what I meant to say was...

I had a big post done about CEII but it turned into something else I didn't want to get into right now.

So...here we go again.
CEII was amazing. It was, in fact, probably one of the best experiences of my life. I rode a 5 day high of delight and excitement that I swear I have not experienced since I was a whole lot younger than my current jaded old self. Trying to figure out why this was exactly I go off on all sorts of tangents and really it's like trying to explain the meaning of life to a rock...or something.

I think the combination of meeting extraordinary people who all share the common love of Star Wars and geeky stuff along with the fact that it was a HUGE event plus some rather extraordinarily unexpected wonders that happened which made it special. I'm going to leave it at that.

packed and ready to go!

Day 1 Thursday:

Having spent the day before packing and sewing I wanted to get on the go early. This did not happen as we had last minute shopping stuff to do and Himself needed a hair cut. We left the house around 1 ish and off we went to Essen. I grumbled a bit because I wanted to be there a bit earlier but no matter. The trip down was easy. We missed all the staus and the bad weather. It was fun getting Facebook pms as updates from our friend Claus and before we knew it we were at our hotel. The Ruhr Hotel Essen.

almost there...not quite...

 
This is a smallish ( around 40 rooms) family run hotel around 15 minutes walk from the convention centre. Checking in was funny because the first thing that was commented on was that we were the people who couldn't decide how long we wanted to stay for. Ha ha. 1st we'd only booked  Friday Saturday, the weekend, then we added Sunday night then realized on Wednesday that we'd forgotten about staying on Thursday, luckily for us they had room still open for Thursday night. They made sure we got the same room all the way through in spite of the 3 x we booked. Super friendly doesn't begin to cover it. The room we had was spacious and in the back of the hotel. #23. All the while this is going on people we know are also showing up. It was a huge reunion in the hotel lobby much to the amusement of the staff.

After all the back and forth, the walking to find the convention centre we headed out, wearing the appropriate t-shirts ( a must) to the brauerei pub where the meet and greet was to take place. This pub, as a nice as it was, needed serious lessons from a Munich beer garden. The service was pretty abysmal, they were totally under staffed and they, even though they had been warned,  had no idea how to cope with the mass of people that showed up. Dudes, the 501st and the Rebel Legion + friends are huge. But this was the case, it turned out, for pretty well the whole area around the Messe. No one expected the 501st, the RL the droid builders etc... we are legion and far too many for all the local eateries.

The meet and greet was great. So many familiar faces and a lot of new ones. I stepped way out of my shy zone and bounced about like Tigger on uppers. I was so hyper and excited. It was fun and silly and I got to talk to new people, meet new people and probably scared new people who were wondering who was the crazy red head and why is she talking to me....But really it was cool to actually get up the nerve to openly say Hi I'm Fiona who are you... and start from there. I saw people who really didn't know many people and they looked a bit lost. I know and remember what that feels like. For me, at least, this was a great way to meet new friends. You can usually tell after a few seconds if people don't want to engage and then you say nice to meet you and move along.

the meet and greet!

The pub just couldn't handle people standing around and not sitting at the table. They stopped giving bar service because ..well I don't know why actually.... and would only serve you if you were attached to a table.  We managed to get 1 beer order in and then given the state of the service added a second one which much to Marcus' chagrin came fairly quickly so he was left holding two beers as I still had not finished my first one. This was okay tho because it meant when our friend Jasmine arrived and was sad-panda-face because she wanted a cold drink and it was impossible I could gladly give her the beer meant for me. We rescued her with beer...this is a good German tradition I think. Anything for a squad mate! After a few hours of non-existent service and only1 beer we skipped across the street to a very nice Italian place and ate with our Swiss Garrison Friends. This was one of the only places ( also the sushi place) that did not run out of food and still managed to serve it in a decent time frame.) After food we went back to the pub and just mingled.

All 4 of my Tusken husbands were there so we took a silly picture.

Tusken husbands #1,#2,#3,and #4

Cards were traded, patches were swapped, stories were told and the excitement ramped up a notch for the big day tomorrow.  I think we wandered off at around midnight-ish, because it was very warm and we were kind of tired and tomorrow was going to be pretty busy.

