Happy Birthday Fairyblood’s Fantasies
Three years ago I read “Dead and Gone”(Book 9) by Charlaine Harris. My addiction to the Southern Vampire Mysteries was already established from “Dead Until Dark”(Book 1), and I needed a fix to tie me over until “Dead in the Family” which was going to come out in a year. Jonesing for more of anything SVM related, I happen to stumble upon Fanfiction on the True Blood Wiki. Fanfiction? What was that?
I read “Let Love In” by Terri Botta and I was hooked. My voracious appetite for more of my favourite fictional characters was finally sated. Yet, I still wanted more, and thankfully there was …a whole lot more! Fanfiction gave me more action, more mystery, more romance, more humour, and a hellova lot more smut aka lemons.
Though I have read other fandoms, SVM & True Blood have been my favourite; it is my home. After an exodus of authors left fanfiction.net a few years ago, I found myself signed up to half a dozen blog sites in order to continue reading from my favourite authors. So two years ago on March 1, 2010; it occurred to me to pass on recommended reading to my friends and have a little fun so I started “Fairyblood’s Fantasies” on LiveJournal then Wordpress and finally to my main site on Blogger.
So Happy Birthday my little Blog Baby!
Oh Eric! That is very nice and all but it is only a blog …save it for MY birthday !!….What am I saying? Go ahead, Honey, and show us what you got!
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Though Charlaine Harris’s Books are at the heart of my love for the characters and stories, the fanfic writers have given me so much too. I have seen so much talent inspired by SVM and True Blood that I feel those writers should also get some recognition and loads of attention.
Eric will be delivering each of you your very own t-shirt!
In this post I would like to highlight some Fanfiction news with some interesting articles and some information. I am currently reading loads of fanfics and can’t wait to give some recommendations. I have updated my “Currently Reading” list on the sidebar of my blogger site here. Many thanks to Vamplover669 ~ I will be talking about those wonderful recommendations!
Blog Recomendations:
I love book bloggers, and I follow quite a few. I read many genres, but I adore urban fantasy and paranormal romances. Book bloggers are a fantastic way for authors to get there books advertised and for us readers to get the skinny of release dates and reviews.
Recently, I have had the pleasure of meeting Jena from Pure Textuality who was a guest in the Fangreaders Chatroom. Some of the authors in our fandom have been published or are looking to be published. So we are having a series of chats about all aspects of writing, editing, publishing, and promoting. Jena gave us an incredible amount of information of the relationship between publicists and book bloggers as well as her experiences in self-publishing.
Pure Textuality is a fantastic place to find reviews from all sorts of genres with her wonderful group of reviewers. She has a clear rating system, but also the reviews are very informative yet do not spoil reading the book.
I would also like to recommend her section on Fanfiction. Yes, she has a section where she has started to review Fanfiction! So far she has:
FANFICTION REVIEWS:Dead Wrong by Meg2 (Southern Vampire Mysteries)
Put Me First by AlphaEN (Southern Vampire Mysteries)
Eric and the Witches of Shreveport by Merick (Southern Vampire Mysteries)
If you are interested in having your completed fanfic reviewed properly and honestly, I would suggest dropping Jena a line to have it reviewed: puretextuality@gmail.com . You can also follow the site on Twitter @PureTextuality
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From one of my favourite book blogs that has some interesting articles, I would suggest having a look at Dear Author (http://dearauthor.com).
