Sept. 13, 2016 "When Harry Potter met Sally": I cut out this article by Julia Llewellyn Smith in the Edmonton Journal on Jul. 26, 2014:
Are you a fan of Downton Abbey? Then you might enjoy As Time Goes By, by “Willa Dedalus,” which imagines what might happen if the first kiss between Matthew Crawley and Lady Mary had continued. “He moved the silk up her legs then gasped in astonishment at what he found … ‘You’re not wearing panties.’”
Maybe you also love Doctor Who. Perhaps you’d like to read The Madman and the Rebel, about what could have happened if the Doctor visited Downton and met the rebellious Lady Sibyl (“Sibyl Persephone Crawley, I’m the doctor.” “Pardon me, sir, but doctor who?”).
But then you also might enjoy The Lion, the Doctor and the Cybermen when the Timelord visits Narnia. C.S. Lewis devotees can discover 11,000-plus other Narnia stories on fanfiction. net, such as Heir Apparent by “Queen of Old,” where “Susan is brought back to Narnia because Caspian’s throne is on the line unless he finds an appropriate queen and sires an heir. Boinking [sic] ensues.”
Welcome to the world of fan-fiction — fanfic to the initiated — where characters from favourite books, films and television programs — not to mention real celebrities — embark on (frequently X-rated) adventures their creators likely never imagined.
Fanfic has existed in some form virtually ever since creative writing began: take Virgil’s use of a minor character from the Iliad as the Aeneid’s protagonist. But in the past 20 years, since the inception of the World Wide Web, it’s become a phenomenon, with millions of stories.
Most fanfic takes its inspiration from the most enduring (regardless of literary or critical merit) canons: Harry Potter (fanfiction.net boasts 686,000 Potter stories alone), Twilight (of which much more later), Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, The X-Files and Tolkien’s Middle Earth. But there’s fanfic for virtually anything — Emmerdale, The Sound of Music and Katie Price’s Perfect Ponies.
Then there’s the burgeoning, but highly controversial area of real-people fiction (RPF), in which actual people like Stephen Fry and Brian Cox are portrayed as lovers, while the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev becomes a misunderstood outsider.
Despite its vastness, the subculture remained below most people’s radars until two years ago when it spawned the bestselling book of all time, Fifty Shades of Grey. A sado-masochistic homage to the already bestselling (but chaste) Twilight series, this trilogy by west London mother E.L. James had been available to read free online for a couple of years, under the title Masters of the Universe by “Snowqueens Icedragon.”
In print, having “filed off the serial numbers” — fanfic parlance for removing traces of the original inspiration — they went on to sell 100 million copies and counting; a film is in production.
Publishers and agents began scanning the fanfic boards for the next megahits. Several other Twilight-inspired erotic novels, like Gabriel’s Inferno and Beautiful B––, were quickly snapped up for figure sums and republished as “original fiction.”
Recently, 25-year-old Anna Todd from Texas sold the rights to her trilogy After for six figures to Simon and Schuster. It’s the story of Tessa, an innocent teenager who falls in with a crowd of college boys who — in their original “free-to-read” incarnation on the increasingly popular fanfic app Wattpad — are called Niall (character: carefree), Liam (serious), Zayn (shy) and Louis (joker).
But it’s “rude boy” Harry, the handsome outsider, who somewhat unconvincingly also loves Jane Austen, whom she falls for. Parents of teenage girls will immediately recognize the boys as the world’s biggest boy band One Direction.
To date, Todd’s 293 chapters chronicling Tessa and Harry’s on/off courtship, introduced with a warning of “detailed sexual scenes,” “tons of explicit language” and “loads and loads of typos” (not to mention a heavy debt to Twilight again), has attracted 800 million hits and an estimated one million regular readers — 85 per cent of whom read via mobile devices like phones.
Publishers are rubbing their hands at the prospect of a seemingly guaranteed bestseller. But far from everyone is happy.
