5 posts tagged “poetry”

What are five things that make you unique?
Submitted by RA<3TA.

I really don't dilude myself into thinking that parts of me are unique. I think it's everything put together and a little touch of something untouchable that makes each person unique. However, I'll list some things about me that are unusual.

 

1. I love frozen peas. They make a great snack, a great side dish, a great dessert. They are all-around yum nom-nom-nom.

2. I write sideways even though I'm right-handed. Often, I turn the paper/notebook so sideways that it's nearly upside down. It's just always been the way I wrote.

3. I had an eye surgery when I was five. I have a great scar across my eyelid. But most people don't see it unless I show them since the surgeon was kind enough to make sure it fell in the crease of my eye. So I have the coolness factor of being able to show off a big scar without the drawback of it being easily seen.

4. Loose joints. So that comes with all the cool things of being able to pull my thumb back to my wrist, touch my thumb and pinkie finger over my hand, and even at my (not twiggy) weight almost put my ankles behind my head. It also comes with the drawbacks of my ankles sometimes sliding out of place and causing some really bad twists or for my wrists to be injured by being too loose or even my back to get injured if I don't hold it right.

5. I see the world through the eyes of a writer. I notice things. I think of people in terms of poetry and character. I catalogue all the senses to every experience.  And I think of words in terms of texture, sounds as taste, music as color.

What is one of your favorite poems?
Submitted by marvel is my pen name.

My all time favorite is The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.

I'm also very fond of this poem.

But I will paste in this classic:

by Edgar Allan Poe
(1849)

It was many and many a year ago,
   In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
   By the name of ANNABEL LEE;--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to love and be loved by me.

She was a child and I was a child,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
   I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
   Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
   And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
   Went envying her and me:--
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
   In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling
   And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
   Of those who were older than we--
   Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
   Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
   In her sepulchre there by the sea--
   In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Show us something thought-provoking.
Submitted by luminousshadow11.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really like this quote:

 

Listen to the mustn'ts, child.

Listen to the don'ts.

Listen to the shouldn'ts,

the impossibles,

the won'ts.

Listen to the never haves,

then listen close to me

...

Anything can happen, child.

Anything can be.

 

By: Shel Silverstein

I was looking at quotes on this page. Started with looking for the great quote by the Babylon 5 character, Marcus Cole. His famous quote is: "Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe."

As all my friends and family know and I've mentioned several times on this vox, I'm a fanfiction writer. It's a completely unprofessional and non-profit hobby. I never claim true ownership of anything, though some of my disclaimers on some of my older stories are outdated from when I was not as sure of what I wanted to say in the disclaimer. I do not even hold the belief that I technically hold ownership of the fanfiction I create. Yes, I created it. However, since I am playing in someone else's playground, I can't really get upset when I can't bring my sandcastle back home with me. I think of it more as one of my more fun writing exercises. It allows me to play with characterization, plot, and more specifically fan feedback. More than anything, it has taught me how to write for an audience and interact with said audience. It's also brought me into contact with other marvelous writers, some of which can be found here (Under Favorite Authors.) It can create a nice little community where aspiring or even accomplished authors can get together and share non-original work with others, discuss how much they love the creator of the fandom (such as in HP it would be JKR), and generally play around. But everyone is always aware that they are not the creator. Well, almost everyone. There have been a few cases where people have been a bit dim and tried to claim complete ownership of their fanfiction as an original work. Some have even published them through Vanity Presses. Most of the time, the great majority of fanfiction readers and writers don't like this, because this puts the whole fanfiction community in jeopardy. We know that at the best we are tolerated/ignored, such as by authors like JKR and the family of Tolkien. At the worst we are despised, such as by authors like Anne Rice.

