How Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Ruined My Life

Back a few weeks ago, the husband and I took the kids to see the new movie Inside Out. If you haven’t seen it, and you should, one of the concepts in the movie is that inside our brains we have Islands of Personality that are formed and supported by core memories that make us who we are.
When my granddaughter asked me what my Islands of Personality are, I had a sudden flash of Gene Wilder in a crazy purple top hat telling me to come with him to a land of pure imagination. When I was a little girl, that concept of the boundless possibilities of Imagination stamped itself on my vulnerable infant psyche, and Imagination Island was born.

Before long, I discovered that for me the easiest way to turn Imagination into something concrete and sharable was to write.  So I became a writer in first grade, penning a one-woman show starring Snoopy---my first authorial role model. I performed the show before my classmates, and even though the show opened and closed the same day, I was bitten by the writing bug.

After many years of school, then teaching English, I finally started to submit short stories. After a few acceptances, I finally finished a novel, had it accepted, and became a published author.

“Hooray!” the villagers on Imagination Island rejoiced.

But the joy was short-lived. Becoming a published author changed everything. Hard on the heels of writing the book comes marketing the book. I purely hate marketing.

“Market yourself,” I kept hearing. "Get a platform. You need followers."

“Well, I am screwed,” I replied. After all, in my psyche right next to Imagination Island is a monstrosity of a place called Nobody Likes Me Island, an island formed at least in part by my classmates’ less than positive reception of my first one-woman show.

The pressure to succeed, to turn my first books into a viable career (or at least no longer a money-losing avocation), ground at me constantly. I couldn’t write any more. Nothing. After all, what was the good of writing if no one would ever read it because I was an awful marketer of a self that Nobody Likes.

Couple this with a day job that sucks the soul from me, and you have one seriously thwarted individual.

Damn you, Willie Wonka. Damn your lies about creating endless possibilities!

I wish I could sink Imagination Island to the bottom of my psychic abyss and replace it with Balancing Spreadsheets Island or Grading Math Tests Island. Then I could find satisfaction in my day to day life.

As it is, the lure of becoming a reasonably successful writer still calls to me. It shines on the horizon and its damned sirens call out, “Just keep trying! Success is just around the corner. Don’t quit!” Easy for them to say.

I can’t turn off the desire to imagine, but the business of authorship grinds me down to my component powders. Facing the marketing of another book means looking Nobody Likes Me Island right in the face.

I wish I could just find a heroin dealer. I could sink Imagination Island under a sea of feel-good opiates and not worry about fulfillment or success or happiness. I could work my day job (who needs a soul anyway?), go home, make dinner, pay bills, do laundry, and be reasonably content.

If I could lobotomize this troublesome part of my brain so that I never had to see endless possibilities again, I would do it in a heartbeat, even knowing that doing so would fundamentally change my personality forever.

Screw optimism. Screw dreams. Screw imagination.

And screw you, Willie Wonka. You ruined my life.

If you thought this post would have a funny, happy ending, I apologize. It doesn’t get a happy ending until I do.

Why YOU Should Be Writing Fanfiction

Fan + Fiction = Fanfiction

A FREE Creative Writing Course: Lesson One

Ah, fanfiction. It has such a bad reputation in many circles as being the literary domain of angst-ridden teenagers who dream of shooting Bella in the face and marrying Edward themselves. And it is absolutely not a writing cred in any publishing circle and you should deny deny deny that you have ever written a page of fanfiction if an editor or agent asks.

However, I am going to tell you why you DO need to be writing fanfiction and why you should be darned proud of it.

First of all, some of the best-written, most entertaining works of fiction I have ever read have been fanfiction. Sure, there’s crap to be found, but that’s to be said of traditional publishing as well. Unless you just want to be a snob for snobbishness’s sake, let go of the quality idea and the stereotypes and embrace the real power of fanfiction.

What power? you ask.

If you are a developing writer, fanfiction can be the best, cheapest, most fulfilling creative writing course you ever took. Answer the following:

• Do you really want to write but have no idea what?
• Do you know what you want to write but have no idea how to turn it into a book?
• Do you want to write but just want to have fun with it rather than selling your soul to the publishing industry?
• Do you have a secret burning desire to put two unlikely characters from your favorite movie/book/TV show together just to see what happens?
• Do you have a favorite book/movie/TV show that has officially ended (oh, say Firefly or Harry Potter) and you are still upset by this and want more more more?

