Fanfiction Shenanigans

I finally finished my Star Wars fanfiction!

I've been working on this story, on and off, for seven or eight months. It really feels wierd to leave the characters behind now.

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I just realised that I've been writing internet fan-fiction for just over 2 1/2 years. I really had no idea it had been so long... but I happen to make a note of the starting and finishing dates for all my pieces of writing.

And it made me nostalgic. I'm going to drag this story out, so here we go.

A few years back, I was seriously depressed, studying Psychology (a subject I was really bad at) at University and very lonely. As a kid my hobbies had been writing/drawing little comic books and playing Nintendo. As a teenager I had more or less stopped playing Nintendo and instead obsessed over TV and film comedies. I saw this as 'growing up'. When I was at my most miserable, I started to miss the Nintendo and I bought a second-hand X-box and a copy of Star Wars: Jedi Outcast. It was a 3D shooting/platform game I had played at my mate's house, which was fairly ordinary except for three things: Billy Dee Williams was in it, you could get a lightsaber which would actually mark the walls if it touched them (OMG), and John Williams' amazing 'Star Wars' score played every time you were in a gunfight.

I loved the game, and I suddenly gained a deep appreciation for the original trilogy of Star Wars films. In the game you got to drive an AT-ST, shoot at stormtroopers, fire lightning from your fingers and choke people to death, talk to Luke Skywalker, and explore the galaxy far, far away as a rough, wise-cracking 'Just a guy with a lightsaber' who, of course, eventually matures into a proper Jedi knight. Unlike most Jedi, he matures by eviscerating several hundred enemy troops, but there you go.

Hungry for more, I went out and bought the game right next to it on the shelf - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I think Knightfall and I have told this story to death, but I really liked the game. I started watching the movies more and more, and even became extremely fond of the 3 new prequel movies. When Revenge of the Sith came out, I skipped an exam (the anticipation for which was crippling me) to watch it. The movie was just good, but the experience was one I will always remember. At the very height of my Star Wars fandom, and in my saddest days, I saw a Star Wars film for the first time, on the biggest of big screens.

Three years passed, in which I dropped out, came back, dropped out again, developed a hobby playing Bioware role-playing videogames and fell in love. At the start of 2008, inspired by comedy websites I loved and egged-on by my brother, I started up Microsoft Word and dashed out a parody script to Episode 3 - 'Revenge of the Angst'. (I took it offline eventually when I re-read those websites and realised I'd subconsciously ripped some of them off). But I had a lot of fun writing it.

The joy of writing it made me read more. I slowly made my way through a few books, and then a glut of Star Wars books. In the first half of 2008 I wrote two more pieces - a giant parody script of Bioware's Mass Effect and a short Star Wars story about a werewolf on Tatooine. The latter was terrible, but the former was actually really successful.

'Mock Effect' got me over a hundred reviews from people who had read it, and that just blew my mind. This was the best time of my life. I was madly in love, not at University anymore and writing comedy which was being read and enjoyed by lots of people. The parody script even led to a fanfiction website being created to house it, which has now outgrown it to become an awesome community and an excellent Mass Effect fansite.

Needless to say, my ego swelled massively. I began writing more and more (fanfic), trying out different styles and genres, and reading a little more still. At the same time in 2009, I wrote my second big project - a 35,000 word story about... Mass Effect. Mass Effect is a very good game. That year I also wrote a few little poems, more fanfics and a short story with a completely original concept.

Now we're halfway through 2010. I'm starting a new course next year, studying English and creative writing. I have been wanting to leave fanfic behind, and move on to become a serious penniless amateur writer still living with his parents.

I've found it very hard to get started on new original stories, and ended up leaning back on fanfic. I was happy to 'move on', but there had always been one story concept at the back of my mind, since way back when I played Jedi Outcast. I had always wanted to write a story about a Guy With A Lightsaber.

It would be about an ordinary civillian who finds a jedi laser-sword and has a brief, low-level adventure fighting the Empire. It would be set right before the time of the original films, but it would incorporate the Jedi mythos that had come into it in recent years, and dominated the novels I loved.

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So - my new Star Wars fanfic - also probably my last fanfic - Star Wars: A Thousand Generations. Yes, this big, personally-revealing biography was nothing but a cheap plug for my new fanfic, Star Wars: A Thousand Generations. Works every time.
Now, I don't claim you can have a better time with Star Wars: A Thousand Generations than without it.... but why take chances?

It's another big writing project (31,000 words) and it's finally finished.

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Now... I don't know what's next! Hopefully a lot more writing, in any case. I really enjoy it.