Being A Young Writer

No, I'm not referring to myself as a young writer. I truly believe that I am one of the older writers in the fanfiction-verse. I was referring to a fanfiction that I was reading recently. Um... at point of writing, it has been many months. I finished reading that fanfiction a few months back, before I went on hiatus.

I won't go into too much of history and dive straight into the topic. I came across this fanfiction and thought that the summary of the story was quite interesting, so I decided to read it. Nowadays, to be committed to a story takes a lot out of me, and I'm not referring to writing my stories. I'm talking about reading the fanfiction of others.

The story is about the protagonist who was thought of as weak and useless (quite in line with the canon storyline). He has a twin brother (original character) who was better than the protagonist in many ways, even though he is horrible. Unknown to many, the protagonist lives a dual-life. His alter ego is a master assassin.

Sounds interesting, no?

The author was thirteen at the point of writing. I must say... Wow. To write and get yourself published online... it takes a lot of guts. It took me a few months to write my first chapter (which is "Romeo and Juliet in Balamb Garden") and many more months after that to ask my friends to read them. And that was when I was 15.

It probably also meant that younger people are less aware of what they are actually publishing.

So as I'm reading this fanfiction, my brain began to go from, "I can't wait for this story to tell me what it's about!" to "O----kay. I'll give this story another chance for the next five chapters." to "What is really happening?"

I can't tell you how bad it is without spoiling the story content or revealing the title. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I was really bad at my first chapter too. Unfortunately, I threw away my old drafts in disgust. ("Romeo and Juliet in Balamb Garden" is updated about six years ago because I could not stand how bad it was.) So I'll never know. I don't want to know then anymore too!

I'm not here to tear bridges and make fun of fellow fanfic authors. However, I can, very vaguely, tell you what are some of the things that happened that I did not like in another post, another time. Today, that's not my agenda. In case you are wondering, I really did give reviews and I was honest with her about her writing, but not done harshly. I pointed out what could be strengthened and she (the humble, lovely person she is) willingly accepted my comments and thanked me for taking my time to give feedback. Wow. That's good attitude there. I could always be a more thankful writer to my readers so there's something commendable in her attitude :)

Being a young writer is really something to be proud of. In my country where writing is often met with groans and complaints from students, I feel excited to see someone who is into writing fiction. More so if the person is a young person. I hope that that young fanfic writer will meet more people who will help her to become a better writer.

It took me many years to improve my writing. Truth is, fanfiction.net is not exactly the best place to improve because everyone is nice and they won't be able to give feedback anything more than grammar. I am also guilty of the same thing too. I am bad at giving comments to improve my fellow writers. However, let's do our best to help each other. After all, we are all in this because we like writing. Let's not make this a horrible experience for anyone.

Okay. I need to sleep. My opinions are a little muddled up because of my fatigue.

First post of 2016! (plus the end of hiatus)

Dear all.

I'm back.

After four months of hiatus, I've finally returned to my blog and my fanfiction. Yes, my wedding went smoothly. I had a wonderful honeymoon (where I secretly gathered ideas for my stories, hehe) and I have started the new year without even greeting you all.

Happy new year!

Since the year started, it has been a rather tiring January. I had to adjust to the changes in my families and my workplace. Did I write during my hiatus? Not really. I dare say that in my four month hiatus, I probably wrote less than two hundred words.

Should you be worried? Of course not. Should I be worried. Oh yeah, definitely. I am quite afraid that my mental block will last forever. Will I find back my inspiration like how I did when I was in China? Then so much for my dream of writing full time. Almost every day, I would sit and stare at both "The Only Exception" and "Can I Stay By Your Side?". I would sit and read and read and think, but I'm always at loss for words.

What am I doing then? Well, you would laugh at me but I'm rereading "I Want To Be A Turk!" I want to find back the trigger to this 120++ chapter story. So far, I am starting to get my feeling back, but I'll need more than just feelings.

I just want to thank all the readers who have been wonderful even during hiatus. I still receive notifications for people following and favouriting my stories. The notifications always make my day brighter :)

Today, as I was doing work, the "Voices of the Lifestream" remix of Shinra's Theme played in my iPod and I cannot help but start wondering about Meia and the world that I've created. Is everyone okay? A part of me still toys with storylines and plot bunnies relating to "I Want To Be A Turk!" but should I, really???