“Profiting from fanfic is a divisive area,” says Anne Jamison, author of Fic: Why FanFiction is Taking Over the World. “Some in the community think it’s great fanfic is coming into its own.
But to many it’s absolute anathema to profit from what’s supposed to be an act of love.”
May 4, 2019 "How Wattpad is turning the page on publishing": Today I found this article by Carly Lewis in the Globe and Mail:
In the beginning, there were book proposals – dozens of hard-won pages submitted to prospective literary agents who’d reply with a gracious rejection but wish you all the best in your pursuits.
There was waiting, there was hoping, there was crushing disappointment. With Wattpad, an online and mobile platform for amateur, unagented writing that comprises a monthly user base of 70 million, today’s emerging authors can to say goodbye to all that.
Instead of relying on editorial gatekeepers, the engagement of millions of readers determine Wattpad’s highest performing content. The result: a sprawling database of viral storytelling, some of which has been optioned for television or movie productions. Now, comes Wattpad’s next move – a new imprint, Wattpad Books.
Founded by University of Toronto alumni Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen in 2006 – predating the announcement of the iPhone by two months – Wattpad allows users, 90 per cent of whom classify as millennials or Gen Z, to upload long-form stories they’ve written.
Other Wattpad users read them voraciously, often chapter by chapter as they’re posted, and can leave hyper-specific comments on certain paragraphs or sentences. While many professional writers obey a strict “Don’t read the comments” commandment to spare themselves the ill-mannered and sometimes traumatic gruel that comprises so much of our comment sections and Twitter mentions, Wattpad has turned the concept of direct reader-to-author access into a positive trait.
Authors use feedback to edit stories whenever they want, after they’ve already been posted. In a traditional publishing arena, edits that aren’t corrections would be considered uncouth if made after a piece is published, one of many indelible publishing-industry rules that Wattpad has overturned.
In August, the Toronto-based company will further build on this dynamic by publishing the first title of its new imprint. Given the platform’s defiant rejection of publishing norms, some might see the imprint as regressive.
But according to Wattpad Studios deputy general manager Ashleigh Gardner, who will lead the publishing division, entering the physical book market is not only logical from a revenue standpoint, but necessary in the company’s quest to highlight voices often excluded from the industry.
Plus, with a fanatically engaged user base, the platform’s most promising stories rise to prominence without staff having to spelunk a slush pile. Wattpad’s machine learning intelligence, which evaluates content based on an algorithm, user data and elemental qualities such as grammar, does that for them.
From there, a human team determines which stories to pitch to networks and, prior to the launch of its own imprint, outside publishers. (Wattpad’s licensing arm connects authors with film and television studios such as Sony, SYFY Network, Universal Cable Productions and Hulu, among others.
The Netflix film The Kissing Booth was acquired from then-17-year-old Wattpad user Beth Reekles, who was also offered a three-book deal with Random House U.K. after 19 million users read her story. In April, the feature film After, based on a Wattpad story by author Anna Todd, was theatrically released.)
“Part of our reason for creating a book imprint is that we were bringing projects to publishers and they were doing really well sales-wise, but we were always having to convince a middleman. We were having to do a lot of education and data literacy.
One of the most frustrating parts about working within publishing is that there’s often a lot of fear to take a risk on something if there’s no [comparative] title. If it hasn’t worked before, it’s really difficult to get people to pay attention. On Wattpad, the stories aren’t just picked by an editor. Our entire community is our book scouts. We’ve got one of the most diverse, young communities and one of the most massive focus groups in the world right now. To be able to confidently say, ‘This is resonating with an audience,’ is an exciting thing that we have, that other [publishers] don’t have.”
Wattpad Books will release six young-adult titles of between 80,000 and 100,000 words in length by the end of 2019. Editing will be handled in-house, with sales and distribution led by Raincoast Books in Canada, and Macmillan in the United States. For 2020, the company projects 20 book releases, with genres extending beyond YA. (In 2018, Wattpad announced it had raised US$51-million in investment funding.)