Back at the hotel we settled in to sleep but not before I set up the fan we'd brought with us...a trick we had stolen from the people sleeping in the room across from us at DW20 and boy were we glad I had done this. Essen was in full on heat wave and the lovely hotel did not have A/C.

Aaahhhhhhhhhhh!

Day 2: TBC....

The Gender game.

For a little while now there has been a growing push of people, mainly women who are discussing on twitter and through blogs the issue of gender in science fiction / fantasy mainly focused on Star Wars.
 It started here The GFFA Needs Women: The Disappointing Nomi Cancellation in a post by Nanci, then Chris wrote his rebuttal: EU Action/Reaction: Let’s Stop Thinking About Gender 
This post from Club Jade says it very well. Why do we want more women highlighted in the Expanded Universe?  And so does Tosche Station Why Star Wars Needs Women – Now More Than Ever.

One of my Twitter friends asked why women were so mad at the moment, well I think partly the post from Chris over at the EUC didn't really help matters and also I think that we're seeing several things collide at once not the least of which is probably a subconscious push against the misogynistic tendencies going on the e USA at the moment. There's a war on women and it's spilling out onto the streets ( but that's another post for another time)  

Does the Star Wars franchise need more strong female characters? Yes I think it does. While one can argue that SW is full of women, for the most part, as characters, they are not treated very well nor are they, as characters, written very well either and this is part of the problem.

Yesterday, when asked to pick out a strong female character in the scifi / fantasy world the 1st person that came to mind was Ellen Ripley. She is the standard by which I personally set the bar by. After that Zoe and Inara from Firefly also came to mind, both incredibly strong characters but for vastly different reasons. Olivia from Fringe, and let's not forget to mention half the cast of BattleStar Galactica. There is a wealth of strong female characters in today's sci fi, movie and tv. Women who are tough, smart, sassy, vulnerable, emotional and essentially human and very believable. And this is the point. Many of the female characters in Star Wars are two dimensional and personally I don't give a rat's ass about them, although in all honesty I feel the same way about many of the male characters in SW as well.

So I thought about this a lot and I think the issue is not so much a lack of female characters, because there are actually quite a few in the SW universe, but rather the incredible lack of really good writing. I've touched on this before but I think it bears saying again. Most of the SWEU books I've read are crap. While reading the NJO ( the new jedi order series in which an entirely alien and brand new to the SW universe bad guys set out to destroy all) I had to restrain myself from having a  good old fashioned book burning.   Honestly I've never read a worse set of books. There were one or two exceptions to this ( Matt Stover being the one that comes to mind) but for the most part I wanted to toss the set out the window. Waste of money. Why? Because they were awful. Bad plots, terrible and unbelievable dialogue and for the most part boring as hell. Evil bad guys vs out numbered jedi yeah what ever... And don't get me started on the Killik series which featured giant bugs and a bunch of the stupidest ideas I've ever read - ever. ( even worse than the NJO)

Well here's the thing. I find that Star Wars in general as of late has become a great deal about merchandising and tie ins and less about story and substance. ( in many but not all cases) It's a money maker. I get that, it's a business and it needs to make money. If something has the lable Star Wars slapped on it people WILL lap it up like cats at a cream bowl. I've seen people buy anything you can think of just because it's SW related. The same goes with books. People are so desperate for anything Star Wars related many don't care and or don't notice how badly done so much of it is, especially in novels.

Now there's a rising vocal group who want more. We clamour for well written books. Well thought out, in depth, clever plots with characters we can identify with, male and female. No more rehash of the movies, no more recycling the movie lines. Let's have more thought provoking situations with complex adversaries not some variation of keystone cops and overly empowered super jedi with some gratuitous harlequin romance thrown in for good measure.

When I wrote my fanfic I did so because, honestly, this was the book I really wanted to read. Something where the Imperials were not all mustachio twirling idiot megalomaniacs hell bent on destroying the universe before letting it fall into the hands of the enemy. ( Isard and her stupid plan to poison Courescant...really? Come on.) I wanted characters I could love and hate. People I wanted to hang out with and be friends with or shoot. These are the reactions I should get when reading books. Good, well written books make you feel. You fall in love, you feel pain, you learn to hate a little, you clamour for revenge and so on. You go on a ride along and if the book is really good, for a short time you're totally transported to another time and place. You should not be aware you're reading a book because you have been transported into the book instead.

