A Flurry of Feathers and Wings

Have you heard the word? The word is actually, the bird.

Baring said bird, the big thing to talk about, praising, poorly or otherwise, in the lit world is the BDSM erotica-fanfiction-cum-bestseller thing called 50 Shades of Grey.

From all that I've gathered, it gets prodominately the stay-at-home momthers hot under the apron, who seem to be the only ones anyone will say this book is for, while being essentially a Twilight knockoff (and a slightly proud one, at that) only with less sparkle and more spanking. Woo.

What everyone (everyone) agrees with, however, is the book, as written is utter bile. Not the subject matter isn't poorly researched or well introduced - rest assured, as little research went into this as possible - but while most racey subject matter is bound to be banned from some library somewhere, it says a lot when they say their reasons rest less with the bondage and sex than it does with how utterly horrible the writer is at what they should be good at.

None of this is aimed at fanfiction. Fanfiction is what it is; a testing ground, a place where writers of large and small go to play with wordage and see what skill they possess. Some are good, numerous are bad, most are just an outlet of wishful thinking fingers. Too often the ones that make it big, such as this, should never have been given trees to kill, but again, not what this is aimed at.

My issue? My procrastination issues.

Because (at least I believe) I wrote, or at least had the idea for, something that while close in basic idea, was a lot fucking better written. This. This right here! This would have been so much better than the putrid whatever it was that came out!

*huff, sigh*

Okay, got that out. I'm well aware that many ideas germinate at the same time, and often it's coincidence that they come out the same time or close to the same manner. It's not the first time it's happened to me. But still, it's a kick in the ass to get going on things, because while I may not get as far on shock and spanking as 50 Shades, I can at least know I did the concept better.

This piece was a very strange experience to write. Not because I have any problems with the themes or characters or anything, but that I think I blanked on how most it coming about. I remember typing, but very much lost myself in its creation until the fact that I realized it was four in the morning (having started at ten) and this was suddenly in front of me.

I'm not sure I like not being aware of myself when I write. It's one of the reasons I'm not and never have been anything more than a social drinker at best, and a lightweight at that. I like having my senses about me, so while having that blurred feeling of slowed movement works for some people, I hate knowing that I no longer have that sharpened sense.

And it's not that I'm mad at the time loss. There have been plenty of times I've sat down to write and suddenly it's hours later. The problem this time is the loss of the sense of writing itself. I want to be aware of the words and characters. I want to have multiple voices in my head arguing over how they'd be better represented.

Maybe it was just from writing so late and not sleeping particularly well lately. Who knows. But the story itself was a strange end to a kinda weird day anyway, so why not add to the oddity?

As for the story itself, I kinda like it. It's not like anything else I've attempted before, and the characters seem like they'll be a lot of fun to engage with. Erilina Crow seems like very much someone who will get her way regardless of how you feel about it, and it's interesting to see how much power and control she actually has and exactly how she's willing to exert it. Kelli I'm still trying to get a grasp of, she's very much still an unidentifible, in what I know of her and her character itself. Almost going through the motions, but not sure what the motions are, a mass of unsure emotions and tangled ideas. Which I'm sure Erilina will enjoy straightening to her enjoyment.

I'm trying to figure out how far exactly I'm going to go with it; and I'm pretty sure it's going to go somewhere, I've a bit of a lull in my other projects at the moment, so indulging in something that's actually doing something isn't going to hurt matters. But with stories like this there's always a line at some point that you don't know if you want to really cross or not. And more often than not, you usually don't realize if you have crossed it until you're looking behind you and all you see are footprints.

Even with this first entry, it flirts close to being very brazen about the material therein, but still holds it back from being in your face about it. Yes, the themes and such aren't exactly subtle after a certain point, but it still never outright states that that's what it's telling you, which I like. In a way it feels very much like Scarred, a slow exploration of a life changing experience as it happens to a character, an experience beyond the standard "coming of age" or "finding one's place in the world" events that one usually finds on shelves.

I'm interested to see where this goes and far it will go. And Erilina just seems like she'll be a fun bitch to write for.