It's a wonderful hobby and community and thus I find myself more than slightly protective of it. So, when others are jazzed because they see growing awareness of fanfiction or mention of it in the media, I become worried. Because as long as we are ignored or unacknowledged, we can play and the authors can allow us to play. But, when we are placed in the spotlight, things start getting messy and even endangered. Copyright law is having to go through a metamorphosis right now to adjust to the jump in technology. Artists must be compensated. Publishers must be compensated. As well with everyone else involved in the process. An artist must eat to compose. A publisher must gain to publish. And fanfiction doesn't really touch that mostly. Fanfiction readers and writers are usually the people who will buy everything there is available in the fandom; all new books, all new movies, all new images. We are usually very loyal to our fandoms and its creators. Of course we are though. The reason we are drawn to reading fanfiction and creating it is because we love the original product so much that the original writer or creator sometimes is unable to possibly publish or create enough to satisfy that enthusiasm for their work. Fanfiction is not a rape of the original piece. It is a tribute for the original work.

However, there are parts of copyright law that come into discussion when fanfiction begins hitting the spotlight. It has to do with what happened to Xerox and Jell-O. When something becomes used so often or used by so many without direct tie back to the original creator, it runs the risk of becoming public domain. Xerox is a printing and image company. However, people started using it as a verb. "I'm just going to go Xerox this." That doesn't necessarily mean that there is going to be a Xerox machine in the process. "I want some Jell-O for dessert!" That doesn't necessarily mean that the gelatin is actually going to be a Jell-O product. And so, both those companies are fighting tooth and nail to keep their rights to that. If you don't protect it, you can lose it. This becomes very complicated when taking fanfiction into account. It's not given permission (unless you count the author's not seeking action as a round-about permission, which some do). The difference is, everyone is upfront that they are playing in this other person's playground.

In the distant past, there was fanfiction. Obviously not to the level of now as the literacy rate was never as high as it is now and there were not such mediums as the internet. But look at the classics and you will often see a variety of writers that had nothing to do with each other, never sought out permission, often times wrote under assumed pen names or nameless. Greek and Roman mythology are good examples.

Much of the classic appeal of both these mythologies (which are obviously rooted one in the other) is the endless versions of the stories. Generally, the list of gods and goddesses are like the original piece that all these writers based their work on. Then they twisted characterizations, family and friend ties, and different events. Sometimes, the tales linked with each other. Sometimes they were completely uncompatable. But that's much of the allure of these mythologies. The same has been done with fables in every culture. Often, these stories have become so timeless because of the infinite reincarnations. Of course, very few of the original authors are remembered. If this scares you as an author, you have to ask yourself, whether you place more value on the prestige of your name or the immortality of your story.

Then there's also the ongoing disagreement about the possibility of Shakespeare or Homer not actually being the same person in each case. But I won't go there right now.

Personally, should four hundred years from now, something of my creation lives on in some form or another, I will be greatly overjoyed. Truly, I care little of nothing for should my name survive that. As a writer, I tell stories. I write stories to share those characters and events. I don't write stories so that I can see my name on a cover. Lots of people ask,"Well, wouldn't you be upset if you saw other people writing your characters doing something that you would never write them doing?" And when I reply, "No," they always reply with, "That's what you are saying now, but once you see someone do it, you'll think differently."

I can say with an absolutely clear conscience that I won't. Because I have had fanfiction written for my work before. Yes, involving some of my original characters. And yes, they did things that I would never have thought of them doing or being in their characters to do. Was I upset? Absolutely not. I was overjoyed. It was such a great compliment to my work that the person felt so inspired. I cherished it. I also cherished seeing another's twist on my characters. It's also been very interesting to see other people draw my characters.

And it's not as if authors haven't allowed in the past or still continue to allow others to warp their characters or story events. Prime examples can be found in movies. Some of these authors may complain about the preservation of their characters or the details of their story . . .However, offer them a big pay check to transform their idea into a movie where their only credit will be following, "Inspired By," and they will then remark that their original work was in no way harmed by this adaptation and that if people wanted to see their original piece, they can still buy the book. Even though there are some authors who will complain about the movie adaptation, never have I heard of them giving back the money. Yes, I understand there is a difference between hundred of small fanfiction stories made off their work for fans to read and one huge movie made that sent them a paycheck to tear apart their story.

