I'd forgotten how nice it is to take some time off and just relax at the local public library. Two summers ago I was practically an afternoon resident at Mid-Continent. I hadn't been reading that much since I was a little kid. Rediscovering the joy of reading has been cruical in the past few years for me.
I unearthed one of my favorite books from my parent's house while visiting for Christmas: On Writing - A memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. It's one of his few non-fiction books, which is a strange hybrid of autobiography and theories on writing. It was the first thing I ever read by King, and that was back when I truly hated his guts. I was forced to read it by Dr. Egan for Expository Writing. After reading it though, my opinion completely flipped. This was before I really understood the horror genre as well, and reading his book opened a door leading to a universe that I had been so afraid to enter for nearly all of my childhood. Now as an adult, it's someplace I frequently visit.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
January 17, 2009
January 13, 2009
Professionalism: To Write or Not to Write?
An incident happened to me on Christmas Day that's brought an old battle of mine rising to the surface of my mind.
I won't go into too much detail save to say that someone anonymously posted a handful of flames** on a fan fiction story that I posted. Normally this kind of thing wouldn't bother me, because you typically get lots of "trolls" who will come across your work and seem to get a sadistic pleasure from making you upset. But this particular person I knew, so it was surprising to say the least to see them do that.
Not wanting to cause unnecessary drama, I quickly removed the story to destroy the comments. This was done in immediate reaction to the comments posted and had I known what I know now, I wouldn't have been so quick to remove it. A friend informed me about some new features I wasn't aware of. Apparently you can get rid of anonymous reviews without deleting the story in the process. It used to be (some 5 years ago) that wasn't possible, but the site itself where I post has seen many upgrades in their technology.
Bearing that in mind, to the subject at hand.
Saying the word "fan" tends to drive up a bunch of images in a person's mind - watch the "Nerd" on Robot Chicken and you'll see what I mean. And add on the "fiction" part and you can say goodbye to any hope of gaining any shred of dignity from the average Joe on the street. Or is that really true?
I won't go into too much detail save to say that someone anonymously posted a handful of flames** on a fan fiction story that I posted. Normally this kind of thing wouldn't bother me, because you typically get lots of "trolls" who will come across your work and seem to get a sadistic pleasure from making you upset. But this particular person I knew, so it was surprising to say the least to see them do that.
Not wanting to cause unnecessary drama, I quickly removed the story to destroy the comments. This was done in immediate reaction to the comments posted and had I known what I know now, I wouldn't have been so quick to remove it. A friend informed me about some new features I wasn't aware of. Apparently you can get rid of anonymous reviews without deleting the story in the process. It used to be (some 5 years ago) that wasn't possible, but the site itself where I post has seen many upgrades in their technology.
Bearing that in mind, to the subject at hand.
Saying the word "fan" tends to drive up a bunch of images in a person's mind - watch the "Nerd" on Robot Chicken and you'll see what I mean. And add on the "fiction" part and you can say goodbye to any hope of gaining any shred of dignity from the average Joe on the street. Or is that really true?
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