Anyway, no more of this. It's time to do goal-setting! Before I do that, let's do a review of my 2015 goals! You can see my first post of 2015, but I'll summarise here.

1. Read lots of manga.
Done. I've read enough to make me happy. It's really time to focus on writing again.

2. Write fanfiction outside FF7.
Done that too. I've started a fanfiction on Katekyo Hitman Reborn called "Can I Stay By Your Side?" and I'm getting pretty good reviews... I think.

3. Brainstorm on original YA fiction.
Well, I did brainstorm. Did I have ideas? Some. Did any of them form into anything substantial? No.

4. Create stories for children.
Ahhh, this one, I didn't. I have some ideas but again, none of my ideas became anything substantial.

Not a bad year for writing actually. Here are my writing goals for 2016.

1. Finish "The Only Exception"
I'm almost done, so I gotta pull through.

2. Start on another FF7 story
That's the easy part. The difficult part is... which plot bunny should I use??

3. Continue to brainstorm YA fiction.
Publishing this will not be the key for the next few years, but I want to work on the idea until it becomes something... unique. Well, uncommon at best.

4. Create stories for children.
I still want to do this. So I shall.

5. Publish at least 5 book reviews.
My real goal is 10, but I shall not push my luck. 5 first :)

And so, my 2016 goals are set. I wish all of you a happy new year once again and see you in fanfiction soon!

What I've Been Up To (Oct 2015)

Well, my "The Only Exception" readers may not know this but my "Can I Stay By Your Side" readers would know. I have put myself on a writing hiatus. As quoted from the recent chapter of "Can I Stay By Your Side", there are "major changes in my life" and some time is needed for me to adapt to my normal lifestyle.

I did not really mention what they were on fanfiction.net (for obvious reasons), but I can say them here, of course. So here's what I've been up to:

1. Wedding.
Yup, I'm preparing for my wedding. If that's not reason enough, I don't know what else it can be. Funny thing is, I kinda thought my preparations were scaled down. Yet, the amount of things to do and the amount of people to bug me to stop procrastinating... *sigh*

So after the wedding in mid-November, I'll head off for my honeymoon and will only be back in mid-December. Thus the need for a long hiatus.

2. Work
Bah, this is always what I'm doing. Next.

3. Manga
I'm still enjoying my time with the wonderful Japanese stories out there and I have not had my fill yet. Thus... *gestures at the pile of my own unwritten stories*

4. Games
Not only am I playing some random game on my ipad, I'm watching the Kingdom Hearts playthrough on Youtube. It took me the longest time to get around it but I'm finally doing it. By the way, I'm watching the original and not the Final Mix (because I wanted to).

As you can see, my priorities have shifted again. And since my announcement of hiatus, I really... really haven't written much. Probably less than a hundred words for the last two months or so. Mental block is really killing me here *slumps*

4 years!

Wow. Look at that.

It's been 4 years since I've started this blog. My original idea was just to have some kind of place for me to go on and on because I realised that I was talking too much on fanfiction.net. And now, my little blog has exploded to something of a whole cauldron of book reviews, writing experiences and chapter notes.

Writing to an invisible (and probably non-existent, heheh) Internet audience, reading and recording my thoughts of each book that I read (how else do you think I can create my reviews after such a long time?) and penning down the various thoughts I have whenever I write another fanfiction title... these are all things that I treasure very much and I am glad that I have started this blog. One day, even if I were to stop writing altogether, I have this little thing to remind me of what I was once passionate for.

Hey, let's not get paranoid here... I'm still writing. Well, trying to write amdist my busy-ness. No one is saying that I'm not writing for good.

Whether anyone is reading this, I just want to thank you, my fanfiction readers, for keeping me going for such a long time.

The Only Exception: Chapter 2 to 13

For the benefit of new readers, since I've just advertised for my blog recently, this blog is a random collections of my thoughts of writing, including my thoughts for the chapters that I've written.

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Well I'll be.

I have not written a single thing regarding this fanfiction since the year started. Then again, it's been a while since I wrote anything.

