The Heretic Loremaster » Fandom and Online Life

On Muses

I just read a post by sarajayechan on the JournalFen fandom_discuss community about the use and general fandom annoyance with the term muse. Her first paragraph sums it up pretty well:
So in the fanfiction world, “muses” are apparently frowned upon. Authors who have convos with the characters in their authornotes are scorned, people [...]

Welcome to Middle-earth–Now Speak English!

I am jumping through the last leg of hoops in terms of completing my teaching certification, one hoop of which requires me to take two basic linguistic courses. Admittedly, it is probably the most pleasurable hoop to jump through, since it is an area I have wanted to study for some time anyway.
While reading The [...]

Here in the Corner, All by Myself

Before I begin, I some housekeeping: Now that I am freelancing full-time and have more writing time available to me (in theory), I am hoping to get The Heretic Loremaster off of the ground again. When I first created this site, I wanted it to be a place for discussion of “heretical” views of literature [...]

Ownership of Fanworks

Recently, on a list where I lurk, the owner made a post banning “remix” stories where an author takes an existing fanwork and rewrites it. And when I say “banning,” I don’t just mean that such stories are not allowed but anyone found writing them, even on locked groups, will be banned.
(ETA: I want to [...]

Fan Fiction Is Fiction

Another (published) author has come out against “fan fiction”: Diana Gabaldon publicly declared her disgust, disdain, and delusion that fanfic is illegal in a series of posts on her blog. Those posts have since been deleted, but copies can be found on Fandom Wank here or in Google cache here.
It is becoming a perennial thing [...]

The Troll without a Face: Anonymous Online Discourse

When I first started posting my writing online, I kept an open door to anonymous comments when the sites where I posted allowed me to do so. In my mind, someone had just read my work and had some amazingly insightful thought about it and went to comment and … she wasn’t a member of [...]

Happy Begetting Day, SWG

Just like an Elf, SWG has both a recognized begetting day and birthday and, just like an Elf, its parent (that would be me) tends to recognize the former rather than the latter. In fact, I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I don’t know the SWG’s exact birthday except that it is at the [...]

‘Tis the Season to Be Bitter

Well, MEFA results are trickling in to authors with the final list of winners forthcoming. Celebration already pervades, both of individual results and of the accomplishments of the MEFA staff in another smooth-going and fun season. Fun for most, that is. Because for every cheer and every lifted glass of virtual champagne, there is an [...]

Geeks Behaving Badly?

XXFactor has a post today about the persistent sexism in “geek culture,” which this particular writer identifies as the tech industry. Now I’m not part of the tech industry–unless fumbling through the occasional SQL query in MS Access counts–but I do count myself as part of varying facets of “geek culture” and wonder if the [...]

Open Thread for Slash Discussion

I am opening this post for any and all who are interested in continuing the slash discussion from LotR Genfic. This discussion has been moved offlist since the list is a gen group and the discussion was starting to touch on issues that don’t necessarily belong on a family-friendly group. So that we could keep [...]