The imprint’s first title, The QB Bad Boy and Me, by New Zealand-based author Tay Marley, has amassed 41 million reads on the platform. (All Wattpad Books titles will remain in raw, pre-edited form on the Wattpad platform even after they’re published.)
Its second title, Trapeze, by England-based Leigh Ansell, will be released mid-September.
Ansell, who is 23 and works a day job as a copywriter, signed up for Wattpad to read stories when she was 15 years old. “I didn’t have a lot of money to buy actual books, so I was searching for a place where I could read online,” she says. Today, Ansell’s Wattpad page has 135,000 followers, and her digital Wattpad book Human Error has been optioned for television.
“I’ve always been a writer,” says Ansell, who says she spent her childhood writing “really cringy” short stories. Though it took time to build the courage to post her own writing, eventually she began to use Wattpad as an author. “It occurred to me that these writers were amateur authors as well, and a lot of them were the same age as me. So I thought, ‘Why can’t I post my stories?’”
“A big thing for me was my age,” she continues. “Part of the reason I wasn’t taking myself seriously was, well, what publisher is going to take a 15-year-old seriously? With Wattpad it didn’t feel like such a high-pressure thing. It was just about telling a story and having fun with it.”
Wattpad’s database contains 565 million story uploads, not all of which will become major acquisitions. Gardner says that for many, being optioned is not the goal. “A lot of our users have joined Wattpad because it’s self-expression for them, in the same way that people use Instagram without being monetarily incentivized to do so. And a lot of people are able to build careers on that as well,” she says.
(Wattpad offers several revenue-generating streams that writers can opt into, such as Wattpad Paid Stories, which allows readers to pay-per-chapter, and Wattpad Futures, which allows writers to have advertisements run alongside their stories.)
“On Wattpad, there is a space to make mistakes and learn from them,” says 17-year old Wattpad writer Noora Zaroon, who is based in New Delhi. “It’s very interactive. Your readers can comment on what’s wrong with the story and you can immediately rectify it. I have seen my book evolve over a course of five years and that would not have been possible if I had published it. Publishing means your work is permanent, unchangeable. Wattpad allows your work to evolve as you yourself evolve, as both a person and a writer.”
Josie Migdal, a 19-year-old Wattpad writer from Orlando, says, “The great thing about Wattpad is the freedom. You can put out whatever you want. …Everyone on the platform seems to have kind of the same mindset, we’re all at a similar point in our lives. That its users are majority girls does help a lot. If your editors are all 50-year-old men, there’s a big barrier there because our brains are obviously different.” (Wattpad’s user base is 70-per-cent women.)
It is incontestable that the internet can be a cruel place for marginalized people. According to a representative from Wattpad, the company has a zero-tolerance approach to harassment or bullying, which fosters an environment where experimentation and imperfection are forgiven, even encouraged.
While other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been reluctant to take an actionable stance on hate speech, Wattpad’s policy is to delete any such comments without hesitation. “We’ve invested a lot in a strong trust and safety team, and they’ve done a great job building and enforcing an amazing culture,” says Gardner. “We also put a lot of control in the hands of our writers.”
Wattpad writers have the ability to delete comments left on their work and can block individual users from commenting on their stories.
“I do get comments here and there from people who don’t like a certain character or plot situation but for the most part, it is a very positive place,” Migdal says. “And even when you do mess up or spell something wrong or use any kind of incorrect grammar, people don’t make you feel bad about it.” Wattpad users retain the rights to work posted on the platform and can unpublish stories at any time.
“The cynic in me wants to say that there is an element of exploitation in making money from the user-generated content of teenagers,” says Emily Keeler, a Toronto-based editor with Coach House Books. (Disclosure: Keeler is a personal acquaintance and previous editor of mine.)
“But I was also a teenager on Blogspot and WordPress, and for too large a chunk of my life gave unpaid content to sites like Facebook and Twitter. I don’t really think it’s that different.
