Costume: My fourth cosplay, though it was not really a cosplay initially, just a costume that I was making for the Student Nationals. Our chosen theme was Doctor Who, and I instantly pounced on the idea of being a TARDIS. I thought about making a box initially, but then I realised that would be hell to design and transport (planes being the awkward beasts that they are), and on reflection I thought a dress would be better. Since I’d never made a dress before in my life, I went simple. The skirt is a circle skirt and I cannot begin to describe just how long it took to sew all that ribbon on. Each ‘side’ of the TARDIS is marked by thick ribbon, and the individual panels are made out of slightly smaller ribbon. The sign is white cotton with black fabric paint. The top bit of the dress and the straps are just more cotton in basic shapes – I went for an empire waist because that meant that a) I did not have to fiddle around with a complicated bodice and most of the outfit could be skirt, and b) it fit the shape of the TARDIS with the skirt being the ‘box’ of the TARDIS and the top being the ‘roof’. The black “Police Box” sign is black ribbon with white fabric paint, tied as a sash. I usually wear black tights and black flats with this outfit. I discovered while at the Nationals that the bras I had brought with me came up over the top of the dress, necessitating the addition of two safety pins. Make up: I normally keep my skin fair with little colour, but I try to play up my eyes with dark blues and silver. Hair: A blue hairband completes the cute factor of this outfit, until I can make myself a fascinator with a light on it (I’m sure it must be doable!)
So, as most authors know, the most terrifying thing that you can experience is losing your work. Most things can be replaced or repeated when they're lost, which is why nobody can really appreciate the devastation you experience when you lose your writing, apart from other writers. Rewriting might sound like a simple enough thing to a non-writer, until you consider that those files were a culmination of years of work, lovingly crafted and sculpted with as much attention as any master stonemason. And that's before you factor in the simple truth that it is impossible to write the same thing twice - no that's not exaggeration. It is literally impossible to write the same thing twice. You can write the same events, but they will never come out the same way and with the same flow that they did the first time, and you will always unfairly judge them against the first long lost draft.
I did this recently with a scene from chapter twenty five of Magic Monsters Dominions and Destiny. It was a lovely scene, that I spent the better part of a day working on, getting the interactions between the two characters just right (not easy when they're both ancient Egyptian spirits having a deep discussion about their place in the world next to noisy London roadworks). And then through the deviance of the copy/paste feature (yes, all right, and my own stupidity) it was gone - vanished in a puff of binary, lost to the forest of cyberspace.
I was distraught, and immediately started redoing it, in the hopes that some of the lingering inspiration would help me reclaim what I had lost. But as the words were pounded into the Word Document, I could feel the smooth syrupy flow becoming sticky, and that magnificent inspiration evaporated. I stared at my new scene, a shadow of something beautiful and great, and I wept.
Dramatic, I know, but surely understandable to a degree? You wouldn't ask a painter to redo a piece of their artwork exactly the same as before if someone knocked their jam jar of water onto it, would you? Because it would never be exactly the same as the last piece - it would have a completely different kind of energy and feeling to it. It is the same for writing. Each piece of creativity that we authors undertake is unique, and cannot be replaced or replicated to the same standard that it was before. And certainly, when most of us have several hundred thousand words under our belts, it would be downright cruel to make us try.
So I was understandably horrified today at lunchtime when I plugged in my memory stick to do a little bit of editing over my sandwich, and found that the computer refused to recognise my USB device, telling me that it would run faster on another USB port. Sensing something amiss with this, I tried the second USB port, which yielded the far more alarming message that my USB device had malfunctioned and could not be fixed. Doing my very best not to panic, I put the memory stick away and went back to my sandwich, hoping that my laptop would be able to assist me when I got home.
I feel it necessary to clarify at this moment, that this wasn't one or two current projects that I was fussing over. Oh no. This memory stick is the primary location for all of my stories written in the last six years. And I mean all of them. It contains research, character sheets, plot summaries and timelines, and so many notes, in addition to proper grown up stuff, like the most up to date version of my CV. Now this may sound like a stupid idea, to keep all of my important things in one easily breakable location, but it's simply the most practical option for me. I write everywhere. I write at home. I write in Costa on Saturdays. I do editing at lunchtimes at my desk. I write in airports while I'm waiting for planes. I write on my laptop, a desktop computer and my netbook. It is simply not convenient for me to keep my writing on one computer.
