A Swashbuckler's Honor (Exciting Fanfiction Announcement)

Hey, everybody! Here I am again, betraying my oath to stay away from posting here while I write my novel. However, I wanted to bring to your attention that the first of approx. six parts of A SURVIVOR'S WORD is up on the Pirate101 Fanfiction Page! I wanted to make this post more of a memoir than an excitement-filled, illegible, fizzle of a post - so here goes!

I have played Wizard101 for four years, and Pirate101 for a summer and a fall. During my second year of Wizards, I found out about the fanfiction page, and I started writing. At the moment, I think it's a good thing I didn't have the guts to submit back then; my writing has grown a lot over the past years. However, I never stopped writing - I got one completed story written with a partner, and three good plot ideas that never ripened, which is a pretty darn good turnout. However, when Pirate101 came around, I was motivated to pick up the pieces that I had left behind after F2D, Undercoven, the Untitled Fanfiction, and my D-Log entries to start something new, something interesting and incredibly shiny.



 I named it Ruthless Destiny Rackham at first, until I changed my pirate name. In a matter of hours, "Dead-Eye Destiny Devereaux.odt" became "A SURVIVOR'S WORD.odt" (OpenOffice for the win!) and things went on from there.

When I was writing A Survivor's Word, I had to take almost too much into mind - including the fact that I hadn't played past Cool Ranch, nor had I been into Monquista, Valencia, or past the Presidio because of beta-leveling. Most of my research was dedicated to the Armada - I took my beta character to Valencia as much as I could before she got wiped, and then roamed sites, keeping any concepts, info, and general facts about the Armada in a folder of my desktop, as well as the document, any character sketches, and my plot ideas.

About 6,000 words in, I grew bored, and I knew it. I put down A Survivor's Word for a while, and I played Pirate101. I prepared for NaNoWriMo, and then got an announcement from a friend, that went something like this:

"Hey, did you hear that fan-fiction submissions just opened?"

I flipped. I looked through my document and spellchecked it; I sent it to One-Eyed Jack, unfinished. On October 26th, I realized that I needed to submit in whole (and this was another mistake yet), so I sat down at the foot of my bed, on a rocking chair, on my bed, upside-down, eating dinner, in the living room, in front of the TV, everywhere - getting those last 4,000 words down for an incredibly short story. Nonetheless, I finished the plot off in a single night, read more about it here.

When I sent it to One-Eyed Jack, I got a reply with some of the best constructive criticism that I have gotten yet, and I'll summarize it.:

1.) Mop the blood a little
2.) Separate it into chapters

Overall, I was stoked. I received this e-mail in the middle of lunch and then read it on the way home. I rolled down the car window, and yelled; "I'M ALMOST ACCEPTED!!" towards the gas station, and whoever else would be listening. When I got home that evening, I sat down and re-spellchecked everything, as well as sniffed down the fight scenes and turning them down a notch, replacing most blood with sweat and explosions with bruises. I split it up into approx. 1500 word parts, and sent my first one back. Today, about fifteen minutes ago, I got a reply saying that it looked great. I clicked to the fanfiction page, and noticed two things:

1.) Okay, ASW wasn't there yet
2.) There were a lot of pieces already there (Cue El Toro Remark)

Still, I know that my work will be up soon enough, and I think that getting my fanfiction approved is a huge step forward for me. For two years, maybe more, I've dreamed of my name being up on the page, and now it's going to be there - it's a little overwhelming. If you don't know why I'm so darn excited, well, this is my equivalent of becoming an official fansite - my name and hard work for everybody to read represents all the special benefits. I wanted to thank each and every one of you - no matter if you're my best friend or my arch nemesis (here's looking at you, Deacon..), you were a part of making my writing as successful as it is now.

Keep Traveling!

D.S. Devereaux