Why is it that a single jedi can slaughter an entire battalion of battle droids and not get a single scorch on him. What is the point of all these super battle droids if they can't hit their mark at least once? Maul comes back as mechno man? Plot holes as big as the Atlantic and more all add up to YAWN as far as story telling is concerned.  What made Palpatine such a great bad guy is he WAS clever and evil and luckily for us portrayed by Ian McDiarmid in such a way that every time he was on screen he game me goosebumps and not in any good way.  Palpatine was evil, clever and subtle. In this respect we were shown not told.

There are a lot of awesome things about Star Wars and I love it in spite of its failings but I think there is a lot of room to improve and grow. So let's set aside all the weird gender issues. Star Wars is not just for boys and finding some great writers who would be willing to create or write really well rounded believable female characters in books with decent plots and worthy adversaries would go along way to helping this.

Mara Jade's closet

So I asked a simple question on twitter earlier today.... It went like this:

@_Merlyn why doesn't Mara Jade ever wear normal clothes? Isn't the cat suit a bit dated now? #SWEU

This is the end result of what was a rather enjoyable discussion.

http://tosche-station.net/2012/04/27/contest-replace-the-catsuit/

so all you artists and costume designers out there let's get to it and change one of the biggest Star Wars fashion faux pas since Leia ran around bra-less and bouncing because George couldn't fathom female underwear in space....

I'm looking forward to the results!

oh and in case you're clueless about this go here and take a look. Almost all of the images have her running around in that silly leather looking skin tight pseudo flight suit thing with hockey shin pads and a cape..seriously.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mara_Jade_Skywalker

What if... ( a rant about Star wars books)

@Tosche_Station (twitter) asked the twitterverse what #SWEU books would we love to see. You can check out the page with some of the answers here: https://t.co/vCEsTCnS 

But it got me thinking about Star Wars books in general. First off I have to admit that I stopped reading most SW novels after I finished the NJO. It sucked. Sorry to all who loved that series but I didn't. In fact with the exception of 1 book (Matthew Stover's Traitor )I don't even remember most of what was written although I do recall wanting to toss at least one of the books in the series out the hotel window I was staying at when I was reading it, I couldn't actually tell you which book that was now. My biggest problem with it all, I think, was that it was essentially a huge rehash of the original movie stories with a larger than life set of bad dudes and a whole bunch of lightsaber waving. I'll probably have to re read it because everything deserves a 2nd chance.

I'm a hellishly picky reader. I LOVE to read but I find that I get bounced out of books easily when author intrusion or just bad writing ensues. If I read a book and find myself going...eh hang on a sec that's not right.... then for me this is NOT a well written book and in the star wars universe of books this happens A LOT.

I don't really care much for the Jedi of today. When Star wars first came out they were mysterious and magical, they had powers but were not supermen/ women in bathrobes. Now we have it all explained, the force is actually microscopic beings that invade  symbiotically live inside a person's body. Midichlorians . When this tidbit of info was dished out during The Phantom Menace I remember sitting there going wtf? Really? To this day I do not really get why we needed an explanation at all. People believe in a form of God every day and as far as I know there's still no actual proof he /she/it /they exist but we still believe. But I guess George felt an explanation was important so we got one. meh.

(where was I ...oh yeah jedi...and books)

This universe, this Star Wars universe is vast and full of very cool characters most of which get bit parts and maybe one or two lines then exit stage left or worse get offed so that the holy three and their offspring get to live another day. ( Unless your name is Anakin then you're screwed)  Yet repeatedly we see the same characters doing the same things over and over again. I read the reviews of the new books that come out and I am glad I don't spend any more money on them. One of the few ( I thought) cool stand alone books that came out, Tatooine Ghost was referred to by the author as chick lit, why? Because it was a predominantly Leia oriented story, charcter driven, not so much warfare and shooting and had more than just a hit of romance in it.  My mind kind of boggled at this. Club Jade does a nice write up here about the whole thing and says it better than what I can about how I feel about the whole deal.