I make regular back ups of my files to my laptop, netbook, spare memory stick, and even email important chapters to myself, just in case. But suddenly all these seemed insufficient in the face of losing my memory stick. I couldn't remember the last time I'd done a back up - it certainly hadn't been since last weekend when I made that all important progress on chapter twenty one, and I was pretty sure it hadn't been before I'd done that all important connecting scene in draft two of my novel. The prospect of having to start all those wonderful scenes all over again, never quite reaching the same quality as before, sent me into a state of near hysteria. And sure enough, plugging the memory stick into my laptop earlier this evening yielded the same messages. Malfunctioned. Not recognised. Nice job breaking it, dumbass.
I entered full on panic mode as I ripped the memory stick out of the second USB port and plugged it into number three of four. This time, I was rewarded. Access! To my precious precious files! How could I have been so callous as to not back them up sooner? I immediately copy/pasted everything to my laptop, holding my breath as the little green bar crawled slowly across the page, the estimated timer getting higher and higher until I was sure that at least one of my files must be corrupted. Then finally, peace. My heart resumed normal beating pace. Which was just as well, since my hand then accidentally brushed the memory stick as I sank gratefully onto my bed, and the computer suddenly realised what it had done, rejecting the device so hard you'd have thought it were carrying the computer equivalent of the Ebola virus. But it didn't matter - the files were safe on my laptop. I promptly backed everything up again onto my spare memory stick, and emailed the most important documents to myself. Crisis temporarily averted.
If you take anything away from my outpouring of concentrated relief, let it be this. Back ups are your friends. Your very best friends. And you cannot have enough of them. Buy memory sticks. Make sure that they are good quality. And back up everything. Even stuff that you don't think you will use. During NaNoWriMo, you are advised to back up your novel once a week. I'm starting to think that this isn't overcautious at all. In fact, why don't you go do it now. I'm ending this blog post anyway. So off you go. Back it up, and thank me later.
Have you ever read a Six/Eleven fic? Do you want to? (Yami Yugi/Tea Gardner) Yes I have – it wasn’t a bad fic. I prefer Peachshipping though.
Do you think four is hot? How hot? (Yami Bakura) Heck yes!
What would happen if Twelve got Eight pregnant? (Tristan got Joey pregnant) I think Joey would utterly freak out – he’s not mature enough yet to be a father, let alone give birth! Tristan would probably freak out too, but he’d calm down quicker, and start trying to think of a solution.
Can you recall any fics about Nine? (Kisara) YES! Most of them involve Seto Kaiba or his Egyptian counterpart, but I have read a very good fic involving her and Thief King Bakura – it was rather hot.
Would Two and Six make a good couple? (Marik Ishtar and Yami Yugi) Hmm...enemies turned friends they may be, but I don’t think they’d make a good couple. Yami would try to be the dominant one in the relationship, and I have a feeling that Marik would not stand for that.
Five/Nine or Five/Ten? Why? (Yami Marik/Kisara or Yami Marik/Mai Valentine) Both options are equally horrifying, though if forced I’d take the first one, simply because Kisara is the Blue Eyes White Dragon, and I don't think she'd take any shit from Yami Marik, where as Mai has genuine psychological scarring courtesy of him.
What would happen if Seven walked in on Two and Twelve having sex? (if Seto Kaiba walked in on Marik Ishtar and Tristan Taylor) Pffff! The only reason I can think that Seto Kaiba would walk in on ANYONE having sex is if they were having sex in his office on a dare, so he’d probably yell at them to get the hell out of his office...ooh that sounds like a hilarious idea for a fic!
