Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well I'm somewhat new to this forum. I joined a while back, but I've been unsure about posting anything for a while now.

I'm 22 years old, but I don't like talking about my personal life too much. So I think I'll just say what I came here to say, and go from there.

I started out the whole writing thing in kind of a weird way. I had just gotten out of the hospital, and I was confined to a bed for about 2 months. During that time, I was really bored so I started surfing the internet. I came across a site called FanFiction.net . I was reading some of the stories on there about my favorite shows and movies. It was really fun.

I started to get ideas for stories. I've been writing poetry since I was 11. As the years went by, it gradually got better. I always loved writing those and I would alwas start stories but I never finished them. But this time was different. I wrote my first fanfic and I loved writing fanfiction ever since.

I stuck with that for almost 2 years. Then I had so many readers and fans, most of them encouraging me to write my own book. My family has known about me wanting to write a book for years, and they've been somewhat supportive.

Recently, I decided that I would do just that; write an original story, rather than the fanfiction; a novel, maybe. I got so many ideas for it, but finally I settled on just three. I found a way to combine the first two ideas into one story, and they actually fit pretty well together, once I started fitting the pieces together in my mind.

But I decided to go with my idea for a sci-fi story. I have the whole plot prety much planned out, except for the exact ending. I want to see how the story goes, before deciding on that. I'm terrible with endings... But I do have several planned. I have most of the characters named, and the details mostly worked out. I already have about 1,000 or so words of it written.

I am having a problem that I've never seen posted here, as long as I've watched this forum... I can't decide what type of age group or rating, to go for. In my fanfiction, I started out writing T-rated stuff. But later, as I progressed, it became really adult. Graphic sex scenes, and all that. People say I have a knack for it, and that I should pursue that. But I'm just not sure if there's even much of a market for it. I'm not sure if it might ruin my story, or make it unattractive to people. I know I like it when I write my fanfiction. Sure, I can write a good fic without adding any adult material. But I tend to finish them faster, have more interest from readers, and take more interest in it myself if I do.

So this is the one thing I am iffy about. For now, I've decided to just wait until I get to that point in my story, and see if it calls for it. Because I'm really just not sure. I'm not sure what people would think of me, knowing what I write.

And this is a really long journal, and I'm sorry. I'll add more later. Comments are welcome... I think?

Well I feel the same way... I was always so down on myself, I never thought I could do anything useful. I am so quiet and shy in real life, but when I write I can be however I want and I love that feeling. Thanks for the reply. ^_^

I'm sure you can do it too! I keep telling myself I will succeed, which for me is weird since I am usually negative about everything, especially if it involves me.

How did you start writing, if I can ask?

Welcome Kaline!
Firstly, it's always nice to see people popping out of the woodwork. Secondly, I don't think updating too often is a problem. I think once a day is a decent update speed, though some people update way less often than that. =P

Also, I wouldn't worry about your graphic yaoi. I mean, I wouldn't recommend posting it if it's THAT graphic, but you're likely to find people around here who might be willing to read it if you emailed it to them, or PMed them or something. I know Desert writes some yaoi, and I write a fair bit of lesbian fiction, so don't feel scared about people reading it or anything. :3

I look forward to tracking your progress!
And, my posts often get a little long too. xd It's all good. We're writers, aren't we?

Wow that is really cool! Aliens have always fascinated me. Anything weird usually gets my attention, anyway. Lol. I usually avoid competitions because I am afraid of confrontation. Then again I guess writing is competitive, in some ways.



Yeah everything I wrote in school was always way longer than it needed to be. It's more graphic than most, I guess I put too much thought into it. Most people don't like it, because it's fanfiction and not "real writing". But it has helped me come out of my shell, a bit more. It also is what got me into writing in the first place, lol.

I am trying to slowly get away from that, and face towards the goal of writing an actual book now. It never occurred to me to post it here, mainly because gaia has mostly underage people, and I don't wanna get in trouble. XD I plan to post short parts of my fics or my story here. But nothing bad. ^_^ It's good to know that people don't freak out about that kind of thing here, though. I wrote a lot of straight scenes too, but I can't stop writing yaoi, either.

