Just after setting my goals, I had an amazing offer. One of my goals was to write fanfiction again. If you’ve been here before you’ll probably have seen some Guild Wars 2 fanfics floating around (you can find them here). A few of my Guild Wars 2 friends decided to do an amazing collaboration between writers and artists for charity, a Wintersday zine.
Zorav is the mastermind behind this project, but she isn’t doing it alone. She’s had the help of wonderful people who coordinated and edited the fanfics to the masterpieces that they are now. She launched the crowfunding campaign to raise funds for the zines and anything beyond the production costs would go to charity. In the two charity events she moderated, $42,000 went to charity.
Taking part in such a zine has been an experience. There were 71 artists and writers who contributed. Each writer collaborated with an artist to tell their story. Amazing pieces were submitted, in both art and writing.
I finally have my copy of the @WintersdayZine with my story in it. @ZoravPOW has done an amazing job with the layout and the rest of the crew, mods, artists and writers are fantastic! #gw2 #amwriting @GuildWars2 pic.twitter.com/jTjfsa4lUf
— Tessa (@Endalia) December 31, 2017
It felt weird to hold a book with my work in it. It isn’t the first time I’ve had my work in print, but this was different. This wasn’t a newspaper, this was something I was passionate about, with amazing art by Eames, in full colour, printed on gorgeous paper. It was definitely something I’m proud of and I showed it off to anyone who wanted to see it (mostly family and friends who don’t know anything about Guild Wars 2).
The applications for the Wintersday Zine have been closed already, but the crowdfunding has yet to start. So if you’re interested in buying a zine filled with great art and stories, keep your eye out this fall.
I’m kinda torn on fan fiction. On the one hand I’m super happy when people found a world where they want to be creative and not just consumers. But I personally just don’t want to read it – I think it’s the same reason I hate reboots in comics or movies. I live by the canon and there should (must) a single source of truth. There are several stages of annoyance though. Remaking a standalone movie after 20-50 years: OK, might watch both. Redoing a series only a few years after: Nope, unless I happen to watch the second one first, then the first one might be consumed. But while I like the new Star Wars movies, I’m not a fan of the changed Expanded Universe that made all my old novels suddenly non-canon, but I can grudgingly accept there’s now 2 versions with continuity after Episode 6 – and both of them are separate and conclusive in themselves.
But at least it’s easy to just say “won’t read” without telling people what to do or not to do. But that also kinda means: sorry, won’t read :|
That’s fine. I rarely read fanfics as well. Especially the ones that use canon characters.
You can read my original fiction on Narratess.com 😉