Writing Wednesday

I need to update my WIPs list because I know there's a few more on there than what I currently have listed. I hate having so many unfinished stories on my plate, but alas, it seems like my MO. There used to be a time when I hardly finished anything. I still feel like I start more things than I finish.

Currently, I have 5 stories on my AO3 account that are unfinished:

In Deep

After coming out to his parents, Baylee finds himself kicked out and on his own. He takes to selling himself on the street. When a lucrative opportunity comes his way, he takes it, not realizing the consequences.

Let it Be Me

After Brian's divorce, he met and fell in love. The relationship was "different." People didn't understand. Now after months of the media making things up, Brian and his girlfriend, Bec, and her partner, Alyx, are talking about their relationship to hopefully do some damage control and help people understand. Bec is just trying to take the heat away from Brian.

I'll Never Break Your Heart

Brian answers a call from a telemarketer at his family's home in Kentucky. This starts the whirlwind of a relationship between him and an aspiring radio DJ. Only Brian's past comes back to haunt them both.

Imogene

Brian is in charge of finding the groupie for the tour. The girl he finds is everything they want. As things progress though, Brian finds he has feelings for the girl, one of the things they aren't supposed to do. Could this jeopardize his marriage and everything he has going for him?

Untitled (BSB/CSI Crossover)

Phi Mulligan has a rare night off from the crime lab. She uses her time to go see her favorite group, the Backstreet Boys. While deciding to blow her forthcoming paycheck at the high stakes tables, Brian Littrell sits down next to her. After about an hour of playing, both their phones go off at the same time. Phi is called to the very hotel/casino she is standing in. Only then does she realize that Brian's wife, Leighanne, is the Vic and the are there to find the killer. With Grissom and Greg's help, Phi sets off on an investigation that will challenge her beliefs in the band and her place at the Las Vegas Crime Lab.

I think I may have a poll or something and let you guys pick which one I should finish in July, the next CampNaNo excursion. But then again, that also depends upon my mood. I've taken a few days off of writing, just to kind of let it rest for a bit, see what happens. Maybe I've been pushing myself too hard... I don't know. I just feel like I hit a dry spell.

WIP Wednesday: In Deep

This WIP Wednesday, I wanna talk about the current project on my plate. It's a new thing. It's deep and dark and way out there for me. It is very much gay erotica. And by that I mean the story is told essentially through the sex.

I've never done a story like this before. Yeah, I've written erotic stuff and some of it was pretty hardcore (like "Finding Control"), but not something like this. And like everything else I currently write, it's fanfiction!

Title: In Deep

Summary: After coming out to his parents, Baylee finds himself kicked out and on his own. He takes to selling himself on the street. When a lucrative opportunity comes his way, he takes it, not realizing the consequences.

Currently Updated To: Chapter 3

So, yeah, um... Baylee, prostitution, gay... Can we get further from reality here????

I don't see this being as long as the last few I've written. I'd say it's likely a third of the way finished. Wanna read it? Click here.

WIP Wednesday

Thought I'd actually introduce this tag a little bit. So this is "WIP Wednesday" or "Work in Progress Wednesday". Last month I used it to talk about Camp NaNo because it was a giant Work in Progress. Last week, I used it to talk about finishing one of my major WIPs, "Sire." This week, I thought I'd just talk about it in general.

Seen, until recently, I haven't been able to finish my stories. Yeah, sometimes I'd finish short ones, but when it came to longer ones, I'd have these MASSIVE stories and never finish them. I think part of that is because I never really had a "tribe." Yeah, sure I've had writer friends over the years. I've done lots of different things: message boards, chatrooms, etc to keep those relationships going. But eventually, I guess I just didn't feel supported. Why? Well, I primarily write fanfiction. I don't know why. I just enjoy it. And whereas some people write fanfiction based off of books, movies or television shows, I write fanfic based off of real people. I don't know why I enjoy this so much, but I do. I thought I was the only person who was still writing in this fandom because, well, you couldn't really find fanfic anymore. Sure, FanFiction.net is still around, but a very long time ago, they dropped the RPF from their archives.