Really if a SW book features a mostly female and or character oriented story it's chick lit? How dismissive and narrow minded. As a woman, I don't need a book full of "I love yous" although George did see fit to put a bunch of this soppy puppy love BS in the prequel films, but I get insanely tired of war, conflict, lightsaber waving super jedi. And don't get me started on the whole giant bug theme. Tell me a story do not give me a giant blow by blow narrative on war.

What I wanted in Star Wars books I could not find ( so I wrote my own - a whole other blog that is). I wanted well rounded, meaningful stories about people. Real people. I wanted to see all sides of the galaxy not just the all Imperials are stupid, evil or maniacal mustachio twirlers ( Thrawn being mostly the exception). I want to read about non jedi characters and their lives and how they entwine through the already established galaxy. Give me a full on book about Soontir Fel and Syal Antilles.  What an amazing love story that is, what an amazing war story that is as well. combine it in a well written, thoughtful manner I'd buy it in a heart beat.

I am so tired of all the clichés. Watching all 4 seasons of TCW back to back is a form of hell. Really who the fuck writes this stuff? The stories are on occasion okay but the dialogue is PAINFUL.  My husband's theory is that it's actually a computer programmed with all the movie dialogues and it just randomly spits out a script on a weekly basis using only these lines. Now, when we watch it, we play a drinking game with having to take a drink every time a character utters a line from the original films. Thank god we are drinking water or else we'd be in a hospital suffering from alcohol poisoning.

So yes I have more than a few ideas about what I'd love to read / see in the star wars world of books etc... I want character driven stories that are well written and make sense.  I want strong female leads that don't wind up marrying or becoming a jedi only to be killed off because they are expendable.

Some of the best stories are actually to be found in the comics, along with some of the coolest characters as well. I'm trying to track down the Omnibus collections now since that seems to be one of the best ways to collect them all. And as for the books well, I'll borrow them from friends I guess, because I'm loath to support something I think has been turned into nothing more than a money making machine with no thought towards what the fans really want.

So my last words to all the Lucas Arts peeps out there if you are listening is dare to be different. Take a chance on new authors and new stories that break the mold. Step away from the same old- same old, cast of thousands, super jedi waving light sabers muttering about their bad feelings.

I'm looking forward to see what Timothy Zahn does with his new stand alone Han Solo novel but as for the rest...it doesn't look promising but as a die hard Star Wars fan I keep hoping.

Saying Goodbye

Merlyn and her Uncle Vahlek in his tatooine home.

It was a long wonderful, up and down ride but finally last night the MMO called Star Wars Galaxies came to an end and I am unbelievably saddened by this.

I started played under duress. My husband who had already been 6 months in had badgered and cajoled and eventually created "Merlyn" to show me how much fun it was. I ended up getting into it because he played me all wrong. It was the beginning of an amazing journey into a sandbox world advertised at the greatest star wars adventure of all times...yours. and it was. I can't describe the first time I saw Vader in game, or when I explored the vast deserts of Tatooine for real and got caught in a sandstorm. These moments were magical.

The sandbox allowed for in game housing and items a person could decorate. There were shops of all kinds full of things to buy ranging from clothes to weapons to everything else that could be sold. You could chat with other players from all around the world and it was a community with cities, guilds and cantinas of fun.

I made real life friends. I used the game to help me write Daughter of the Empire, characters from the game crossed into the books and vice versa. It doesn't seem so coincidental that shortly after I finished the last book so the game also ends.

It was a virtual world with virtual characters and now it's all gone. Saved on a disk somewhere and switched off. And I am sad, deeply deeply sad.

I could say a whole lot more about this because there is a lot more to talk about , a great amount of vitriol to be showered on Lucas Arts and that POS SWTOR which they happily replaced my game with even though they said that would never happen.  In the end what I took away from this is that Lucas Arts lie and nothing they do or say is to be trusted...ever. So SWG you were my first real mmo love and like all first loves you broke my heart. Not sure I will ever be able to feel this way again about another game and probably this is a good thing.

the virtual...

The Imperial Oasis, Tatooine (Starsider)

I'm a bad blogger. I'm sporadic and unreliable. This is because primarily I am either dog and bone on one topic and I don't feel the need to bore the world over and over with my ranting or I am busy doing other stuff and words have been tucked away for a rainy day.
Lately it's been gaming that's stolen my brain.