Make up a summary for a Three/Ten fic. (Yugi Mutou/Mai Valentine) "He had been ready to hold back. Been afraid to give the duel his all. But she had told him to look in the mirror and face his fears. She had been a true duellist today. He owed her an explanation. And a thank you." ....>.< I'm shit at summaries!
Is there any such thing as One/Eight fluff? (Ryou Bakura/Joey Wheeler) Probably. I haven’t read any though.
Suggest a title for a Seven/Twelve hurt/comfort fic. (Seto Kaiba/Tristan Taylor) o.O Seriously? Probably something along the lines of ‘Cheerleader’.
What kind of plot would you use of you wanted Four to deflower One? (Yami Bakura to deflower Ryou Bakura) Who needs plot when the smut is this hot?!
Does anyone on your friends list read Three het? (Yugi Mutou) Yup! I do too! Mostly involving him and Tea. They are so cute I should have cavities!
Does anyone on your friends list write or draw Eleven? (Tea Gardner) A few people write her, but not many. There’s a very unfortunate culture of Tea-bashers out there in the world, which makes me sad.
Would anyone on your friends list write Two/Four/Five? (Marik Ishtar/Yami Bakura/Yami Marik) None of my friends would I don’t think – I totally would if I could think of a plot.
What might Ten scream at a moment of great passion? (Mai Valentine) Joey!
If you wrote a songfic about Eight, what song would you choose? (Joey Wheeler) Really struggled with this. In my head, it's Joey and Mai post Orichalcos, and the song is 'Forgiven' by Within Temptation.
If you wrote a One/Six/Twelve fic, what would the warning be? (Ryou Bakura/Yami Yugi/Tristan Taylor) Erm...warning for dangerous hair?
What might be a good pick up line for Ten to use on Two? (Mai Valentine/Marik Ishtar) "Are you tanned everywhere?" I was informed by the boyfriend that "Is that a Millennium Rod in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?" was far too obvious.
When was the last time you read a fic about Five? (Yami Marik) As the protagonist? Not for a very long time – it was a het smut, I remember that. BUT he is a bad guy in my crossover, and I'm LOVING writing him.
What is Six's super secret kink? (Yami Yugi) I think leather is more Yugi’s kink. For some reason I can see our favourite Pharaoh being partial to a bit of skinnydipping (if someone writes this, I will love them forever).
Would Eleven shag Nine? Drunk or sober? (Tea Gardner and Kisara) Erm...possibly. More likely with alcohol though.
If Three and Seven get together, who tops? (Yugi Mutou and Seto Kaiba) Kaiba. Though since he’s all limbs, maybe Yugi should be on top for safety's sake...
(1) and (7) are in a happy relationship until (9) runs off with (4). (1), brokenhearted, has a hot one-night stand with (11) and a brief unhappy affair with (12), then follows the wise advice of (5) and finds true love with (3).
(Ryou Bakura) and (Seto Kaiba) are in a happy relationship until (Kisara) runs off with (Yami Bakura). (Ryou Bakura) brokenhearted, has a hot one-night stand with (Tea Gardner) and a brief unhappy affair with (Tristan Taylor), then follows the wise advice of (Yami Marik) and finds true love with (Yugi Mutou).
The first sentence actually makes a weird kind of sense, if you're a Tendershipper and a Blueshipper, but I think the thing that scares me most in this scenario is the concept of Yami Marik giving wise advice. o.O
I feel like there should be an air raid siren sounding
ominously somewhere in the distance. People scurrying for the bunkers as the
first phallic shaped planes fly overhead, dropping leather bombs and
heat-seeking sex toy missiles, while a parade of inner goddesses sing like a
choir of inappropriately dressed angels in the background.
Or maybe that’s just the sound of a thousand critics
simultaneously giving up on the human race and committing seppuku.
I made no secret of my opinions of Fifty Shades of Grey
when I first read it. I read fanfiction every day – it’s been a part of my life
for ten years, and I thought that I’d been exposed to the worst that writing
had to offer me, until I read this book. I only read the first one, because I
decided that subjecting myself to anymore of such epically bad writing would be
tantamount to self flagellation. I had no problems with the content, like some people
did – I seem to recall describing the sex scenes and cliché and trite. I had no
qualms about the book’s humble origins as Twilight fanfiction, like some people
did – as I have indicated, I’ve been on fanfiction for years. I embrace the
adopting of it into mainstream media (though I seem to recall lamenting that
this book would be the introduction of so many people to such a wonderful and
unique community).
