I fell in love with the Japanese art of anime when I was old enough to watch television. Right after school, I’d run to the living room, snag the remote from my siblings – much to their discontent – and turn it to Cartoon Network to catch the Toonami special! From Ronin Warriors to Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, and Tenchi Universe! Even Dragon Ball Z! I watch more and more of these shows and wanted to continue the adventures of the characters even when they ended, but didn’t really know how at the time.
It was only when I was in middle school did I find out that fanfiction existed. After meeting my best friend for life, she and I would go back and forth writing new adventures with our favorite anime characters, placing ourselves and our friends into the mix. My new persona of Sona Yama Dosin was born.
During this time, I also found out about a place called fanfiction.net. Putting (some) of my homework to the side each night, or finding time between swimming and watching even more anime on summer vacations, I would spend all my time reading other anime fan’s works. Some were a bit . . . terrible . . . in different ways. If it wasn’t grammar and spelling mistakes galore, it was putting the characters in very not-so-good situations. Then others were entirely awesome, to say the least! They would not only capture the characters exactly as they were portrayed in the original shows, they would add a new perspective to the stories. Whether through the use of alternate universes, a spin-off series of a secondary character, or other interpretation, writers of these types of fanfiction would inspire me to keep writing even more and grow my skill.
Now I would like to say that, yes, I did read a lot of books when I was young. But, especially, when I could not find a book I was interested in – or when I could not get to the library due to living a good distance away and not having a driver’s license until later in my teenage life – I could always rely on reading fanfiction to keep me going. Even now, reading and/or writing fanfiction keeps my creativity alive. My future projects will show just that. People may think this diminishes authors’ works. However, I am not just ripping off my own fanfiction, changing the characters’ names and publishing the stories on this website. I only started writing my debut novel Loading: Life by pretending it was a fanfiction. (It seems to create less pressure in the process.)
With ending this blog post, I hope you all have found something to inspire you. Whether you write, sew, engineer, or work your butt off doing anything else, if you can find something to inspire you, even if it comes in an unconventional way, I hope you seize it and use it to keep you developing your skills!
I would love it if you read my newest fanfiction story. It was a flash fiction I created in an hour and a half at Naka-Kon 2017 for their IronFic Contest. It was the first time I created a whole story within a short amount of time. (Good for those who love my Nectere Short Stories.)
And I would love it if you check out my Plumfund book funding campaign! It is for my debut novel, Loading: Life. Everyone who donates gets a thank you prize of some kind. For those who donate $21 or more get a signed copy of their very own! And there are more amazing prizes to go along! And please feel free to tell your friends and family – or anyone else you know – about this exciting adventure of mine!
E.N. Chaffin 