Star Wars Galaxies to be exact. SWG my first MMORPG and the one that has over and over again broken my gaming heart will be shut down on Dec 15th. What a shock ( not) although Lucas Arts ( who lie) stated they would not be shutting the game down ( rather they phrased it as we see no reason why the game cannot continue in parallel with TOR ) will be shutting the game down ( surprise surprise) 5 days BEFORE TOR launches for public gaming.

While not terribly surprised by this sneaky move I never the less think it's sad.  SWG is a one of a kind game that no matter what one thought did the unusual. It, for the most part, allowed players to do stuff without direction and storyline. There was true freedom in the game, a lot of leeway for being creative and a place for everyone to find a niche plus it was Star Wars.

I won't be playing TOR ( Knights of The Old Republic) For a few reasons.

1. Lucas Arts lies. They dick players around and after having my heart busted once ( NGE) I have sworn never again. I can find other places to spend my money.

2. TOR is set in the way back time period and really has nothing to do with the Star Wars I know and love. I'm not a lightsaber  waving jedi  fan-girl anyway and I don't give a rat's ass about this time period.

3. I might have considered trying it out ALONGSIDE SWG but since 5 days before TOR starts my beloved game, the one I have invested 7 years and god knows how much money into is being unceremoniously shut down to make way for the new kid on the block I won't touch TOR with a fifty foot pole.

It's pretty easy to make the conclusion that somewhere along the line Lucas Arts probably offered Bioware the deal of being the only star wars MMO with no direct competition and thus SWG has to go. It's old and not enough players play it. But really if the WOW fanbois hadn't tried to copy WOW into what was a pretty unique game maybe just maybe SWG would not be the problem child.

I remember asking Steve Sansweet at a convention a few years back( then Lucas arts fan liaison guy) about whether or not LA had plans for another MMO. His answer, aside from being rude, was that LA had NO plans for another MMO aside from SWG.

We knew in that moment that SWG was doomed. The rumour mill had already been pretty lively and his words cinched the deal. When anyone from Lucas Arts says something definitely won't happen..... you can pretty much guarantee it's a done deal. 

So my brain is currently lost in the virtual while I try to finish up projects in game, get all my amazing player houses decorated up and set up my toons ( we have 7 accts in total so 14 characters) so that when they pull the plug these virtual people have a place to live on.

Yes I am attached to this game, the virtual world it provides and the characters I've created. I will be sad when they pull the plug and I won't ever touch another Lucas Arts game again. In fact we've pretty much decided to shy away from giving George our money ( Unless it's an absolute must have )

Between Facebook's crappy changes and my game shutting down, it looks like I will have a LOT more free time on my hands. This is probably a good thing seeing as how I have a rather long list of real world projects I want to get done.

On the subject of fanfic writing....

"Thrawn Legacy" by Grant Gould 

(you can buy a copy of this print here sale of prints)

I'll be upfront and say I hate the term "fanfic".

That word brings to mind badly written fantasies and stuff better left to the darkest regions of some people's minds.

Now before the avalanche of hate mail begins let me also say I KNOW this is not always the case and there are some amazing people out there writing fanfics. And I don't hate the fiction itself I'm just pretty indifferent about it.

I don't write fanfics in the general sense of the term because until I started Daughter of the Empire I actually wrote my own stories with my own characters and I still do. It's not that I can't see the value in being a fanfic writer but mostly it never ever appealed to me. I never wanted to mess with other people's characters so much I felt driven to write stories with them and about them. The honest truth was it never really occurred to me and the few times it did I recognized it for what it was ( a teenaged crush on a fictional character) and stepped away from it. That being said I almost never read it either. I don't tend to go actively looking for "fan-fictions" although I have on a couple of rare occasions and even more rarely been pleasantly surprised because there is a lot of very badly written stuff out there and it's scary.

I started writing Daughter of the Empire, I was writing "merlyn's story" and that came about from a clash of many things.
1. It was in my brain. The what if you were Darth Vader's personal assistant stuck like old porridge.
2. the general amount of really great star wars fiction out there is very limited. Seriously I stopped reading after the new jedi order.
3.Once I started I wanted to finish but I had no idea it would take me 3 books worth of words to do that.

