the waist.

Jewellery. Made of gold or silver set with precious stones, rings, brooches, buckles etc.

Girdles either plain or ornamented with gold or silver, sometimes set with gemstones, or worn around the hips and buckled or tied in front.

 

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk    

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

  

Mankind on Earth by Katherine Pym

 Begotten: A history fantasy of ancient Sumeria, based on scholarly papers from archeological digs.

Buy Here

~*~*~*~

 How often have you watched television where a man stands in front of the camera, and waves at a big clock? 12AM is the creation of earth. Going around the clock, you are shown various ‘beginnings’, and around 11:56PM, man is born.

 I found an old issue of National Geographic.

Apparently, evidence indicates man has been around for a little longer than we thought. According to the January 2015 issue, we’ve been producing complex cave art for more than 100,000 years, short by way of the existence of our planet, but longer than scientists had earlier stated. And you never know if those signs of man saw evidence of sentient life before them.

 Stone relief on uncovered ruins

In recent years, ruins have uncovered man’s ingenuity long before we ever expected. They say Turkey’s Gobekli Tepe predates Stonehenge 6,000 years, which is believed to have been constructed around 3,000 BCE. That makes Gobekli Tepe alive and bustling at least 11,000 BCE with peoples who were not loping around like beasts. In order to build, live in, then purposefully bury a city means even more years, possibly 12-14,000 years ago. Who could have done this, when many believe the pyramids around the world are the earliest constructions known to man? 

Location : South Eastern Turkey

I have a theory: Homo sapiens of one sort or another have existed on this earth for a very long time. They may not have been our species of man, but different bipedal forms of have come and gone over the eons. Some of them may have bred with other forms of our species, stayed around for a time, left their mark, while others may have come and gone with only a small blip on the radar. 

 

Early cave art

 Then, there are so many legends that mark our folklore/mythologies that must have come from some sort of reality. These origins have either been lost in time or added to fairy tales.

dolmens in water

 What about the dolmens in Brittany that march toward the sea? Stories say they come alive every once and awhile and romp with we earthlings. Then, when it’s time for them to return to stone, any humans still dancing in their midst will also get caught, and turned to stone. There are quite a few out of alignment which can only mean men and/or women have been caught at the wrong time. My grandmother told me this, brought down from her grandmother.

There’s an obscure, ancient lore of a door that stands on a hillside where gods enter our world from their heavenly domain. Where did this come from? Where were they before they entered our world? Did they walk out of the mists onto our earthly soil from another dimension? Did they come to our turf and seed their humanity with ours, then leave and seed other planetary peoples?

Door to the gods?

 Look at those pictures etched into the dirt of the Andes that have marked the earth for eons. Who did those? (Since these are copyrighted, I’ll give you a link or two to click on: )

 As small as I am, I could not draw a picture of such magnitude that would have any decent straight lines, curves, and circles that is seen from 10,000 feet. Could you? Oh, and I know what you’re thinking. This is an idea promoted by the Ancient Alien theorists, but maybe they aren’t completely off base. After all, even Carl Sagan said there were ‘billions and billions of planets’ out there. Could they all be empty of sentient lifeform? Even if someone with technology did not draw those pictures, then the people of the time were really very tall.

 What will be revealed once the ice sheets melt? They are, you know. Melting. Not sure why. What if the ice thaws to reveal ancients lifeforms? We don’t really know what happened before man came to this planet, how we came. We only know we are not alone. Our movies and television stories are filled with possible answers to all these questions.

 We are curious. If we thought we were truly alone, we would not be looking at the stars, wondering of our origins.

 Would we?

~*~*~*~*~

Many thanks to Wikicommons & National Geographic

 

Book Coaching 101 by Diane Bator

 

NEW RELEASE!! An explosion leaves a gaping hole in the streetscape where the Nine Lives Consignment Shop and the former martial arts school once stood. When police find remains of a bomb inside, Gilda Wright needs to track a killer before her suspects scatter like debris.

