My Star Wars Weekend Update

Happy Weekend, dear readers.

I thought I’d take Sundays to post updates about what I’m working on with the blog and other projects.

As I mentioned recently, I’m cutting down on the number of blog posts I publish each week, from 4-5 to about 2-3 between the two blogs. I hate to do this (I love blogging about Star Wars) but as I also mentioned, I’ve started writing a fan fiction piece, and need to make some time in my schedule.

I free-wrote about my idea for awhile, and as of today I have two scenes written: a Prologue, and a first scene. It’s first draft stuff, of course, but I’m happy with where it’s going so far. I’m eager to keep going and see how it comes out.

I’ve never written fan fiction before, of any kind, and it was a little weird inserting my characters into the familiar world of Star Wars. I worried I wouldn’t do it “right”, that I’d get details wrong and be called out on it, that it would be boring, etc etc. But once I got into the story and started writing it, I loved it, and those worries faded into the background (they’re still there, lol, but quieter). I haven’t written fiction in a few years, so I’m a little rusty, but it really is like riding a bike. You get back into a rhythm, and it just feels right.

I won’t go into too many details, but I’ll tell you that my story takes place at the palace of Alderaan, when Leia is sixteen years old. Leia isn’t my main character, but she makes an appearance, as well as Bail and Breha Organa. My character is about Leia’s age, visiting the palace with her mother. I was inspired to set the story here by Claudia Gray’s book “Leia: Princess of Alderaan,” which is a great book, by the way. But you don’t have to read it to understand my story. I think, lol.

So I’m busy doing that; and I’ve also mentioned that I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a podcast. I noticed that WordPress advertises using Anchor to turn your blog posts into audio versions, or record new ones. And I thought, hmmm, why not? As a means of growing the blog, it couldn’t hurt. And it might be fun. I’m not saying I’d be COMFORTABLE doing podcasts, lol, but I’m working on going beyond my comfort zone in order to grow, as a person, and as a blogger and writer.

So just for ha-ha’s, I clicked into Anchor and set up the whole thing, and then converted one of my older blog posts into an audio version (it was My Five Favorite Romances in Star Wars). And surprisingly, it sounded–not bad. Not completely like a robot, but you could definitely tell it was automated. There were some mispronunciations (Vos was pronounced “Vo” for some reason) and the inflections of grammar weren’t perfect. It was cool actually hearing my blog post, but I’m not going to go with the automated versions. So that means I’ll be talking into a microphone to bring my words to life, lol.

I’m just not sure what, exactly, I want to do with a podcast. To start, and as an experiment, I might just record some older blog posts to see what it sounds like, and how it would do. But ultimately, I don’t think I want to just regurgitate old blog posts, or even record new ones that I put on the blog. I want to do something different, narrow the focus, but I’m not sure in what way. There’s also the possibility of collaboration. Endless possibilities.

So I’m still in the brainstorming phase of the podcast, but I’m hoping to have something going by the end of next month, at least. And to have the fan fiction piece finished and posted here even sooner than that.

So lots of fun and exciting Star Wars stuff to work on. I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you in the blogosphere!