Posted By Alex Collins on July 13, 2009

Um… this needs a bit of explanation. Over the weekend, I hosted three other NaNo-ers from Sydney at my place for a write-in/sleepover. We wrote some (I got some good stuff going) and then we went to dinner, picked up a movie (Role Models, very funny, I recommend it) and then we went back to writing. Suzie gave us a prompt: ‘poo’. And we all wrote stories about poo. Don’t ask me why. My story, such as it is, follows. I started out talking about poo and ended up taking the piss out of my story–so much that when it came time for us to read the stories, I got to about the third sentence and had to hand my EEE to Joanne because I couldn’t stop laughing.

And by the Golden Apple, do not google anything mentioned in this story.
To find out more, just click here…

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Posted By Alex Collins on June 26, 2009

Never underestimate the power of your insanely devoted fans.

I have… three documents filled with the prophecies, places and people mentioned so far in Meledon Phoenix. All collated by one fan who apparently loves Meledon Phoenix to the extent of reading it once for every document she makes, or so I gathered.

Of course, she leaves me the hard bit: I have to transliterate all of that into the wiki. Ah well. I’ll get around to that, but for now, I’m going to write. Nymphadora has some (as of yet non-existent) people to talk to.

Category: Fanfiction, Meledon Phoenix, Writing | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Alex Collins on June 19, 2009

Last night, I had the interesting fortune to meet up with three Nano-ers from Sydney for a write-in. It was pretty good; we had some dinner in the city and then got stuck into writing. I personally didn’t get much done, but I did get about a thousand words down and a better sense of where this new Meleverse idea is going.

At one point, we were discussing POV for writing, as one of the others wanted to be showing stuff the main character had no idea about. I think the story was in first person, which by nature would limit one to writing only what the main character knows, experiences and all and wanting to show stuff he couldn’t and wouldn’t know or experience would require third person.

But third person in itself has four different modes.

Third person limited seems to be a first person pov merely written in third person text, as the story is experienced within the thoughts and senses of just one character, commonly the main, as seen in Harry Potter.

Third person omniscient allows one to explore anywhere in the story, knowing all the facts. This is what I tend to use for Meledon Phoenix, although it could be argued that I’m blending omniscient and limited in that we know all the facts, but they are coming at us through the perspective of the main cast–the Yellow Master, Lily Evans-Potter, Trini Kwan, Nymphadora Tonks, etc.

The other two–subjective and objective–I don’t actually use… well, in theory I should be using objective when I have a newspaper article in Meledon Phoenix, but who knows if I’m succeeding?

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Posted By Alex Collins on June 8, 2009

I’ve been writing for about a month, working on Meledon Phoenix for a fair bit of it. It so happens that I offered to write some drabbles from prompts people gave me, and one of these prompts inspired a side story: what do the HP characters of MP, DV and canon think of the lives they have led in these other universes? So that’s something I’m working on, but those chapters will likely be short/contain multiple characters, as I don’t know much about the intended paths of the DV characters, don’t want to reveal too much of the MP characters, and frankly, the canon stuff we have in full for some characters and not in full for others.

Speaking of prompts, I’d be happy to post the drabble prompt thing here if people would like to see scenes and such from my original works that I have going on. Let me know by leaving a comment; if there’s enough interest I’ll do so.

Category: Fanfiction, Meledon Phoenix, Writing | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Alex Collins on April 5, 2009

So. I last updated on February 12th, talking about family issues keeping me away. Ultimately, family issues is what kept me away for a further almost two months–father was visiting for part of the month, then mother went to hospital in the last week of February. Then she came out and died. I can’t remember, but I think I was writing before she died. I know I wasn’t afterwards, though. I think I’m okay to begin again, though I can’t promise that updates will come quickly or at all. It depends on what writing I can do and where it fits.

Hopefully another update soon.

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Posted By Alex Collins on February 12, 2009

I’ve had a few family issues keeping me away from writing and the blog and for those who are interested, I haven’t been near any of the bushfires, nor do I know anyone in them. So yeah. I anticipate a return to normal writing and blogging next week. I’ve got two story ideas I’m mulling over, so…

On topic: All stories, whether it’s mentioned explicitly or not, have a societal framework underlying the interactions of the characters. In a romance, this might take the form of a subtle mention when the heroine muses that she’ll be hearing no end of the scandal when the word gets around that she’s pregnant by the rich playboy. Right there, you can tell that to be pregnant outside of marriage is not a good thing in this society the heroine is in.
To find out more, just click here…

Category: Themes, Writing | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Alex Collins on February 2, 2009

As a writer, I get discouraged, often due to the fact that the writing’s not going like I want it to be. Most of the time, I’d be satisfied if I could just get my ideas out; nothing frustrates me more than knowing what I want to write and not being able to get it out.

Then there are the times when I have more than one story going and I can’t write both. It’s something I need to learn, but I’ve never managed to juggle stories; one seems to be my limit. I want to try and see if I can improve that.

Because I now have a story idea that’s starting to firm up in my head. And I want to write it out, at least plan it and I want to continue work on Meledon Phoenix as well. And when I get around to bapping my editor on the head, I’ll have some other works to revise.

So I need to accomplish juggling stories.

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Posted By Alex Collins on January 21, 2009

You may have noticed that I backdated some posts to the past, before this blog was created. This was a deliberate move, as the posts I backdated have relevance in my writing, as well as being themes of some of the things I have written. Feel free to read them; that is why they’re there.

In other news, Annals of Virtue, the site of my stories is slowly being pieced together. It’s a frustrating and slow business, but in time, the stories will be uploaded. That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing today and yesterday, actually–coding the site.

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Posted By Alex Collins on January 20, 2009

You can choose your friends but you’re stuck with your relatives. That’s the saying according to my father. I think it says a lot, beyond the obvious. “Stuck with your relatives”. Why use the word ‘relatives’ and not ‘family’? I know there’s a version (that may even be the original version) that uses ‘family’, but I think using ‘relatives’ makes it so much more accurate. For relatives share blood with you. Mother, father, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles… you are connected to them through blood; that cannot be denied. Hence the ’stuck with your relatives’.
To find out more, just click here…

Category: Themes, Writing | 2 Comments »
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Posted By Alex Collins on January 19, 2009

Well, after difficulties and more, Shadowed Virtue, the blog for my–Alex Collins–writing has launched. Keep an eye out–I hope to discuss stories I’m working on in terms of progress and possible ideas that I’m exploring, as well as posting extracts, short writings and things that strike my fancy that relate to my writing.

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