No my issues began with the characters, the primary of
which was that Ana is such a fucking boring protagonist. If story characters
are meant to grow like a tree sprouting out of the ground, then Ana grows like
a carrot – backwards into the earth. By the end of the story, she’s learned no
lesson from her mishaps, and she’s just as naive, frustrating and unlikable as
she was at the start – possibly more so, because you’ve wasted hours of your
life reading the book and you resent her for it. But even if she’d been the
most engaging character on the planet, it wouldn’t have mattered, because it’s
been a while since I read such epically dire writing. I speak no hyperbole when
I say that I have read fanfictions by fourteen year olds which had a better grasp
of sentence structure. And for the love of God, someone buy the author a
thesaurus before she has the chance to write anything else!
It’s important for me to reiterate my opinions of the
book here, in order to lend some context to my thoughts going into the trailer.
Like most of the literary minded community, I’d been silently weeping since
they announced that they were making a movie out of the book, and so the
presence of the trailer sent an immediate shudder of disgust through me, before
I’d even clicked on the link. I did try to view it as an entirely separate being,
and make myself forget that the book ever existed in order to judge the trailer
on it’s own merits. But that’s impossible – the stain of the book is just too
large to ignore on the underpants of this movie, so I’m just going to review it
with the knowledge, and see how I feel at the end.
First impressions are slick and shiny (rather how I
imagine the actors will look at the end of every sex scene). A lot of effort
seems to have been made to make this movie full of visual impact, which would
make sense given the nature of this story. The locations are crisp and modern,
with deep colours or flawless chromes. And while we’re on the subject of things
we can absorb with our eyes, okay guys, we get the picture – scene one and you’ve
dressed Ana in something visually reminiscent of a schoolgirl, holding a year
four exercise book to depict her innocence at the beginning of the story. Aren’t
you clever?
Any hopes I might have had that Ana might find some pools
of depth for this movie are being swiftly dashed. She seems as bland and
unlikeable as she is in the books. Actually Christian is drawing my eye more,
and I think that’s because he’s provoking the correct reaction from me – to lamp
him one in the face. He appears, for all intents and purposes in this trailer,
to be a smarmy prick, which is exactly what he was in the books, so full marks
for casting there. None the less, it seems that any chemistry there might be
one sided. They can give each other those intense stares all the way through
the trailer, but the actress playing Ana is still going to have to work really
hard to convince me that she’s actually into this.
The actual sex looks as though it might possibly have
been done with some taste, which is surprising since the book had none. In
keeping with the visually slick style, everything looks clean and tidy and not
in the least bit dirty. I don’t know if this is just Hollywood trying not to
turn us all off with realism, or if it’s just them trying to stick to their
visual style consistently. The trailer actually makes an effort to convince us
that there is plot in this story, and not just an endless string of sex scenes,
and I have to give it it’s due – if I hadn’t read the books, I’d actually think
that this might be going somewhere.
Never mind the details though. Let’s just get to the
ultimate question.
Did the trailer make me want to see the movie?
Well yes, and not just because I wanted to since I first
heard about it. Morbid fascination is a factor here, but I am genuinely
interested to see what they can do with such a terrible story. I don’t like
being disappointed by movies, contrary to what some people might believe. And I
must give things a chance to surprise me. That’s not to say that I won’t be
taking this movie with a pinch of salt – more a mountain of the stuff.
I have to admit, that for all the praise and abuse that
got heaped at the book, the people who’ve made the movie seem to have tried
really really hard to treat it as a serious film. In fact if you don’t think
about the book for a moment, the film almost seems respectable in a strange way
– a genuine effort to make something engaging with a proper plot and characters
that you might actually grow to care about. But at the end of the day, the
cynic in me sees this movie for what it really is – an effort to cash in on a
book that has no right to be as popular as it is.