It wasn't until someone posted in the Backstreet Boys Official Group asking if anyone still wrote fanfiction did I find my tribe. This person, now friend, started a whole group because I literally jumped up and down and said that I still wrote fanfic! The group has since expanded beyond fanfic, but I'm still writing! AND I'm still being encouraged by a group of people whom I gladly call my friends. It's only because of them that I was able to actually finish and win NaNo 2019. It's only because of them that I was able to finish and win Camp NaNo last month. It's only because of them that I was able to finally finish my novel from NaNo 2018. It's also because of them that I found a way to share my fanfic with others.

And alas, this tribe of mine also helps me work on new ideas. I've got one now. I'm not going to share much about it yet because it has no title and I really don't have a direction for it yet. I have posted the first chapter, but I really don't know much about it yet. But it is another one that is out of my comfort zone. It's going to be amazing I feel. I can't wait to keep working on it and share it with you as I complete it, because now, with my tribe, I don't worry about not finishing things. I work to finish them. I'm looking at some of my old WIPs and seeing if/how I can work on finishing those as well. It's actually a really good feeling. I hope as I work on more WIPs to be able to bring them to WIP Wednesday either as nearly completed or finally finished fics!

What to know what I'm working on? Click here to see my "Works in Progress."

Sire: The NaNo 2018 Project

Back in September/October of 2018, I had an idea. It started with this video:

There was also this idea I had way back in the day where Howie was the leader of a vampire clan. (Think Kindred: The Embraced.) So I thought, why not combine the two ideas. Major difference: I had to have Kevin in this fic! Similarities: red eyes, Day Walkers, Gentri and that was about it. Beyond that, the story was my own.

I had an idea about how I thought it would go. November started and I took off on this 50k word adventure! It was the first time I had written BSB fanfic in years! By the end of the first week, I was three days ahead in my word count. The CD lived in my car. I listened to the song constantly! Words were flowing out of me! But then, the fire happened. I didn't write for three days, and when I did write, it was strange. I could sometimes get words and sometimes couldn't. I chalked it up to stress and kept pushing through. I managed to get to 30k in my story. I took that as a win with all that had happened. On top of that, that was about what I averaged for these events.

But when I went back and reread what I had written in the remaining weeks of November going into December, I realized the story had changed drastically. No longer was the plot I had started with the plot that it was following. Instead, it had become a subplot to something darker and more sinister. I went with it. It seemed to help.

I got stuck around a year ago in chapter 17, the climax of the story. I didn't want it to be told entirely from the main character's point of view. Plus, it just needed to be done right. So instead I worked on chapter 18. I figured knowing what was going to happen after would help drive what happened in that chapter. Almost six months later, I finished that dreaded piece. It then became ending this story. I had parts written. I dabbled in it. But I guess part of me didn't want to finish it yet. This was the story that had gotten me through the fire. Finally, in January of this year, I finished chapter 19. I knew then that it was all downhill from there. The last two parts were practically written.

But alas, another project had taken my interest. So I put it on the back burner. I got pressure to finish it from all over. But it just wasn't coming. Finally, after I finished the one project that had taken my interest, I decided to come back to "Sire." And guess what? It practically finished itself! I worked on it for two days and in both those two days, I managed to finish chapter 20 and the epilogue! In the timespan of a week, I had finished TWO monster stories! So here are the deets on this story:

Title: Sire
Final Word Count: 81,492
Summary: Howie is the leader of a clan of Day Walkers, half-human, half-vampires who are tasked with enforcing vampire law in Las Vegas. His clan is composed of his adviser, Kevin; his tracker, Nick; his messenger, Alex; and Brian, his new pet. They've been together for twenty-five years and things are just now coming to light. Having taken Brian as his pet, Howie is beginning to realize just how broken he is. He also realizes that Brian needs to reclaim his power over his past. But there are demons in the way; demons that seem to be coming back to haunt them. As the lawbreakers, or Gentri, seem to be growing in numbers, the leader of the vampires, Carson, is growing impatient with his Day Walker clans. He orders more clans to be brought in to help with the problem. One of the new clans, however, has ties to Brian that threatens to undo all the work Howie has done with him.