Though Fanfiction has been around for a long time, it seems not be ignored anymore by publishers. There have been some articles recently about Fanfiction that I thought should be passed on. Stay tuned to Dear Author, because they are going to be posting more aspects of fanfiction and publishing.From the Dear Author Blog
Mar 15 2012Fan Fiction: A Personal Perspective
By Jan • Essays • 4 • Tags: fan-fiction~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mar 14 2012
How I Came to Appreciate Fan Fiction
By Sunita • Essays • 47 • Tags: fan-fiction, genre criticism, m/m~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mar 13 2012
Master of the Universe versus Fifty Shades by E.L James Comparison
By Jane • Publishing News • 158 • Tags: Copyright, fan-fictionromance, slash, writing
After mentioning to a couple of authors recently, I realised it has been awhile since I spoke about Archive of Our Own. For any Fanfic author or reader out there, I can not recommend this site enough. Yes, some of you will say “It’s been in Beta forever”. Yes, it has, but it has been ever-evolving. It is a project by The Organization of Transformative Works which started in October 2008 to create an archive for fanfics and fanmedia. It is being created by volunteers from the ground up to be the finest place to house fanfics and fanmedia. I urge you all to read the Faqs page and see the difference to any other fanfic site. The reasons why I would recommend the site to authors and readers:
- They listen to the fans and the authors to make it the most accessible and user friendly place to enjoy fanfiction.
- Issues such as plagiarism will be handled by the support staff who have clearly stated how such matters will be handled.
- Authors can still keep their stories on Fanfiction.net and add their stories to AO3 by just posting the link to the first page of the first chapter of your story and AO3 will automatically upload your entire story for you.
- The rating system is much clearer plus it allows for a wider range of ratings including E (Explicit) thus readers are clear what sort of material they are about to read.
- Authors can post post a series of fanfics together and a reader can bookmark an entire series with one click.
- One of my favourite perks of AO3 is that readers can download an ereader friendly copy of a story ie. mobi, epub, and pdf. Since I’ve had my ereader for almost 3 years, no longer having to manually copy & paste is such a godsend!
- I think one of the best things about AO3 is that they care and any questions or complaints will be dealt with quickly and fairly.
Now since it is still in Beta form it isn’t open up to everyone straight away. You need an invite which you can ask for on the front page. Though I hear it may take a month to get your invite. I do have some invites left which will get you immediate access, set up your profile, and upload your stories. If you are interested in AO3 please contact me here: http://kontactr.com/user/Fairyblood and I will have the invite sent straight to your email.
Here are some questions & answers from the Faqs pages:
What is the Organization for Transformative Works?From AO3’s Newsletter:
The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms.
Who profits from the formation of OTW?
In a fiscal sense, no one; OTW is a nonprofit organization, so any revenue the organization takes in goes into the organization's coffers to support the work the organization does. The OTW does not currently have any paid staff and is run by volunteers. Our official conflict-of-interest policy is the one recommended by the IRS for nonprofits.
If you have more questions about OTW http://transformativeworks.org/faq
Cool stuff on the Archive!
We celebrated Valentine's Day on the Archive with our Seven Days of Love challenge encouraging more commenting, kudosing, reccing, and creating of works, and with a big Valentine's Day thank you to all the people who make the AO3 awesome.
We're planning to repeat the April Showers Challenge which we ran last year to celebrate under-represented fandoms on the AO3. This year we're hoping to make it more exciting and wide-ranging by getting our users involved with suggesting fandoms to celebrate - stay tuned for more news on this soon.
The coming weekend, we're excited to welcome the Smallville Slash Archive, which is making a new home here on the AO3 as the test case for our Open Doors project. *\0/*
Happy Birthday Naked Eric!
My little gif “Peace, Love and Naked Eric” was born a year ago this month. It was given to me by Vikfangtasies in response to a post I wrote about a year ago “Peace and Love, Man” (http://fairybloodsfantasies.blogspot.com/2011/03/peace-and-love-man.html)
I thought giving a little celebration would help remind everyone that we have a fabulous fandom full of talented writers and spectacular readers. As one of the fanfic articles pointed out, there are many reasons why people write fanfic; some do it to show homage to the original works while others try to work out stories using characters they already feel comfortable with. Some do it just for fun, others do it as a stepping stone to start doing their own works, and then others do it for personal reasons.
The same can be said for readers. There are many reasons why readers chose the fanfics they want to read. Some just want to enjoy more of their favourite stories and characters while others want to help writers by giving helpful critiques. Some readers are shy and may not want to give comments while other are happy to tell you everything they think of a story.
For whatever reason a writer or a reader joins a fandom, all should be respected. The one thing about fandoms is that there is room for everybody to enjoy.