Actually, taking the trailer as read, it seems as though
more of the focus has been dedicated to the relationship between the
characters, rather than the sexual nature (although that doesn’t seem to have
been skimped on either). But what good is that going to be, when Ana is about
as engaging as a ham and cheese sandwich? If this is the case, and they have
tried to sell this more as a romance than a fuck fest, then I will at least be
able to give them props for trying to improve the source material. But then
again, this is a trailer, and if history has taught us anything it’s that
trailers lie to us more than a cheating spouse. So I will take my mountain of
salt with me to the cinema, and I will take everything that this movie gives me
with a spoonful of it.
If I don’t come out at the end, someone ring an
ambulance?
“It’s not your country, so you don’t have the right to get
upset or have an opinion about this. It’s not going to affect you.”
This was what I was told the other day when I brought up
the subject of the US Supreme Court’s decision to allow companies to refuse to
pay for employee’s medicine based on their religious beliefs. At the time I
took it to be an inefficient and laughable attempt to close this debate because
the person was unable to come up with a counter argument for my point. In the
end, we agreed to disagree, and left it at that.
But thinking back on it two days later, I realise the
unfortunate implications of this statement, and I’m appalled by them. Well,
nobody said I was quick at picking up on this sort of thing, but better late
than never I guess.
Thinking about it, this is an argument that I’ve been on
the receiving end of a lot. When a good fifty percent of my friends are not
resident in the UK (and most of them are indeed, American), it’s inevitable
that the subject of our country’s policies comes up eventually. And I like a
good debate. I like watching two sides duke it out, either butting heads like
furious rhinos, or one side crumbling like a soggy biscuit. But I also like
being a part of them. I like getting passionate about my own opinion, and yes,
I like the sound of my own voice.
I’ve never liked the “you don’t live here, so therefore
you can’t have an opinion” argument, mostly because I always think that if
that’s your only defence left to you, then you’ve pretty much lost the fight –
it’s like invoking Godwin’s law only with less Nazis. I can see the basis for
this argument. It’s very difficult to have a clear view of a country and its
make-up when you’re an outsider looking in – heck, being an insider looking in
often isn’t enough given how diverse the average culture is and how many levels
make up society. There are so many sides to a story that it is impossible to
generalise them all into a blueprint of the entire patch of land. I might get
very upset as an outsider that American women are having more and more
obstacles thrown up in the way of their sexual freedom and health all in the
name of religion and freedom to express your belief, but maybe there’s a side
to this argument that I’m just not seeing from my privileged position as a
judging foreigner.
So let’s pretend that everyone who’s ever said to me that
I’m not allowed an opinion on a country that I don’t live in, is correct. For
the next five minutes, if it doesn’t affect me or my country, then I’m not
allowed to care or have an opinion about it.
I’m not allowed to care that over seven hundred people
are dying in West Africa from the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded. When I
think of how many families that are being torn apart as their loved ones are
put into a unit of isolation where only ten percent of infected will survive, I’m
not allowed to feel sad for the woman crying over her children, or the little
boy weeping for his father as he coughs and vomits up blood.
I’m not allowed to care that there are still about two
hundred girls between the ages of sixteen and eighteen missing in Nigeria,
kidnapped from their school by terrorists while they sat their exams, being
sold off at this very moment as wives or sex slaves. I’m not allowed to care
about how scared they must all be feeling, and how much despair they must be
experiencing as each day goes by with no sight of rescue.
I’m not allowed to care that in a few months a woman will
inevitably be beaten to death outside a sexual health clinic in Massachusetts
by a petitioner who’s being there was sanctioned in the name of freedom of
speech. Why would I? I don’t live there.
I’m not allowed to care that in five countries in the
world men can still be put to death for being gay. I’m not allowed to care that,
until last year, domestic violence against women and children was perfectly
legal in Saudi Arabia. I’m not allowed to care that in the last few weeks the
news has been peppered with reports of teenage boys being murdered in the
Middle East.
It’s not my country.
...