Want to read it? Read it here.

NaNoWriMo 2019

I realized that since I hadn't updated this blog in like a year, I hadn't had a chance to talk about NaNoWriMo last November!

So, a brief history: NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is held every November. The goal is to write a 50k novel in 30 days. I've been participating since 2003. I have only won once in 2004. I took 2016 off because I was beyond busy with school and two jobs and everything that even thinking of an idea was overwhelming! And 2018 was starting to be a year I thought I might actually win. Then the stupid fire happened. I didn't write for THREE days. I wound up managing to get 30k that year. So I guess that was a win, being I was homeless and all.

So that brings us to 2019, last year. Now if you've followed me in any of my writing circles, you know that I suffer from this awful plague of never finishing ANYTHING! Well, I guess I just needed a "tribe" of other writers to propel me. Because suddenly, in April of last year, I began to *gasp* finish things. So I thought that maybe this year for NaNoWriMo, I MIGHT finish a story!

After toying around with ideas, I settled on this one:

Essentially, the plot was my usual idea: Destroy Brian's life! (I do this a lot in many different ways!) But this time, I wanted each chapter to be a song title. And since DNA was their latest album and I had seen them in concert in August (that pic is MINE from the nosebleed seats!), I figured that the chapters should be titled after their songs. (All but one is.)

So I undertook this idea. I planned. I created a playlist. I wrote the minimum amount of words and more on some days. There were days I totally didn't think I was going to be able to do this. I had those in my "tribe" not understanding that, yes, I was pushing myself extremely hard, but I wanted to! And yet, I persisted. And I actually did two things:

1. Wrote 50k in words by the 28th of November!
2. Finished the story!

This was a huge deal in my mind. I hadn't won NaNoWriMo in 15 years! I had literally dozens of started stories that I had never finished! (Including the one from 2018!) Sadly, most of those were lost in the fire. But SOME survived in the cloud or email. So I've been able to salvage some of my works in progress.

But THIS. This was monumental! I actually FINISHED a story AND won NaNo in the same month!

Wanna read my NaNo winner? It's here!

Camp Nano: Final Update

Title: Finding Control
Total Words: 62,532
Total Chapters: 24

This book has been amazing to write! I'm so sad to see it end. But it was one of those things that it does need to have an ending. And by participating in Camp NaNo this year, I was able to figure that out. That was my main goal, not so much the word count. And once I figured that out and then realized how close I was to it actually being done, the goal became to finish the story. And I'm pleased to say that it is finished.

It has been such an amazing experience jumping out of my comfort zone in so many ways. Working on this erotic novel that pushed the boundaries of what I normally write. Not only was it a second-gen MC, but that MC's evolution throughout this book too. And the OCs in it as well were just amazing!

That being said, I won Camp NaNo this year. Now, granted it wasn't as big a task as NaNoWriMo was this year, but I really feel that this Camp experience was all-encompassing. I increased my goal with a week left and STILL managed to meet my new goal. I managed to find direction for this story AND I was able to finish it!

Wanna read it: find it here!

Camp NaNo: Update 4

Title: Finding Control
Words Added: 19,526
Chapters Uploaded: 1

So, I upped my goal to 20,000 words. Why? Well, as I said in the beginning, this Camp NaNo wasn't about the word count. It's always been about finding a direction for this story. With that direction now found, the new "goal" is to finish this story. It's so close! And when I finished the previous chapter at 14k words added, I knew I had more than 1k in words till this story finished. So I decided to up my goal, figuring 6k would be good. And in doing that, yeah, it makes sense. After the last chapter, I was at 17k, so 3k away from my 20k goal. The last chapter can easily be 3k in words!