“The business of publishing doesn’t exist because it’s good business. It exists because people want to make art and they want to be heard and express themselves and create publics where their work can be recognized,” she adds. "It’s interesting to think about new models and new ways of consolidating a public.”
As subversive as Wattpad may seem to publishing purists, the platform’s influence isn’t that it’s revolutionized the act of reading. Its significance is in its mutiny, waged against the gatekeepers of literary homogeneity first as an online library, and now as a physical force in the book-buying market. “These opportunities have made me realize that you don’t have to go about it the traditional way,” Ansell says. “That’s not the only way in.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-wattpad-has-already-disrupted-digital-publishing-now-its-challenging/
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This week's theme is about Wattpad, publishing, and TV and movies:
"Wattpad aims to propel writers of offline stardom"/ Constantin Film and JB Pictures Set to Produce Wattpad Hit PERFECT ADDICTION
"Wattpad eyes more adaptations after success of Netflix's The Kissing Booth"/ "The old kiss principle"
My opinion: I'm sure some of you guys are like: "Why are you rereading and publishing all these articles about Wattpad now?" I was listening to Trevor Daniel's song "Falling" and someone made a video with the song about "Hardin and Tessa." I looked up to see who they were, and they were in the movie After based on a story by Wattpad.
I have copied and pasted these articles into my drafts account for a few years now (since 2017.) I wasn't really that interested in publishing on Wattpad, because I was really focused on getting a 2nd job. In 2017, I was let go from my 2nd restaurant job and was looking for a 2nd job.
I was also veering away from TV production. However, now that I reread all these articles, maybe I could write my The Vertex Fighter script into a novel form onto the Wattpad platform.
I have thought of this, and my friend Sherry told me this a long time ago about writing the script into a book form and getting that published, and then the book will be turned into a TV show or movie.
Route #1: Write a TV script and pitch it to get this produced.
Route #2: Write a book and pitch it to get this published. Then turn it into a TV or a movie.
I have been on Route #1 from 2008-2012, and some more in 2013-2014.
Route #3: However, Wattpad could be the way to get produced and published.
My week:
Oct. 15, 2021 "HBO's The Last of Us shooting in Edmonton's 104 Street": Today I found this article by Diego Romero on CTV News. I copied and pasted this to the Edmonton Film Makers Group, Edmonton Film Industry Network, and the Edmonton Screenwriters group on Facebook. I heard about this TV show at the ESIO filmmaking network event:
EDMONTON - Pedro Pascal was walking around 104 Street downtown on Friday, filming HBO's The Last of Us with Bella Ramsey.
CTV News Edmonton drone footage shows the apocalyptic set with cast and crew members on the city's popular shopping and dining strip.
An unofficial account for the television show has been posting videos and photos from Edmonton residents of Pascal and Ramsey on set.
The Last of Us has also filmed scenes in the legislature area and Rice Howard Way this week.
32 people (including my friend Edmon) on the Edmonton Film Industry Facebook group "liked" my post.
Oct. 7, 2021 "Thinking about going as a 'naughty nurse' for Halloween? Why some say the costume ‘presents nurses as sex candy": Today I found this article by Kaitlin Reilly on Yahoo News:
Nurses have been hailed as heroes during the coronavirus pandemic, and yet, come Halloween, many aren’t feeling so celebrated. Blame the prevalence of “sexy nurse” costumes in party stores and on social media, which are prompting nurses to speak out about what they see as degrading to their profession.
Each year, nurses take to social media to slam the costumes. Many say it's offensive that their jobs — which are life-saving and often involve not-so-sexy tasks like changing bed pans, administering IVs and performing wound care — are reduced to a sexual fetish.
Sandy Summers, a registered nurse who is the executive director of the nurse advocacy organization the Truth About Nursing, sees these “objectifying” outfits each year — and they never sit right with her.