If you answered yes to any of these, then you should absolutely be writing fanfiction.

Fanfiction has a long, stellar history (what is Shakespeare’s work but a fanfiction treatment of Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans?) and has spawned some works of serious literary merit (think Wide Sargasso Sea—Jane Eyre fanfiction). It is the purest, best form of literary criticism. Good writing induces a desire to produce more good writing, to enter into the text completely in a joint creative act.

And what better way to explore a work than to spin out a new work from it? I firmly believe that if an author wants to know what readers really think about his work, he needs to read the fanfiction.

For the next few weeks, I’m going to run a blog series here called Fanfiction Workshop. This is Lesson One—Get Over Yourself and Embrace the Concept.

Your homework is to go read some fanfiction. Two of the biggest sites are www.fanfiction.net (where I am Arcole BTW) and www.archiveofourown.org (commonly known as AO3 where I’m waiting for my invite, along with the rest of the world). You can also find fanfiction at LiveJournal and Deviant Art.

Pick a movie/book/TV show etc. that you just freaking loved and dig around a bit in the archives on it. See how many fics are already out there. That will give you an idea of how likely you will be to get reviews on your work. Read and review while you are there. Somebody worked really hard on that piece. Give ‘em some love. It’s not like they can get a royalty check.

WARNING: Those of you who answered NO to the first three questions should be warned—fanfiction is addictive. If you are already a successful novelist with an agent/publisher and work to be doing, stay away. But if you are in the developing stages, this course can help you tremendously. Trust me.

So, what do you think? You in? Comment! It’s just like leaving a review at fanfiction.net! Subscribe by email so you won't miss Lesson Two--Overcoming Submission Anxiety One R&R at a Time! And share so the rest of the world can start writing too!

Snoopy, Come Home -- Please!!

The other day I was working on a piece -- okay, okay, it was my Lost fanfic Grace Period -- and one of my characters -- okay, okay, it was Sawyer -- was having a childhood flashback that involved Snoopy and it came back to me in my own flashback just how much I LOVED Snoopy when I was a kid.

When I was an elementary school child, I won a plastic Snoopy wallhanging by selling magazines or something in school. That piece of modern art hung on my wall until I left home whereupon it went missing in my mother's storage building. But writing that piece made me remember my Snoopy and how much I loved that thing. So I went on a search for it.

Snoopy was my childhood hero. I didn't just think he was cute or funny. I wanted to be Snoopy -- not the whole sleeping on top of a doghouse thing -- I wanted to be that incredibly inventive individual who was writing the Great American Novel, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night. I wanted to have the kind of imagination that enabled him to be the World War I flying ace shot down behind enemy lines one moment and a vulture in a tree the next.

Snoopy was whoever and whatever he wanted to be whenever he wanted to be it. He wasn't just a dog on a house. He was Joe Cool. He was on a quest to find his brother Spike in the desert Southwest. He was unstoppable. But he was also Charlie Brown's loyal beagle.

I never found my Snoopy wallhanging. That bummed me out because I had a sudden vision of it hanging on my wall in the nursing home somewhere around 2042. I figured I'd hang it in my closet safe until then.

So I got on ebay and found a new one -- well, actually two, so I have a backup.

When it arrives in a few days, I'm going to open it and hold it in my hands and remember. I fully expect to burst into hysterical tears. I wanted to be Snoopy, a writer, an inventor of outlandish tales. Man, I still do! I still want to be that! Maybe The Blacksmith's Daughter isn't the Great American Novel, but it is longer than It Was a Dark and Stormy Night and contains all kinds of wild creatures and magic. And a real publisher has published it so you can buy it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Smashwords and such. So that makes me a writer too.

And you know, just like Snoopy, I'm still rocking my day job. Maybe I don't sleep on a house all day, but I too have my mundane life. Snoopy didn't resent his job as Charlie Brown's beagle and I shouldn't resent mine either even thought it cuts dramatically into my creative writing time.

So, Snoopy, when you get here, I'm going to pull you out of your packing, cry hysterically, and probably hang you on my bedroom wall. You won't match, but I won't care. As long as I remember my hero, I'll be able to keep the creative fires burning.

Finally, here's a big "Curse you, Red Baron!" from me to all you other Snoopy lovers out there. Keep the fires burning!