In fact, as I write this, I am less than 500 words from reaching my goal of 20k! I KNOW this story isn't going to finish in 500 words or less, so I'm happy to keep writing on it after I reach the goal, likely sometime today. I'm hoping to actually be DONE with this story by Friday.

In saying that I'm almost done with this story is actually kinda sad. I have really enjoyed writing this one. It is SO different from anything I've ever written. And it's done SO WELL on AO3 too!

Camp NaNo: Update 3

Title: Finding Control
Words Added: 13,148
Chapters Uploaded: 1

So the biggest thing this week is yes, I added words. Yes, I am like 2k away from my 15k goal, but this story is gonna go beyond that 15k goal, which I knew from the get-go. It was never about the word count. Instead, it was about the story. And the best thing is, I know now that this story is about 3 chapters away from being done! YAY!

What a journey this story has been. It started with a photo and well, I never thought it would take the turn that it did or that it would turn out as good as it has. I can really say that I love this story and I will be sad when it's over.

Camp NaNo: Update No. 2!

Title: Finding Control
Words Added: 10,170
Chapters Uploaded: 2

This week has been awesome in the way of word count! And on top of that, this story HAS a direction AND an idea of an ending! I'm hoping to actually finish this story this month! If that happens, I might find something else to work on. But OMG, this seems like it is becoming my new favorite story I've written! I so love how involved ALL the characters are in it. The two main OCs are dynamic and work SO well within the story.

I'm hoping next week will be as fruitful. Like I said, I'm not so worried about the word count in this one. So if it winds up being more than 15k until his story is finished, I'm fine with that. And I honestly think I can finish this one! I'm hoping to finish it this month!

Camp NaNo: Update!

Title: Finding Control
Words Added: 3,666
Word Goal: 15,000, which is 500 words per day.

Since I am writing this before today's writing session, I am on track. This feels good. I wasn't sure if the word goal was going to be a good one or not, but it seems to be helping move the story along. I did manage to finish chapter 18 and get it posted. I'm now working in chapter 19.

I think the greatest thing that has come out of this week is I think I know where this story is headed. I think this is Baylee's coming out story. Not that I believe in coming out because, well, there's really no reason to. But it seems important to Baylee. So that's what I'm going with.

Surprisingly, I'm not having a difficult time writing this right now. I thought I would, but it seems to be coming fairly easily right now. I know that may change. I'm already starting to feel a slump coming on, which kinda sucks. I'm hoping I can push through this.

Wanna read the latest chapter? Click here.

Camp NaNo: Project Announcemet

Today is the first day of April. That means that Camp NaNo starts! I wasn't planning on doing Camp this year, but a friend poked me in a group chat and I looked into it.

Last November, I actually won NaNoWriMo. It was the first time in about 15 years! (Here's the fic I won with DNA of a Backstreet Boy.) It was an amazing feeling to actually win! I'm still in awe that I did! And the story was essentially complete too!

So that fic was totally started specifically for November. For Camp this time I'm looking at working on a fic I've already started. I'm already 40k into it but it's not about the word count. This story is more about the story itself.

Anyway, this particular story started with a photo:

After a ton of research, I found that this particular photo was from one of their cruises. The theme was "50 Shades of Leather and Lace." Believe it or not, there's NOT a lot out there from this particular night. I think things went a little TOO crazy for the guys!

Anyway, after a little persuasion from my muse, I started a story that had no title and no direction. As I started writing on it, it became something so much more than that one photo! Yes, the story pushed me way out of my comfort zone, but honestly, I'm loving it! The only issue is that I'm not sure where this story is going now! It's one of those stories that COULD go on forever! But it's gonna need to end at some point! I'm hoping that the idea of working on it for Camp is going to force me to find an ending! Anyway, now that you know where this story came from, let me actually introduce you to it!

Genre(s): Fanfic, Erotic, LGBT+

Summary: Brian Littrell is leading a double life. When he's home, he routinely spends time at The Domain, a fetish club on the outskirts of town. His wife is aware of his "alone time," but his son is not. When Baylee finds out where his father spends his time, he begins to question his own desires. Would this club give him the control he feels he lacks in his life?

