Why my chosen career is going to be a bit difficult

When I started doing this English degree I said I wanted to write for Doctor Who.
I have been saying lately that I've realised I'm not that good. Which is kind of true. But I could get better, and people who just do the work promptly and to spec can do quite well.

The problem I think I can't get around is that TV writing has a narrower range than fanfiction. Because there are two types of fanfiction, the more of and the more from. TV only wants more of, until you are a very shiny advanced writer indeed.

If I'm happy enough with a show that I want more exactly the same, I don't have any story ideas for it.
I'm not a more of writer. I don't wish to color within the lines. I don't want to leave it to fade to black at that exact same point every time.
I want more from TV, meaning I want to change it, meaning I can't work on other people's TV shows.

( Read more... )

So, writing for television?
Pretty much not going to happen.

Unless I write a whole lot of stories I've no interest in, for practice.
It'd be like writing essays, or the creative assignments for college. Just go with the assignment outcomes and make sure all the boxes are ticked and try to find something that engages with existing sources but has at least a little something new to say. I've been doing that for years.
So I could do it... but I don't especially want to.

So if I don't want to and I'm not very good at it, I think maybe I need to look at another line of work.

It'll still have to be writing though. I might not be very good at it but it's still my strongest area.

So I've been thinking on other forms, and what the appeal is of television.

( Read more... )

I think what I'm figuring is that the internet and fandom specifically already does a lot of what I'm looking for, virtual seasons and combining skills and putting pictures to words and all the cool stuff.

So maybe I don't need television.

... just to make a fandom for a TV show I make up and post here.

... I can see how that's going to be challenging.

Plus, there's the thing where making a living might be nice. But making a living off writing was always a daft idea, so *shrugs*

Capertillers

I'm designing an alien for my biotechnician's world.
Actually I started out designing one off monsters. I know there's the tall one that has arms like stilts and no legs. They're maybe like a pterodactyl without the membranes? They're tall and a very not human shape and kind of creepy.
There's also a caterpillar or centipede looking one. Which would make this the second 'verse where I cast about for something to look really creepy and unnatural and come up fuzzy caterpillar. I maybe have a thing there.

But this planet has possessing spirits, kind of like goa'uld but different. So then I was thinking, it's a perfectly good shape for a parasite. ( Read more... )

Actually, what I'm describing doesn't look much like a caterpillar. It's a centipede with a lot of anemone bits on its back, I think, which undulates through water. ... and the image in my head is totally giving me the creeps, so that works.

But sometimes trying to say caterpillar comes out capertiller, and I like that for a symbiote name. Caper is like a happy dancing or a complex crime, and tiller is a thing for steering. It's a thing that jumps on, steers and steals you. Capertillers in the water. Sounds so silly, make it scary later.

So the little versions climb in to people and go inside their rib cage and plug in to the spine, so they're not making it bumpy from the outside. They're very bendy. Some of them take over and some of them are just along for the ride and some of them are friends who can use your hands, and some have been human many times and some only just started. Most cultures stay away from the places they live, but the ones who live with them have a place for the people that go down to the water. There's all sorts of reasons, if you need them enough.

But there's not just the little versions. There's the monster version. And it is huuuuuuuuge. ( Read more... )

... hmm, the name maybe doesn't work so well. That would be sad.


But, my lost city has a giant squirmy mind controlling bug in the cellar, running the Matrix.
That's a story.