Attentively Attentive to all Things

I have a rant. I don't do this often, but I find this morning I'm not able to ignore my thoughts on this any longer. I am one of four administrators of a new fan fiction, general interest board. We're quirky, have lots of crazy posts, and a smattering of good stories to read. We have a place for those who like to create fan graphics to show off their work, and a place for fanvidders to post links to their videos. I love our cozy board, and plan to remain there until I'm the last member left standing. I hope that is a long time from now. The bigger fish in the JA fandom, a huge board of 5,000 members and multiple pages of fiction is where many of us came from, for personal reasons of our own. I won't go into those reasons here. I'm hearing that we are looked upon as the competition. What a joke! I mean seriously, we have 300 members! We have some things this bigger fish does not, and will not allow. Are you kidding me? The level of paranoia is absurd. If we wante...

As many of you know, I am a HUGE Jane Austen fan, and an avid reader of Jane Austen fan fiction (JAFF) and sometimes writer of them as well. This little addition helped fuel my passion for writing and I only have Amber and her beloved Hyacinth Gardens to "thank" for that. Since my introduction to this genre, I have spent many happy years reading about Darcy and Elizabeth, in many, many different forms- duchess, cowboy, journalist, cellist, etc. The creativity of those who write JAFF astounds me, and I commend the entire JAFF community for such artistic works. One never knows what to expect, or what kind of twist you'll see next. This humble writer could never aspire to such talent as seen on many JAFF sites. What is it about these characters that inspires us so? The majority of JAFF are stories based on Pride and Prejudice , Austen's most popular novel. Darcy and Elizabeth have a tight hold over readers and writers, and those who dare to stray from cannon Darcy shoul...

As I was showering this past Saturday morning, I experienced an epiphany of extraordinary, and somewhat embarrassing proportions. First, let me explain... As an English Major I have a class called Topics in English, where I choose a subject I want to research, ask one of my instructors to work with me on it, and then write a hugely huge paper, thus ending my tenure as a college student. Sounds easy, right? Really? Yeah, not so much. The possibilities with an English major are endless, so while I have over a year to begin this exhausting process, I started worrying about the second my advisor told me about this class. This is obviously not a paper I can procrastinate on and complete at the last moment. So over the past month now, two websites I frequent have been having two different arguments ongoing- one website is discussing the responsibilities of a fiction writer to his or her readers, and the other is attempting to have a intellectual discussion regarding the phenomena of the Rape...