Yaoi is amazing and highly addictive haha.

And I don't write about Aliens anymore thank god. Way too confusing.

Fan fiction is very good when written right. I like it smile

I think it's the same with me and yaoi. I work best with female characters on the whole, so most of my novels are from their perspectives, and I think that's why I tend to have more lesbian characters than gay ones, simply because there are not enough men in my novels to be gay. xd

Don't be scared to post your fanfiction in the subforum! There's somebody posting in their right now writing a Tin Man fanfiction (which I recommend, even if you haven't seen the mini-series), so I think it'd be good to post something. =D

As for original works, I know that some publishers can be touchy about you having posted your work online before. I know that if the guild is private then it's not a problem because then it's just a limited circle of people that can see it, like showing the novel to a group of friends... As for an open guild I think you'd have to be careful. I mean, people post excerpts all the time, like the first chapter or something, and I don't think that's as bad as putting the whole thing online. Definitely for excerpts you could put up little quotes like I do, perhaps, and then if anybody wanted to read the whole thing you could always PM them or email them or something (if you're comfortable with that). :]

I never post my whole novels online, just in case, but I have posted the first few bits up in the subforum for the feedback, and I have half of the novel in a private guild where it's okay. It's hard to get the feedback otherwise. @_@

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Well here I am with another update. I hope I'm not updating this too often, but I have no way of knowing...

Fanfiction:
I put all of my fanfics on hold for now. I was having a contest on DeviantArt, and I judged it yesterday. As prizes, I got the 1st place winner a 3 months subscription to DA (and a oneshot fic from me), 2nd place got a 1 months subscription (and a oneshot fic from me), and 3rd got a oneshot fic from me. Or they will soon... sweatdrop

I have to write 3 oneshots for the contest winners. So in order for me to stay focused, I put everything else on hold in order to do these. I'm sure some of my readers will appreciate it too. I already have the first oneshot about 1/4 of the way done and I hope to finish it in the next few days, so I can post it and start on the other 2 I have to do. I like to put a lot of time and effort into my writing, so I'm not rushing it. That's why I put everything else on hold in the first place.

Today I wrote a few paragraphs of the 1st prize fic. I didn't do much more than that but I did edit a lot of my work today. And I have a splitting headache. Plus it's the weekend. I get a beak once in a while. razz I write almost every day, for long periods of time.

I'd love to post my fanfics here or at least part of them, like exceprts or something. Well anyway, I was at the Poat Your Work forum and I read the rules: "All threads must be original works only. Be it poetry, lyrics, essays, reports, fiction, nonfiction, whatever. No fanfiction, though,"

So sadly, it looks like I won't be doing that. I don't like breaking rules...

Novel:
Last time, I said I would tell you more about my novel. It's a sci-fi book about a civilization on another planet. I'm not sure how to explain this really... I put a lot of thought into all of this. If you don't understand anything, or if you have any advice/suggestions please let me know. I've never told anyone the details of my story before, so this is the first time I will be describing it. The working title is "Princess Syndrome". Not sure what else to call it, really. You'll see why I chose this title, later, when I tell you about the plot. For now I'll start by describing the important people and since it is another planet, the way their world works.

The planet is called Hybrylia. I'm not too sure about this name, or where it came from, but I liked it so I went with it. The primary population of this planet is female, and there are males but they are scarce. The planet is ruled by a King and Queen. Traditionally, the Queens are a native girl chosen, and the Kings are from another planet. Sometimes the King could be from Hybrylia, but it depends. Basically, it's all up to fate.

