Ahoy, and other nautical expressions!

So it seems you’ve found your way into limbo—I say limbo as it’s quite empty here...I know, and even though there isn’t all that much here at the moment I’ll have you know that I am slowly building up an army of stories—I would be inclined to use the term “patience”, but it would be hypocritical of me seeing as I myself have none of that—(so please bear with me).

(Also, as a side-note to clear any confusion—“Hi, I’m Tollandm. But you might remember me as AgynessFromOz!”).

The irrelevant tip: And so, here I am—thanks to this phenomenal thing called the inter-web, it has become far too easy to ensure that you never leave the house (generally, I guess more so for today’s generation). I don’t really like the internet though, in all honesty—regardless of the irony that I do all my work on the internet anyway—the amusement that because one can be anonymous, it is assumed that they can say what they want, things that they’d never have even thought of had it been a live confrontation! And anyone who will let those petty things get to them are no better.

The moral of this story: Cyber-bullying and aggressive—(troll)—comments are pathetic jokes. Let’s grow up, shall we?

The basics: I’m in my twenties, and as such my life revolves around university, work, travel and other pointless things that are a part of my life.

I can get annoyingly English about a lot of things—one of my biggest “Pet-peeves” is, admittedly, the Americanised spelling of “Mother”—but I can understand...we say “Mum”, and you say, well, the other one. And that’s fine, really—but please, leave it out of things it has no real business being in—like fan-fictions based on British writings, (Like Harry Potter, for instance!)

The advice: As a writer, I’m going to throw out some free advice because I feel it’s my duty to do so. The first is—Characterisation. Good grief! I cannot stress enough, especially when you are writing fan-fiction, that you try to research what and who you’re writing about, and stick as close as possible to their personality! If you can’t do that, then perhaps you should choose something else.

Secondly—if you say your story is funny, then it probably isn’t. I know that the illiterate people who review you work are probably all up in that—“OMG. ROFLMAO. LOL. Ure a greight wreiter! DO MOAR” Thing...and well, if you listen to something like that—it tells me more than I should know.

Because they don’t count as people. Because that is not humour, that is essentially you just dangling some yarn in front of a kitten. And in the end, a handful of people hastily press the ‘back’ button and are left feeling violated.

And thirdly—I know that no matter what, some of your own personality will leak through your characters—but 85% of the time you’re doing it wrong, and create a monster, (I.E; Mary-Sue?)

Here’s what you do. First, your protagonist must be your own creation, (original character). Second, do not, under any circumstances, do any of the following: A) Name them after yourself, B) Include pointless things you or someone you know did as a child, or have done that is only amusing to your own family but quite silly and incoherent to everyone else.

The point is, you include things of importance to you, and by extension, your character. (i.e; beliefs, views, thoughts and general musings). But keep it a little vague, and hopefully in good taste. After all, the term “Arrogance must be earned” is not a myth.

The warning: Alright, I have to admit that I don’t think I could ever, for the life of me, write a successful “K” (or what...) rated story. I like to mimic reality in certain aspects and well, let’s face it...cursing, violence, sex, drugs, bigotry and the like are all sewn into the hem of reality. So if you offend, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’ve got a lot of experiments and works-in-progress that will one day find their way here, when I get my thoughts in order and actually finish something—if I’ve posted it here, it won’t be abandoned.