On Writing... fan-fiction

Fan-fiction provides a chance for fans to immerse themselves in their chosen universe beyond the limits of official canon. For the reader it offers all-new stories featuring much-loved characters, but what does it offer the budding writer? Is it nothing more than a waste of time, or can it provide valuable exercise?

(For my personal background to this article, and my own effort at writing some fan-fiction, please refer to my earlier post: Sacrificial: A (Star Wars) short story.)

As I discussed in the above-mentioned article my initial gut reaction to the thought of writing a Star Wars story was something along the lines of: '...mere fan-fiction? why waste my time on that?'. Obviously I ignored my gut and wrote the story anyway. Why? What could this endeavour possibly offer me when I've got plenty of my own stories crying out to be written?

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Mar 5th 2010 15:13 // On Writing // No comments

Sacrificial: A (Star Wars) short story

Welcome to my first (published (sort of)) attempt at writing some fan-fiction. This may, in fact, be the only time I make such an effort, so enjoy it while you can - or before George Lucas notices and demands his share of the vast profits I will doubtless reap from this enterprise.

My original plan was to write a lengthy post exploring the ins and outs of fan-fiction, with my own entry providing a sort of epilogue to the piece. However, I decided: sod it - let my story stand on its own. There's not meant to be any suggestion there that Sacrificial is such an evolutionary step in the world of fan-fiction that it couldn't possibly be diluted by any other content. To the contrary, I think the proposed examination of fan-fiction itself will probably be more interesting, and to include vague witterings about why I'm writing a story featuring Princess Leia would probably distract.

So I'm putting all those witterings here.

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Mar 4th 2010 09:01 // Shorts // No comments

RSS Update

There's been a fair bit of 'dicking around' with the RSS feeds on the site these last few days. Now that most of the work is done here's an update on where to point your RSS readers.

To access the main RSS feed for this site look no further than http://www.edpriceishungry.com/rss/ (the previously available URLs http://www.edpriceishungry.com/feed/ and http://www.edpriceishungry.com/feed/all/ will also still work). At present the main feed is provided by Feedburner, but the above URL now automatically redirects to Feedburner, so there's no need to use any other link.

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Mar 2nd 2010 12:52 // Miscilliness // No comments

Preventing comment spam

Comment spam is one of the great scourges of the internet, which is why there are so many measures available to counter it. Some are more effective than others, some introduce more problems than they fix. Here I outline a few of the techniques that seem to have worked on this particular blog.

As far as I understand it, comment spam can be broken into three main methods:

1. Human: a genuine, real live person actually sits there and types a spam message into your comment form – unsurprisingly this is the least common form
2. Bot: an automated script scans your website, finds your comment form, generates a spam message and posts it to your site
3. Harvester: yet another script scans your website, finds your comment form and copies it – days, weeks or months later the offsite copy of your form is used to start submitting spam messages to your site

We’ll look at some methods for combating each of these in turn.

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Feb 24th 2010 16:19 // Web Design // 2 comments

Beating the blank page

Here's a quick tip that might help you if you have that age-old writer's problem: fear of the blank page. It's a very simple, practical way of making sure your encounters with the blank page are as brief and painless as possible.

The original title for this post? "Beating vacansopapurosophobia" (which, of course, means fear of blank paper). That headline would be enough to scare anyone away, so we'll just stick to the everyday wordage for now. Still, at least writing the above excuse has ploughed me nearly a hundred words into this particular blank page.

The blank page is the writer's worst enemy and best friend. It's a fearsome barrier that holds the promise of your greatest ever writing. You can spend hours, perhaps even days, starting at that white space while your brain picks over and rejects those first words, while you tear yourself apart with the certainty that what you actually end up writing will be a pale shadow of the genius that really lurks inside your head.

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Feb 21st 2010 13:18 // On Writing // No comments

Make the right choice, Mr Conroy

The following post is an open letter To Senator Stephen Conroy on the subject of the proposed mandatory internet filter. I will be sending slightly modified versions of this to Conroy, to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, to my local representative and to anyone else with a significant influence upon the internet filter.