So, to sum it up, copyright and fanfiction is a very tangled and complicated issue that I'm not sure most people (mainly fanfiction writers and readers) will be happy with once it gets the spot light and things come to a head.

What all started this post? I was checking a very wonderful Fanfiction called The Shoebox Project for updates today. And in the last post, there is this announcement:

"Hallo all you boxers! This isn't an update (so sorry!) but it is a little announcement that all of you who are interested should go out today, snag a copy of the Wall Street Journal and check out the article on the front page of the Pursuits section entitled Rewriting the Rules of Fiction, an article about fans, fanfiction, the fan community, fan generated content and the like -- it has a little me, a little Rave, and a whole lot of shoebox_project. (With an emphasis on the latter.) It also has a wee mention of the imminent pub-lee-kay-shun of my poetry book, which I confess made me cry just a little. ;)"

Here is a link to a blog that has some of the article quoted in his blog.

The Shoebox Project is extremely popular and has a huge following. At such big levels, the issues between copyright, the original owner, and the fanfiction writers becomes even more difficult. And because of how much I adore The Shoebox Project, I would wish to protect it. And I don't believe that media coverage of it is the way to do that. Especially in this type of manner where the writers are then being mentioned along with original pieces they have written. How can we possibly say that we are not profiting from the writing of a fanfiction when we create a fan base through that fanfiction and then carry them over into our original work? This first came to my attention as being troublesome with the writer Cassandra Claire.

I have no problem with her where she was taking direct quotes from other sources (Buffy, Angel, B5, other books) to use in her HP fanfiction The Draco Trilogy. It's a fanfiction, as far as I'm concerned she can't claim any of it as original. The whole point of fanfiction is piecing together from a borrowed source. Where I start to have problems with Cassandra Claire (Not personally but as a Fandom Figure) is where she began to profit from her fanfiction. It all started with when her apartment was broken into and her laptop was stolen. Her friends and fans began to collect and donate money to buy her a new laptop. The sort-of unspoken reason being so that she could continue to write and post her  vastly popular fanfiction. This is not all that extraordinary on the internet with figures that become big in any online community. It's like you are part of a little club and if you are that popular in that club, your friends and fellow club members help you when you are down. But then, she began receiving gifts from her fans and friends. She could hardly say she was not profiting from her fanfiction then, could she? However, I do believe that this mistake was not maliciously or purposefully meant.

Obviously, Copyright needs to change to adjust to the current technological advancements. But, I don't believe the answer is to punish or exterminate fanfiction. Lots of these huge followings of writers and movies are nursed by these fandom bases. Fanfiction keeps a fandom fresh and alive while the writer or creator is busy creating the new work. It keeps the original work to the forefront of its fans' minds. Take away that and the fandoms will shrink. In some instances drastically. There will be few fans that will become so obsessed about a fandom that they will wait years for new blood and still devote such time, money, and energy to it. There is a reason that some of the largest successes have huge fanfiction bases. Look at Harry Potter and Star Trek for example. The original creators do profit from fanfiction. When people look into changing Copyright, they must make sure that they don't pull the reigns so tight that they strangle their own fan base. These fans they may be attacking are their most loyal and dedicated fans. These fans will often take a lot in the name of love of the original writer or creator and the world that was created. But, once these fans lose faith, they will have only lost and embittered their greatest asset.

When someone else is playing in your playground, it's not out of line to not allow them to bring their sandcastles home with them. But, neither is it acceptable for you to go viciously kicking down all the sandcastles, throwing sand in your friends' eyes.

It is well known and accepted that an actor on a stage without an audience is just a fool talking to an empty house. What is a writer who attacks his/her fans? Perhaps, a name preserved on a title page.