I am certain that in the fanfic world there are some absolutely amazing writers. Writers who care about their craft, rewrite and edit until their fingers bleed so that their stories are perfect. I know that there are fanfic sites with lots of rules, grammar and spelling regulations, profanity and sex filters as well as awards and everything else you can think of. The world of Fan fiction is huge vast and difficult to navigate without a guide.

One of my friends who does read a lot keeps throwing out terminology to me expecting me to know what it means. When I ask for explanations the other day she said "you know for writing fan fiction you sure don't know the lingo." my immediate response both in thought and in reply was "that's because I don't write fanfics."

And I don't.

Which leads me to ask if I don't write fan fiction then what the hell is Daughter of the Empire?  Because it certainly classifies as such. I don't really know. I call them novels based in the Star Wars universe which they are but I add a hell of a lot of stuff that's not Star wars. There are a ton of original characters, situations, plots etc.. that are totally mine and it's all based around existing stories without interfering in the existing stories. I use some of the most beloved Star wars characters to tell my character's story not the other way around. It was my way of keeping that Star Wars love alive ( hey wait a sec isn't that what fan fiction does????)

The biggest complaint ( if you can call it that) that I've read in other people's comments on their own blogs and forums is that it's long ( very long) hell yes it's long because they are novels not short stories. And while now during the massive edit rewrite I'll drop a lot of the fill and redundant stuff, they are still going to be long ( around 500-800  pages 1.5 spaced)

And yes there are some pretty hot sex scenes in there. It's not suitable for children under the age of 16 / 18 depending on what country you live in but I wouldn't call it pornographic either. There is a big difference between porn and erotic writing and I'm not all that interested in the former since it seems to be more about a step by step how to manual than using words in a delicious manner to arouse. People who had had sex already know what to do ( most of the time) and people who have not yet entered that delicious arena of indoor sports don't really need a complete step by step of every single boring detail. Because really the how to's are dull it's the how it makes you feel that's interesting and for that one doesn't need to get too technical. In fact most of the best erotic fiction I have ever read never mentions the words vagina or penis or any of the funky pet names for those anatomical parts at all. ( this includes the ever popular "flaming rod of manhood" or "moist flower of womanhood" ..erm yeah)

I've been asked once or twice why I never posted the dote on a fanfic site. and there are a couple of reasons for this.

1. I didn't know most of these places existed when I began writing these books
2. Once I did find them I discovered TOO many rules and I hated the format.
3. I liked having complete control over the site and the contents.  ( as much control as anyone can ever have with their stuff on the internet)

So I will reiterate what I have said elsewhere before. This was never ever set up to be a Thrawn or Vader fanfic, not ever. I know people read it that way but it was never the intent.  In fact in the very first drafts of the books waaaaaaaaaaaaay back when, Thrawn didn't really exist in her world and she had a boyfriend on Tatooine ( not Jyrki) and Vader was just a boss. It grew over the space of about 15 or so years and blossomed when I began to play Star Wars galaxies and write because it was either write or go mad.

So here we are X number of years later and I've finished what I set out to do which was tell the story of a girl who got the worst job in the Star wars galaxy. Now I'm doing what all good writer's should do. I'm going back over it with a fine tooth comb and clearing out the clutter, editing for spelling, typos and grammar and then handing it off to a proof reader/s so that the final versions can be hosted and left alone.

There will be short stories because they are just fun to write and those few in the circle of silliness also get to read the ones that don't get hosted on the webpage or the facebook page because they really are too hot and not something I want up on a public access site at all. But they are fun to read and write.

I have more stories to write and  they have nothing to do with Star Wars. ( or any other established world out there)

I assume people will read these books because like me they are looking for more and I assume they finish them because they enjoy them. At least I hope so. It was a great project and as a writer I learned so so much from doing it. I also got great satisfaction of being able to run through some fairly wild plots and manage to tie it all up. I was surprised by that because there were days when I was like oh my god how am I going to deal with this... that's part of the beauty of writing.  Stuff comes back to haunt you and it's usable.

So yes, the books are long. Yes they take place in the Star Wars universe. Yes they contain Thrawn and Vader and a few other wonderful established Star Wars characters but is it fanfic? I don't know and in the end I guess that doesn't matter.

but I still dislike the term.