I work here

I have a desk! And a chair! I even put them together myself.

It feels so good to have somewhere to sit and work comfortably. For about eight years, my bedroom was a tiny section of the room I shared with my little brothers, separated by a piece of plywood and a curtain. I kid you not. When I was sixteen, we got another floor built on our house - a new bedroom and extra bathroom. I claimed it before they had finished drawing up the plans.

After three months of building (during which my bed, stuffed toys and I were temporarily placed in the living room), I finally had enough space to swing my arms around without colliding with anything disastrous. I had actual floor space - I could walk ACROSS the room!

My work space consisted of a sofa bed and my lap, to rest my laptop on. That worked - for the next two years. Then my cousin moved in to my sofa bed space and I had half a room. Hers was a temporary move: she was only around long enough to finish her master's degree and then she was going back to Trinidad. In the mean time, I bought a beanbag and leaned against the side of my bed. It was as awful as you're imagining it to be.

Now my cousin is gone and I'm in my final year of university, I decided enough was enough. I bought a desk and a chair and got a friend to help me lug them home from Argos. And you know what? I couldn't be happier. It's so important to have the right kind of environment in which to work. It helps put you in the right mind frame, can do wonders for your posture and, if you've got the right decorations, can be a source of inspiration as well.

What does your work space look like?

Why write fan-fiction?

Writing fanfiction is a great way to support something - a TV show, book, film, game etc. - that you like and take your interest with it further. When writing fan-fiction, a writer is *usually* bound to the rules of that universe. This includes writing characters in the same way they are characterised, acknowledging the most important conventions of the universe, keeping to the style of the fandom. I say "usually" because there are exceptions; for example in an AU (alternative universe) fic, when you use intentional out-of-character behaviour for the sake of a plot that would never be pursued in the actual series... Things like that.

I don't think I ever wrote anything AU and I did my best to keep the characters as in-character as possible in all my fics. These restrictions were just that, restrictions, but they weren't limiting in anyway. I know that sounds sort of contradictory but just hear me out on this.

With fanfiction, a lot of the hard work is done for you. Backstory? Check. Character depth? Check. Plot? Check, check, check. All you have to do is go ahead and write that scene you think was missing, or that storyline you wanted but never got because the original writers just don't have your artistic vision. Whatever you do, you work within the realm already set-up by the creators. Sounds easy, right?

Wrong! There's so much you can screw up with fanfiction, simply by misunderstanding one aspect of the universe you want to honour by writing about. Writing fanfiction requires a lot of work, especially if you want to write good fanfiction. You've got to get the tone right, you've got to pull on the readers' heartstrings, you've got to have that character development.

Coincidentally, these are things a writer needs to figure out how to do generally, when writing their own original work. Fanfiction prepares a writer for this, without the added pressure of creating something completely from scratch. It might be difficult to earn some money from writing fanfiction but people have done it. The biggest thing you'll take away from writing fanfiction is experience, and experience is the one thing every good writer has.

Captain Nigel

My youngest brother challenged me to make a story out of his description: "The story is that... Yeah and then they got bombed and um, the cook, the side man cook *giggles* cooks some chips and they explode and everyone dies. The end." He's eleven.

They weren't going to make it out of this alive. It was in the brutality etched at the back of Captain Nigel's voice as he barked at his crew of thieves. It was in the way said crew of thieves rushed around the deck, offloading unnecessary weight in an attempt to lighten the ship and tripping over each other in the process. It was in the way Duck Luda clung on to the mast and drank his bottle of rum, tears streaming down his hairy face.

It was in the way the rival ship bombarded the Lazy Monkey with booming shots from their canons without giving them a fair chance to get away. The big meanies.

The crew of the Lazy Monkey were shoved on to the deck, skin scraping against wood, nails ripping off as they clung to their home for the past eleven years. Captain Nigel was tossed from the helm nearly all the way to the forecastle deck, cracking his head against something hard.

Not my poem

Today's poem is brought to you by my twin, who writes secret poetry.

I Wanna Be

Why is it every time I see your eyes

I come to realise

If you didn't friendzone guys

I'd be by your side

While we fly in the night,

Looking up at the sky.

But I pause and why?

'Cause I know it can't be:

You being with me.

We're friends but I love you;

Yes this is true,

I should be the one to put on your glass shoe,

I'm the prince to your Cinderella story,

I'm the one to give you life long glory,

I should be

The one you seek.

In reality

The only option I can use is B

Because

I know down deep in my heart you're a treat

But in yours it's defeat.

You will suffer but won't say,

But I can see you're in much pain,

And you only have yourself to blame.

The view from here is great

Frankly, I should have known my WIP was always meant to be in third person. It caused me so much hassle back in November and now that I'm in the editing stages I've realised it should have always been in third person. Not first. Excuse me while I bash my head against a wall...

Okay, I feel better now. Especially since it's not all bad. The third person narrative I started off with in November? It was too far removed from the story. I had created a narrator rather than tried to tell the story and that was what was causing me problems. Now that I'm switching every single pronoun from first to third person, it's much easier to keep a tight focus on the main character while still giving the readers the worldly information they need without it sounding strange. I mean, there are whole paragraphs where my main character was just reeling information off, information that was a bit strange for her to be giving. With that third person, it seems perfectly natural.

A lesson in screenplay

Ever heard of Ideas Tap? I hadn't until last month when a fellow student posted a link to them on our university Facebook page. Shout-out here to the magic of networking!

Ideas Tap is a charity that helps creative types (like you and me) learn more about the industry they're interested in, from film to music to - hey! - publishing and probably more. They've got classes, work experience, internships, funding applications... They've pretty much got it all. It's free to sign up, too, which is brilliant news for struggling students (and just generally people low on funds).

I signed up to one of their summer workshop classes, but only one because I knew I wasn't going to be around much what with my jet-setting and all. I also forced encouraged my buddy to sign up to one of their classes on writing a TV series since that's what he's working on at the moment and he seemed to really enjoy it. But what of my class?

Turns out the notes I made are indecipherable even to my own eyes. Oops. I know the class was useful though, since it taught me all the basic things about writing a screenplay that the internet just wasn't getting through. I'm not about to become the next Wes Anderson overnight, no matter how good I look in a scarf. However, when I do get around to scripting my one film idea that just won't die no matter how many times I stab it, I am now equipped with these nuggets of knowledge:

• Everything on the screen has to matter visually
• The story is the emotional journey of the main character
• Begin with the "promise" - this will tell you everything you need to know about the film
• Don't rush the planning
• A good drama has conflict in every scene
• No-one wants backstory: tell the story in the present
• EVERYBODY LIES

Now to satisfy my urge to watch the first episode of House MD for the first time...