 

In today’s world, anyone can write and publish a book, but few of us get the help we need. Sometimes we’re stopped by external forces such as lack of money, lack of tools, and lack of support, which is a big one. Sometimes, we’re stopped by internal forces like fear, Imposter Syndrome, and a perceived lack of knowledge.

Imposter Syndrome is that voice in your head that tells you, “I am not talented enough to make this happen,” or “I’m afraid of messing up,” or “Why bother? People will hate my work.” If you’ve ever read Brené Brown, then you recognize that is vulnerability at it’s finest.

We’ve all dealt with it no matter who we are and what we’ve achieved. I have a friend who’s a comedian and author. He’s been fortunate to meet some amazingly accomplished people who will say, “I don’t know why I’m at this event. I’m just a writer/astronaut/musician.” Meanwhile, he’s trying hard not to beg for autographs, but he does have some great photos!

One of my biggest reasons for starting my Escape with a Writer blog, was to help promote other writers brave enough to launch their books. To be honest, when I first started my blog in 2019, I never expected to have authors sign up to do an interview with me. After all, “Who am I to think I can do this?” But I did. In no time, I had my calendar full 4-6 months ahead and now work alongside a publicity firm in Saskatchewan.

Then I learned there was such a thing as a Book Coach. That was my AHA moment!

It took me ten minutes to sign up and I’ve loved every minute of the training as well as working with writers and a great accountability partner. The funny part is, I wrote an entire series of blogs for BWL Publishing about the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of Writing two years before I’d ever heard of book coaching. That’s how naturally the role comes.

So, what is a Book Coach and what do they do? A Book Coach is someone who assists with the book writing process. We help writers improve their work, their writing, and give moral support along the way. Whether you plan to self-publish, reach out to agents or traditional publishers, or use a hybrid publisher, a Book Coach can help you smooth out plot problems and improve your book. We can help you smooth out your entire book or clean up a pitch to send to agents or publishers.

How can a Book Coach help me? That varies from coach to coach. Some do strictly Developmental Editing to help make sure your book flows without any flaws in timeline or storyline. They can also help prepare your book to be line edited before you submit. Others will help you get from the basic story idea right up to preparing your manuscript to be submitted to an agent or publisher, which we’re happy to help you find. We cheer you on throughout the process and celebrate with you once your book is in print!

How do I find the right coach? When writers reach out to a Book Coach for help, we have a list of intake questions we ask to see if coach and client will be a good fit. Not all coaches are comfortable working with all writers—and vice versa, just like any other sort of coaching. The best way to see if a coach (or even an editor, for that matter!) is a good fit, is to ask if they will edit the first ten pages of your manuscript. If you like they way they edit or give suggestions for your work, chances are you may work well together.

Won’t a good agent or publisher do all that? Not as many publishing houses have the staff or capacity to do all those things. The cleaner, better, and stronger you can submit your book, the less time and energy they need to spend to get it prepared for publishing. Agents and publishers love it when writers do their homework and send them solid stories they don’t have to spend days editing.

Where do I find a Book Coach to learn more? Right now, there are some fabulous coaches out there! You simply have to Google to find us! We’re always seeking new clients who are eager and willing to work with us to develop their manuscripts into things they’re proud to publish. Be sure to read the fine print, check out what genres they prefer to deal with – please don’t send a romance coach a sci-fi novel! –  study their packages as to what they offer and what they’re fees are, then find out how they prefer to be contacted. Most have an intake form attached to their contact page and may ask you to attach the first 10 pages of your manuscript so they can get a feel for your work.

What if the coach I contact doesn’t accept me? There could me many reasons. Some will contact you to let you know if you’re not a good fit. Others may say they are already overwhelmed and refer you to another coach. Either way, there’s always another coach, just like there are more than three agents and publishers. The right fit is out there.

Does having a coach assure that I’ll get an agent or publisher? Nope. But, we can definitely help you to submit a great query and synopsis that will give you a solid chance at getting their attention.

If you’re interested in learning more, please check out my brand new website at www.dianebator.ca.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Diane