Along with many other Australian residents I am deeply concerned about the proposed mandatory internet filter, as announced on December 15, 2009. It is my belief, and I am far from alone in this, that the filter will do little to protect the people it is designed to protect, will do nothing to prevent people from accessing illegal material if they want to, and represents a serious breach of civil liberties.

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Feb 17th 2010 13:28 // Miscilliness // 2 comments

The Gamer: defamed, defiled, reviled

Partly a response to Caroline Overton's ill-judged defamation of every single gamer on the planet, but also a look at the way twitter, and the internet in general, enables readers to hold journalists, writers and other publishers of irresponsible and objectionable material to account.

Let's start off with a few choice quotes from award-winning investigative journalist Caroline Overington:

"...anyone over the age of 30 who spends any time deep in some sagging sofa, console in one hand, the other down the front of their pants, imagining themselves to be a combatant in some pretend city, is lame.
...
I know what you're thinking. Gamers, who cares? They don't participate in life in any meaningful way. As a rule, they don't even have jobs."

- Caroline Overington, The Australian, February 11, 2010 (source)

You can read the full article by following the link above (or right here if you're just a bit lazy; a gamer, perhaps?). It's not my aim to dissect Overington's article line by line as I'm certain that anyone with even the smallest measure of intelligence can work out where someone might take offence and why. What does bear pointing out is that fact that here we have an award-winning investigative journalist publishing what is quite probably the laziest piece of writing I have ever cast my eyes over. What is equally shocking is that Overington has actually been paid to write this.

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Feb 15th 2010 22:20 // Miscilliness // No comments

On writing (or not)

In which I pledge to write more, make excuses for not writing enough, and (almost) marvel at those occasions when writing stops being the mere act of hammering out words and becomes something more

Almost every year I make a vow to myself that "this year I'm going to take my writing seriously". Naturally, almost every year I end up writing less than I did the previous year, but I think a whole lot about writing, and I also think a whole lot about not writing. This year it looks like I might actually succeeed in doing some good, honest, possibly rambly, maybe readable writing. It's exciting. You can tell I'm excited because, well, I'm telling you.

There's a genuine and practical reason for this post. For the last few months I've been quietly going - well, quietly unless you follow me on twitter, in which case I've been harping on relentlessly - about producing a few short stories on the assumption that once I start that ball rolling it'll carry on by itself. That's more or less the case, but I feel sufficiently confident now that I can make a vague commitment (by the mere act of saying so in public) that I intend to continue writing with some regularity from hereon.

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Feb 11th 2010 16:05 // On Writing // 2 comments

Words as Weapons

(or why Tony Abbott is an enormous knobend*)

"What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up."

- Tony Abbott (February 08, 2010) (full story)

"I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question ... [virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving, and don't give it to someone lightly."

- Tony Abbott (January 27, 2010) (full story)

In the last few weeks opposition leader Tony Abbott has managed to draw a generous number of headlines not through anything he's done, but through a couple of things he's said (see above). It's been a fascinating thing to watch from the sidelines, in large part because under very close analysis there's actually very little wrong with the content of what he says.

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Feb 9th 2010 20:57 // Miscilliness // 1 Comment

Why I don't watch broadcast TV

A somewhat extended whinge about why TV in Australia is so awful and I why I don't bother watching it anymore.

About a week ago I noticed an advert on one of the major channels here for the new version of the lizard-tastic V. It looked fairly interesting, but my overriding thought was: "Yeah, it looks good but there's no way I'm watching it on your channel!".

Even though I've been downloading most of my TV for a good few years now, it was my reaction to the V trailer to that made me realise how my viewing habits had irrevocably changed. I know for a fact that I'm not alone. I also know for a fact that if people don't watch broadcast TV then investment is ultimately going to suffer, quality is going to take a nosedive and decent content on TV will probably enter the halls of legend. So, why don't I watch broadcast TV?

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Feb 2nd 2010 12:48 // Miscilliness // No comments