How I got here

I remember the day vividly. It was brisk, close to the end of April and the city was begging for warmth. Drones of vitamin deficient university students counting down the days until their last final. Prior to that I'd never giving fan fiction much thought. I'd read it on nights when I couldn't sleep, or needed a way to escape, but I couldn't picture myself ever putting pen to paper. To be fair I've always written. I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't consider myself a writer. Novels, short stories, plays, poems, even the occasional comic book, there's nothing I didn't try once. Really my curiosity started a few months earlier. I'd spoken to a writer on tumblr and asked why she chose fan fiction. I tried to keep an open mind as I waited for her response. When it came, it was simple: people read it. I was floored by how logical that was! People will read it because they're already invested in it. Amazed, I sat down and hammered out a few pages of a piece I also have posted on here. It was more an experiment than anything, to see if I had what it took. That piece didn't go anywhere, I had very few readers and overall it felt so forced.

I can't tell you exactly what inspired any of what I've written so far, but that day, the brisk one in April, I'd gone to a watch a dance competition and came home late with no desire to sleep. That's the night I met Beatrice. I say met because as cliche and overemotional as it may seem, she's more than a character to me. She's a combination of so many people and feelings. She exists to me. I find myself thinking "oh I can totally see Bea loving that" as I wander through the mall. I reckon that's how I know I'm knee deep in it. Anyway, I set out to improve my skills and have my work read initially, but as I read my first romance novels (It was the summer of harlequin, I'm not proud) I noticed a trend amoung the female characters. They all seemed so similar, with issues they didn't discuss and a fear of commitment. I decided I wanted to make Beatrice different. I wanted to break the rules of romance. I wanted her to believe in something, but be greatly flawed and terrifyingly realistic.

When I set out to write this, I had no expectations, no experience in this genera, and no idea what I was doing when it came to sexytime scenes. Today I can't begin to imagine an end, I still suck at sexytime, but I have people who want to see what I write.

Thank You.
October 9th, 2013 at 03:48am