While he's there, he meets Devon Long, another submissive of his dominant. Their relationship begins under their dominant's watchful eye but quickly escalates. Could this other young man help Baylee find more than just what he thought he was looking for? Will he experience the freedom that comes from finding control?

Goal: 15k words, but like I said, it's not about the words, it's about the story.

This is a WIP (Work in Progress), so if you'd like to read what I have so far, click here.

WriYe Goals Update

January Goals

Thought I would update this because I kinda met my word goal. This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but life kinda got in the way.

1. Write 10,000 words. (12,091/10,000 words)
2. Read 2 books. (1/2 books)
3. WriYe Blog Circle here

I also plan to participate in the following challenges:

1. WriDay (1,742/2,500 words) FAIL!
2. 100 Word Consistency (23/23 days)
3. New Moon Challenge (941/900 words) WIN!
4. Genre Stretch -- Dystopian (started)
5. Full Moon Madness (1,288/1,000 words) WIN!
6. 5k Weekend (0,000/2,500 words)

So yes, I did meet my monthly goal. I'm still trucking away on my NaNo novel. I can feel it is close to finishing. So I just want to keep going on it. I still need to outline it because there are a couple of plot holes or unresolved issues that need to be taken care of. I'm just finding myself having a difficult time writing right now. Not because of any one thing, but just because. So anyway, these are the goal updates as of yesterday because it should have been a WriYe Wednesday.

Mid-Month Goal Update

January Goals

Now that the month is half over, I figured I'd better update my goals so you can see how things are going:

1. Write 10,000 words. (8,844/10,000 words)
2. Read 2 books.
3. WriYe Blog Circle here

I also plan to participate in the following challenges:

1. WriDay (1,742/2,500 words) FAIL!
2. 100 Word Consistency (15/15 days)
3. New Moon Challenge (941/900 words) WIN!
4. Genre Stretch -- Dystopian (started)
5. Full Moon Madness (0,000/1,000 words)

So the word count is actually pretty good for where I should be in the month. I'm actually pretty pleased and will likely have more than 10,000 words by the end of the month. Consistency wise, I've been doing okay, but the word goal is kinda low. I may up it to the next level in February. I'm hoping to finish a short story for the Genre Stretch, but I'm not sure about it now. It kinda has no plot. I'm almost done with a book. I just need to sit down and finish it! Well, that's the update for now. Hopefully, next week will be just as fruitful as the last two weeks have been!

Works in Progress

Works in Progress

These are the current works I have in progress as of right now. I'm sure there will be more as I dive into my online archives and see what I want to come back to. But as of now, this is what I have:

Untitled (NaNo 2018) -- Supernatural BSB FanFic LGBT Erotica

Starting WC: 51,595

Howie is the leader of a clan of Day Walkers, half-human, half-vampires who are tasked with enforcing vampire law in Las Vegas. His clan is composed of his adviser, Kevin; his tracker, Nick; his messenger, Alex; and Brian, his new pet. They've been together for twenty-five years and things are just now coming to light. Having taken Brian as his pet, Howie is beginning to realize just how broken he is. He also realizes that Brian needs to reclaim his power over his past. But there are demons in the way; demons that seem to be coming back to haunt them. As the lawbreakers, or Gentri, seem to be growing in numbers, the leader of the vampires, Carson, is growing impatient with his Day Walker clans. He orders more clans be brought in to help with the problem. One of the new clans, however, has ties to Brian that threatens to undo all the work Howie has done with him.

Video that inspired this fic.

Untitled -- Realistic BSB FanFic

Starting WC: 1,125

Just a short story about meeting a guy at work and him taking me to see BSB.