In the first chapter, I have a brief scene showing their first Queen. Her name was Veronica. One thing that is interesting to note about my characters is that they really don't have last names. I guess no two people are named alike, with one exception. Queen Veronica (the first) is the ancestor of one of the main characters, Princess Veronica the Seventh (her full title). All of her descendants were female, and named Veronica. I am referring to the original Queen and all her children as the Veronican Line. (I was thinking of Queen Victoria of England when I though of all this. Get it? Victoria, Veronica... IDK)

In modern times, the planet is ruled by Kind Heredus and Queen Veronica the Sixth. There are other people responsible for ruling Hybrylia too. The Divine One is an entity, sort of like a god to them, that decides the destiny of the planet. (I am really uncomfortable writing about religion, so I feel awkward even going there.) This entity chooses who is to be in power, by marking them in a certain way. Here is the catch: The planet's leaders must have blue hair, brown eyes, and a small beauty mark on their left cheek. That is proof that they were chosen by the Divine One. (Mostly everyone else has fairly normal hair and eye color.) He or she (not sure yet) is never seen by mortals, but they do sometimes appear to those who are marked in a vision, usually when they are asleep. Basically they go to sleep, have a vision where the Divine One is speaking to them, then they wake up with blue hair, brown eyes, and the facial mark. The strange thing is, anyone from the Veronican Line is born naturally with these features, meaning they don't remember seeing the Divine One, but they are automatically given the right to rule. The Divine One will mark their future husband by appearing to him in a vision, and giving him the same marks. (This is kind of complicated, and I'm having trouble explaining it in the story too.)

Anyway... The planet sends anyone deemed by them as "ugly" (meaning they are either aestetically very unappealing, OR ugly in the sense of they have done ugly things, cruel things, are bad people, criminals, etc.) to the dark side of the planet, where they will remain until the End of Days (kind of like the armaggeddon, I guess). The Uglies (as I call them) are considered monsters, they are banished. Their planet is unique in that it does not rotate, because there is a blue sun, which has no gravitational pull, and therefore the planets lock into place, remaining forever stationary. There are crystals which grow on the side facing the sun, but on the dark side, they do not, and there is a black snow-like ice covering most of the surface. (Kind of like a black desert, but cold.) There is water on the planet, but it is mostly liquidized crystal, which the inhabitants are able to drink and they use for cleansing purposes, etc. The dark side has considerably less of this substance.

Usually, there will be a divine death which kills the rulers of the planet. This is marked by a silver star with seven points appearing on their forehead (inspired by an elven star), and can be properly identified by the town's elders. The Elders mostly go to where their kind are dead and perform burial rites, and such. They also can tell how that person died, only to the extent of determining whether it was divine (natural) or other (un-natural, such as murder or suicide, etc.) They leave the running of the planet up to it's ruler, and they are quite mysterious. The Elders probably know the most about the Divine One.

So that's all I will tell you for now. I guess you get the basic setting of the story, maybe. I fail at explaining things... XD A lot of this was directly copy and pasted from my notes about the story. My notes are always kind of sloppy, so I think by typing this up, it really helped me get a better grip on the scenario here. I have more characters, and it has some pretty interesting plot twists along the way. I have another story in the process of being planned out as well, but this one really got to me, and I thought I should write it first. ^_^

What did you think? Criticism is welcome. I am worried about maybe offending people by going "too far" with things, like religion, and such. The main point of the story, I guess, is to make people think about these things, and how some people, some societies are too shallow, too focused on people being "pretty". (*thinking about "the Uglies" and how it works with the plot*) Next time, I'll tell you more about the actual plot and some of the other characters. Hopefully it will be easier to understand the plot and characters, knowing some of this background information.

...I've never shared any of this with anyone before. I wanted to wait until the book was done, and then spring it on people, but I'm curious to know if I may be just wasting my time. I want to write a book that people will actually be interested in reading, not something they will be likely to just toss aside. How did I do so far?

I have about 2,000 words written, and it's 5 pages for now. I haven't worked on it for about 2 days but I will hopefully have some time to set aside for the novel tomorrow. I don't feel comfortable with revealing the entire plot but this is basically describing the way their world is set up.

Ohmy, I really like the sound of this. I love how you've thought everything out so thoroughly! I can't wait to hear more about the plot. =O

On the subject of fanfiction: Although it says in the rules that no fanfiction is to be posted, I think the rules have been changed since then, since Desert is now pretty much the only active mod and she doesn't mind fanfiction. Somebody in the subforum is already posting fanfiction, so to be honest I don't think it's a problem any more.

I think getting this guild up and running again should be more important than a "no fanfiction" rule. x3 (Just my point of view, but you know...)