Life as Geek

My mom and I are both writers. She’s just getting into fiction after working mainly in non-fiction for most of her life, and I’m failing to stay on task for actually getting any writing done at all, so we’re trying to arrange a weekly reading and critique of each other’s work. This is hard for both of us – both because we have difficult schedules and because neither of us is terribly comfortable showing other people our “beta” work, which is what this would be.

So, the first order of business was to decide what kind of writing we should work on. My mom isn’t working on any particular projects right now, so she needs to figure out some ideas, maybe a short story starter book or something for writing exercises. I want to work on finishing a book, but the question is, which one? I have about 7 totally different book ideas, all of which I’ve at least started a basic outline for and written a few chapters. » Read the rest of this entry «

There are some people who believe that there are two kinds of writers in this world – real and fan fiction. While, granted, there is a lot of bad fan fiction out there, there’s also a far bit of horrible “real” fiction, so it seems to me that the stigma of writing fan fiction must have more to do with the idea itself than the products that come out of it. This is something that strikes me as unwarranted.

I write fan fiction. There, I said it. I’m also a published author, and yes, I do think there’s a connection. So let me share my top few reasons why I think writing fan fiction can be worthwhile and even really helpful for any budding fiction writer. » Read the rest of this entry «