Look me in the eye and tell me that you did not hate the person I was just pretending to be.
So don’t anyone ever tell me again that I’m not allowed
to care or have an opinion about something, just because it’s happening in a
country that isn’t mine.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have belly dancing to prepare
for. Good evening.
It's getting to the end of another Camp Nanowrimo, and as I limp the last few thousand words to the finish line, I'm struck by how hard it's been this time around. Oh sure, it's had the usual hiccups of Nano - procrastination, things cropping up, my own stupidity of running two big projects side by side - but there's something that has been nagging at me for a while, and only now have I fully realised what it is.
When I was planning out the first five months of the year, and setting myself lots of lovely deadlines to teach myself discipline, I was very careful about Camp Nano. I normally have dilemmas on what to write, normally winding up with two ideas and being unable to pick between them. In this case, I was torn between two of my really old pieces of work, that in the last few years have been pulled out, dusted off and begged to be properly revamped: Shadow Summoners, an Ancient Egypt based Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic that had a pretty solid plot behind it but suffered from terrible writing when I first came up with the idea seven years ago. And So This Is, my first foray into chick lit, which ended up staggering to a halt on fictionpress once I reached university. In this case, the characters were pretty well formed, but the plotline was lacking something.
I started prodding at Shadow Summoners back in 2012 during Nano, and I ended up running both projects side by side. So This Is, ended up being my Camp Nano in July 2013, so in both cases, I would be adding to the word count, rather than starting straight from the beginning. I had plenty of inspiration for both of them, and I was sure that they would both be able to carry me through April with no difficulties. But which to choose?
I looked at all my projects from January to March and realised that, while I loved them all, most of what I was writing was dramatic and full of death. This isn't terribly surprising for me. Anyone who's read my stories is well aware that I have a proclivity for murdering the human race, and even on occasions when I've withheld that particular urge, death is still a constant companion of my stories. Anyone can die and often they do. Even my fanfiction crossover series, which has one of the lowest death counts in my history of writing, features a particular nasty death at the end which reduced me to a steady stream of tears as I typed it out.
So I took all of this in, and realised that it would probably be better for my mental well-being (on tenderhooks these days thanks to my stupid thyroid) if I wrote something a bit more cheerful, and so I naturally pounced on So This Is. It's chick lit, I thought. Plenty of happy teenage problems to blow out of proportion, and fluff so sweet that you develop cavities. Sure, there will probably be a few emotional moments, but most of them will be positive, because that's the kind of genre it is. What's not to be happy about?
I am the world's stupidest author.
Chick lit is a million times more emotionally gruelling than the most nightmarish apocalypse. And I think it's to do with the reality of the chick lit genre. It's knowing as you write that somewhere in real life, someone is being verbally cut down to size by the school's queen bitch until she breaks down into a paranoid, anxiety fuelled mess. Somewhere out there, someone's grandfather is being diagnosed with dementia, and she's miserably wondering if she should have cared enough to notice sooner. Someone's ten year old brother is dying of leukaemia. Someone's mother is contemplating risky behaviour just because she doesn't want to have another baby. This isn't just something happening in a story. These are real problems, that everyone can go through.
It's miserable.
I haven't cried this much over a story since Magic Monsters Dominions and Destiny. And the ten year old brother hasn't even died yet, which I know is going to be the most difficult scene of the lot. Nothing prepares you for the gut wrenching moment when you have to pull these character's lives apart. Every character needs to be pulled apart and built back up in a story - that's how they grow. But there's something about doing it in chick lit, and knowing the reality of these kinds of situations, and the normalcy of the characters that just hurts you a little bit more. Or maybe it's simply that in chick lit the death is more personal because you have to become so intimate with these characters in a different way than you perhaps would in another type of genre. Chick lit has a more personal emotional heart to it, and maybe that's why it hurts more.
All I can say is, once So This Is is over, I will not be writing chick lit again for a while. It takes a stronger author than me to properly do justice to this sort of writing, and I need a proper break from so much death and misery.
Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to get on with my magical girl cosplay. At least that's light hearted and cheerful.