“Nurses are propositioned, grabbed and sexually assaulted, in large part because the ‘naughty nurse’ image presents nurses as sex candy that hospitals have on offer, as if sexual services is something we provide," Summers tells Yahoo Life in an email. "We are not making this up: In 2010, a Dutch man fired his home health nurse because she wouldn’t provide him with sexual services.”
“Nurses have long been female, but women in medicine is relatively a new concept,” she explains. “Men who stereotype nurses want to control nurses, because they fear being in a hospital bed being controlled by nurses, who are the caregivers who are the most hands-on. The ‘naughty nurse’ stereotype allows men to be in control of nurses by objectifying and demeaning nurses.”
Nurses explain why they don't like sexy Halloween costumes (yahoo.com)
Oct. 12, 2021 "Why some young Albertans are leaving the province": Today I found this article by David Bell on CBC News. Here are some excerpts:
Dowell, a librarian, is part of that trend. She has worked in public libraries and most recently in a public school in Airdrie, a growing community just north of Calgary.
"I had my hours cut to where it wasn't sustainable. I wasn't making any money [after] paying for child care," she said.
Jason Kenney's government has slashed millions of dollars from budgets across the education spectrum, which has led school boards to give pink slips to tens of thousands of workers.
The province cut 5.4 per cent out of post-secondary budgets in the 2021 budget, leaving schools to replace $135 million in funding.
"Young people are leaving the province for a variety of reasons — some tied to employment, some tied to economics or education," Finch said.
Why some young Albertans are leaving the province | CBC News
Oct. 18, 2021 "Amarjeet Sohi elected Edmonton's first mayor of South Asian origin": Today I found this article by Natasha Riebe on CBC news:
Former city councillor and federal Liberal cabinet minister Amarjeet Sohi will become Edmonton's first mayor of South Asian origin.
Sohi, who was born in Punjab, India in 1964, rolled to a commanding victory in Monday's municipal election. With more than 98 per cent of voting stations reporting, Sohi had a lead of 45,273 votes over Mike Nickel, his closest challenger.
Sohi will lead a council with eight women, up from two on the previous council.
Sohi, 57, delivered his victory speech at the Matrix Hotel in downtown Edmonton with his wife, Sarbjeet, and their daughter, Seerat, by his side.
He spoke about immigrating to Canada at the age of 18 with little in the way of material possessions.
"I had a mission and dreams to build a better life in a new home, dreams that sometimes seemed impossible," he said.
"And today because of you, because of everyone in this room, we have made the impossible possible."
My opinion: I voted for him. I went to the polling station at 10am. There was a wait and I was there for like 20 min.
Oct. 18, 2021 "Instacart 'shoppers' baffled by shrinking paycheques": Today I found this article by Dianne Buckner on CBC News. Here are a few excerpts:
Delivery people who work with Instacart, the app that collects online orders and drops them off at customers' homes, say it's impossible to understand how the company calculates what they're paid, but that one thing is clear — their earnings have fallen significantly over the last few months.
"Mark," as he'll be called in this article, lives in Western Canada and says he supports his wife and three children with his Instacart earnings. He had been earning over $1,000 a week on average for over a year, making $25 to $30 an hour, but said the fees offered currently are so low, many aren't even worth his time to take. During a recent week he made under $400.
Feuer has been tracking every detail related to his pay since he began, creating a spreadsheet that he shares with other shoppers, so they can track their Instacart earnings as well.
"This red line represents minimum wage," he said, pointing to a chart of his hourly income over the past year, even though Instacart doesn't pay by the hour. In Ontario, minimum wage is $14.35 per hour.
"You can see that in the last six weeks, the income has been below the minimum wage from Instacart, and has been trending downward since June," he said. Feuer estimates he now averages $8 to $9 an hour.
My opinion: At least the "shoppers" are calling CBC for help.
Oct. 20, 2021 Snowy Dessert closed down: My brother P told me this restaurant on Whyte Ave permanently closed down. The For Lease sign was up.
There is still Snowy Village on Jasper Ave if you want to get a Korean dessert.
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