Advice

Guest Post by Rob Barba: Fixing a Hole

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One of our regular commentors and occasional posters, Rob Barba, is launching his own series.  A long-time fan (as in, he helps make me feel not that old), he's also been around and has given a lot of thought to issues of what fanfic, fandom, worldbuilding, etc. mean for him as an author.  He's written an extensive essay on the subject – and it's one that might just shock or surprise you as he touches on a lot of areas of controversy and some past internet incidents.

So if you've got that indie series a-brewing, here's some advice . . . fix the holes

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Just Go For It

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Recently I judged a group of senior technology projects at DeVry in Fremont, California.  It was a great group overall, and if you want to have your faith in youth and education restored, this is a great way to do it.

A few of the projects embodied something very important – that I wanted to share.

Several projects were actual WORK.  People identified an actual problem, or got an actual client, and did a full job.  They built a full software solution or website or whatever and got it running.

This.  Was.  Awesome.

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The Teachability of Silly

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At KinToki-Con I ran an event called "Crossover Mania."  It was simple – over time people picked an anime (though any media was allowed – this was an anime con), and figured out how to tie it to another anime.  As we went on we wrote down the media properties on paper and diagrammed how they connected – a lot of tape and arrows was involved.  Eventually we had an incredibly silly, yet strangely coherent crossover.

How crazy?  Well it mixed Space Pirate Harlock accidentally creating the time/space warp Bermuda Triangle while under mind control of the villain in Code Geas.  And THAT wasn't even the core plot, that just got the initial crossover to happen (mostly involving One Piece).

Now this was a deliberately silly exercise, but the creativity that started flowing was amazing.  Best of all no alchohol was invovled, at least on my part.  It was insane, it was crazy – but it was also imaginative and it made people's minds work.

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