The last fanfiction post that I've written was actually on the last chapter of "Days of Exile". Since then, I've begun writing yet another story in the Final Fantasy 7 fandom, which was "The Only Exception". I've also written a story in the Katekyo Hitman Reborn fandom, but that's a story for another time.

As I have mentioned in my story, the inspiration of this story came from the song "The Only Exception" by Paramore. I like many songs from the band and you'll see that if I were to write a fic on singing, I would draw the inspiration most from Paramore.

The initial intention was to make each story one chapter each, thus ending this in 4 chapters. Alas, I was unable to. Even now as I'm writing Vincent's story, I marvel at how I could keep Tifa's story within 3 chapters.

Story of Tifa

This part is most like a shoujo manga. Short and fast paced, with ridiculous story development. I enjoyed writing the story and I'm glad that I could finish it in three chapters. I wanted to finish it in two though.

One of the things that I could never come to terms with is Cloud's personality. Should he be carefree? Gloomy and pessimistic? Thanks SquareEnix, for creating a schizo character that fanfic writers cannot put their fingers to.

Also, this is one of my BIGGEST mistakes when typing on my ipad. It frustrates me to no end.

Story of Aerith

For this one? I planned to end in 4 chapters. I ended up writing across 7 chapters.

It was natural that the Tifa and Aerith story were connected, but I did not intend to connect the latter two stories in any way. The connection between Tifa and Aerith's stories gave me the idea to continue connecting so that it becomes a whole, just like the song.

Aerith's story was a little hard to churn out as there were many routes that I wanted to take. The one that you are reading right now (Zack being KAI and Gast was really a bad father) was the original idea. However, when I was writing Chapter 8, I struggled a week because I had another idea which was that Gast was actually KAI, not Zack. Zack was the song writer for Gast/KAI. Zack helped Aerith reconcile with her father. That was seriously a route that I considered, but I decided to stick to my original idea in the end. Didn't turn out too bad either, I thought.

There was also an idea to link the main character of the fourth story to be the step-sister of Aerith, but that was (thankfully) scraped. Later on, when I was writing Vincent's story, I thought it would be awesome to help Elmyra Gainsborough as Vincent's housekeeper. Oh well, too late. The story of Aerith was already published, so Elmyra will remain as an accountant :)

Story of Vincent

Another unexpected story. I am still writing it (very painfully).

It's funny because I have the story in my head. All I had to do is to write it, but getting down to it was easier said than done.

Making Vincent Valentine a protagonist was a first for me. I admit that Vincent was a little out of character in some instances, so in terms of character portrayal, I'm not terribly proud of myself. Still, I like how the story is progressing. Better luck with the fourth story *pats own back*

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Okay, that's all I've gotta say for now. More to come... I hope.

Fellow writer to fellow writer

So at my workplace, there was a child the age of 9. When I first met her, she was 7 and she wrote and drew her own picture book one fine day and surprised all my colleagues. I have not read it before and I wished that I would have the chance to.

Two years have passed since I first knew her and I met her again recently.

"Are you still writing?" I asked her.

To that, she shook her head and said that she has become too busy to write.

"But do you enjoy writing?" I probed. A large part of me prayed really hard that she still did and that she was not bogged down by the restrictions of Singapore's examinations.

"Yes, I love writing."

Phew! As long as her passion was still around, she should not give up. And that's what I told her, along with whatever advice I could scramble for her. Notebook of plot bunnies and ideas, writing just 30 minutes a day...

To her, it seemed like an adult telling a child what she thought would be best. Honestly, adult or not, we are all starting and running on the track of writing an awesome work. So when I was talking to her, I found myself talking to her like a fellow writer to a fellow writer. It was a nice feeling and I could not wait to see more people in my life who can step up and say "Let's share our experiences as writers!"

I also hope that this little girl will continue her desire to write.

In other news... I'm supposed to upload my new chapters. Hehe.

Yes, everyone, I am alive.

Barely though.

I'm still working... and playing games whenever I'm not.

And now I'm tasked to write a script, but I am having such bad mental block.

For my fanfiction, on average I'm writing 200 words a day. So you can imagine how slowly "The Only Exception" and "Can I Stay By Your Side?" is going.

Help me, oh mighty creative juice!