My NEW Writing Space

A while back there was this post on the WriYe Boards about your writing space. At the time, I was sitting at my parent's kitchen table because my desk in the sun room was too far away and isolated from my kids and too cold on top of that! Well, my mom had an idea this past weekend that she thought might work. So I give you:

My New Writing Space

Essentially it is 2 closet shelves turned upside down with a shelf screwed to the top. It's one of those "Pinterest" ideas that wasn't really a Pinterest idea, but works none the less. I hate that it's white. I wanted wood colored, but really don't feel like painting particle board, so I guess I'll live.

I numbered things in the picture so I'll go through them:

1. Laptop. It's used for writing and Facebook.

2. Tablet. It's usually in my room so I can write in bed. Being I'm exclusively using Google Drive for this year, I have "an app for that!"

3. Cup that usually has ice water in it.

4. Bag of dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses. I usually need some type of chocolate/candy to keep me going.

5. Bill that needs to be paid. Will be gone by today!

6. I wish I could say this is planning stuff, but it's not. It's the pile of Divorce paperwork and things about my daughter's care and therapy. It will probably only be moved when it needs to be.

7. That's a basket of ribbons I did for my daughter. They're for Rare Disease Day on February 28, 2014. I'm hoping to give them out over the next few weeks.

8. In that basket is a Netflix DVD that I need to watch and return.

There are actually 3 shelves on each side. The bottom two shelves have bins with various things in them. The top two shelves have two little baskets each: a larger basket and a pencil basket. I'm hoping this will help keep me organized and not so all over the place! (My mom hopes this too!)

Crawling

I have come to realize that a week of Word Crawls SUCKS! Especially for someone who has kids.

So this week for the "I Have a Dream" Challenge, the mods are posting a bunch of Word Crawls. Essentially a Word Crawl is a bunch of tasks that you do in order. Usually there is a theme to the writing of the Crawl itself. I thought I would be able to do some of these Crawls. Boy was I WRONG! Here it is 3 days into it and I'm just about a THIRD done with the FIRST one!

Here are the tasks:

Complete 3 consecutive 5 minute sprints.
Sprint to 100 words.
Double your current word count.
Sprint to the end of your current song (or a 3 minute sprint if no music).
Sprint to the nearest 1000.
Do the 3-Digit Challenge.
Complete a 15 minute sprint.
Sprint to 1000 words.
Finish your scene.

The next ones get even HARDER! We're talking like 60 minute and even a 90 minute sprint! Yeah, I may not finish these this week. As a result, I changed my Dream Challenge goal to finish ONE CRAWL! Yeah, these may work to increase your word count (I have no doubt on that!), but they certainly aren't something to do if you have a life that is more than just work and you don't have a few hours of free time to kill. I seriously feel like I am CRAWLING through this first one. I'm working on doubling my word count now. It's taking some time. Sprinting to the nearest 1000 is going to be another one that kills me! But the 3-Digit Challenge sounds like fun. I hope to do more of those as time goes on. At least I am up over 1,000 words now! Off to go feed the baby and get everyone dressed. Oh and probably start some laundry as I need clothes!

Wanna Hear About My Distractions?

Wanna hear about my distractions? Sure you do!

Let's see: 

1. I have a three year old. I homeschool him.

2. I have a 8 month old. Need I say more? Well, I do. She was born premature. She also has a rare condition and sees about 4 different specialists because of it. I feel like I run her to more appointments than I can keep track of! Not to mention, she has daily therapy with me and once a week with her therapist.

3. I have left my husband and am now a single mother. I live with my parents currently.

So between those three MAJOR distractions, I don't seem to have a lot of time to write. In fact, since March, I haven't done a whole lot of writing. I think it was just the stress of everything. But now I am squeezing in writing time. I have been blogging more than writing lately, but I did finish something for the AugNo Anthology. I'm not ENTIRELY sure how proud I am of it, but being I was squeezing in writing time after the kids went to bed before I crashed, I think it was a good jumping off point.

I also managed to write about 12k for NaNo this year. I was pretty impressed with this. I did some of it on my phone because I downloaded the Google Drive app and decided to write in Drive. Yeah, there are issues with using the app, like it doesn't word count and I'm doing it from my phone and even with SWIPE, it sometimes is difficult to get the correct words out

As you can see, my distractions keep me pretty busy. That's why this blog is titled "Easily Distracted." Not because I have ADD or anything like that, but because my life tends to explode and I am distracted from writing. Hopefully 2014 won't be as crazy as 2013 was and I'll be able to write at least 50k in words. I'll be doing a yearly goal post here soon. But until then, this should hold you over!

March Madness! Or How I have totally lost my mind

WriYe is having a CRAZY challenge. Essentially, you can redo all the challenges from the beginning of the year. Here's the catch: you only have a week and a half to do them all and they can't count double! So, like a good minion, I signed up. Here's my list:

-- 01,085 / 01,000 - Write-A-Thon
-- 00,000 / 02,500 - January 5k Weekend
-- 01,216 / 01,000 - January FMM
-- 00,000 / 05,000 - MLK WriDay
-- 00,000 / 05,000 - Valentine's WriDay
-- 00,000 / 02,500 - February 5k Weekend
-- 00,000 / 05,000 - Leap Day WriDay
-- 00,000 / 05,000 - St. Patty's WriDay

I've already managed to get TWO done. But when you add it all up, that's 27k worth of words! Plus I plan on doing the 5k Weekend THIS weekend as well. I must have lost my mind or something.

Cross-Posted to: krazikrys writes!

Hunger Games and a story

I finished Hunger Games yesterday. It took me less than 48 hours to finish it. This must say something about the book itself, as it usually takes me about a month to finish a book. Well, that and it was slow yesterday at work. So I was able to sit there and read. I was done with it by 5 and I was regretting not bringing my other book to read for the last hour. But that's okay. I somehow managed to survive.

The strange thing was that in reading The Hunger Games, I somehow got some inspiration for a story I'm working on. No, it's not Hunger Games fanfic. Instead, it's a post-apocalyptic story that is possibly going to be a YA thing, but I'm not sure yet. The main character doesn't even have a name yet, but he's close to getting one. The story itself is only 700 words long right now, but some of it has been plotted, via generator, so I'm not going at this totally blind.

WriYe Blog Circle Prompt #2

This week, the question is: How do you name your characters?

You would think this is an easy task for someone who mainly writes fanfic. I mean, come on, the characters are all already named for you! But what happens if I want to put in an original character (OC)? That's a whole different story. For some fandoms, name generators/name books work, like Harry Potter, Glee, or any of the RPF (Real Person Fic) I write. The only issue with say, Harry Potter, is that you have to be aware of location. Harry Potter takes place in England, therefore the name should be reflective of the area and the time. (I haven't run into a Hermione anywhere lately, have you?)

But some of the fandoms I write or contemplate writing demand more than just a name generator. Some of the fandoms I write are complete sci-fi fandoms. Now, I could go the keyboard smashing route of Keri, but that doesn't work for some of the species within the fandoms. Let me give you an example: Star Trek. In Star Trek, yeah, I could just create a race of aliens who, although humanoid in their appearance have keyboard smash names, like Hjmlo or Gdymu. Add in a few apostrophes and you get something that looks like it belongs to a race in Star Trek: H'j'mlo and G'dymu. But I don't particularly care for creating races within the Trek universe. I like to work with already created alien races. This sometimes poses a problem. For example, I am contemplating a story with the Bajorans. On Bajor, the familial name comes first followed by the individual name. (Like in China.) But the names are not like ours. Some Bajoran names for your reading pleasure:

Kira Nerys
Ro Laren
Winn Adami

These are female characters.

Brin Tusk
Daier Halb
Edon Shakaar

These are male characters.

So I'm still undecided about the story I am writing, but I have to look at names at some point and make sure they sound "Bajoran." So this is a little more difficult than just going to a random sci-fi name generator and hitting "generate." The names have to SOUND like they fit the person and the race, as well as fit in with canon. 

I bet you didn't think I would have problems creating names, huh?

Cross-Posted to: krazikrys writes!.