Introduction: Annariel

[annariel]

I Am: annariel (also purplecat) people refer to me variously as Annariel, PC, Cat, lsellers, and Louise depending mostly on context and how we met. I'm happy with all those labels. Female pronouns.

I Make: I write fanfic mostly though I've dabbled in original fiction. If backed into a corner and forced to write NC-17 rated stuff I often resort to comic verse. I also make icons and other graphics (and ever so occasionally actual hand drawn art). I try to rec a piece of online writing (mostly fanfic) once a week. I also code.

I Like: I'm a bit of a fan of long plotty stories of the case/mission fic style and AUs with imaginative worldbuilding (though, since I'll also back button out of long fic that isn't grabbing me I probably end up leaving more comments on kudos on shorter stories even if, when I like long fic, I like it more than short fic). I do also love a well written character vignette. I'm definitely mostly a genre fiction person. I've enjoyed material in all styles and of all ratings though there are some labels I'm more wary of (e.g., torture and non-con) than others. At the moment the fandoms I'm mostly reading are Avengers, Sherlock, Primeval, Dr Who and Firefly. I write a lot of Primeval fiction (partly because the fandom has a very active drabbling community) but there are several fandoms I'd like to write more of this year, including smaller ones such as Sapphire and Steel, Robin of Sherwood and The Queen's Thief series.

I Play: In the past I've played origfic_bingo and created my own bingo cards, mostly to help with the worldbuilding around my two original fiction settings. However, in both cases, I want to do some reworking of the settings and that has pretty much put everything on hiatus - it's probably a year since I wrote any original fiction.

I also run genprompt_bingo and help run ladiesbingo (wearing my purplecat hat) and over on LJ I run a quarterly bingo challenge for the primeval_denial community. I have a couple of online bingo card and prompt generators as well (though its a while since I did anything with them and the interfaces are pretty basic) - Prompt Me, Bingo Cards, All singing and dancing.

Find Me: On DreamWidth I'm annariel for anything to do with creative stuff and purplecat for everything else. On LiveJournal I'm lsellersfic (for creative stuff) and louisedennis (for everything else). I'm annariel on AO3.

About Me: I'm a computer scientist by day, working on autonomous robotics and the verification of agent based systems. I'm female, in my 40s, married with a little one and live in the North West of the UK.

Comments

Re: Welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Of course, now my brain wants to figure out a way to set this up so that adding new lists only takes minutes (which really it should and I'm halfway there since I've now set up the offline version so adding new lists is trivial) <<

Good idea. Programming is all about efficiency and elegance. No matter what you're building, if you're practicing that, you're developing a useful skill for any kind of codework.

>> in which case they really could be offered for trivial sums or perks, <<

One thing to consider is relative worth. Frex, is a prompt list valuable content unto itself, because it takes work for someone to assemble, which is work you don't have to do and is content that will help attract people to your generator page? Or is adding a prompt list to the site a service that you provide, because it takes time for you to do?

The more time and effort it takes to add a new list, the likelier it should cost something. The easier it is to add, the more credit should go to the creator. If you can make it easy, then yes, either charge a cheap rate to upload a list or make it a perk. One obvious way to earn list-upload rights would be by writing a review of the generator, or making a certain number of linkbacks. You'd be building traffic among the very people who want to use the thing, because nobody else would care about what's in it.

Also think about target audience. A list relating to someone's proprietary work will interest only that creator, unless they have a big fanbase. A list for a shared world has rather more potential. A list for a popular fandom would raise interest among quite a large pool of fanwriters. Lists for broad categories like "fantasy character types" would also be very handy. With that "A meets B at C" formula, you could get a huge benefit from any list taken from a popular fandom; and that's exactly the kind of work you should be farming out to other folks instead of doing it yourself. Only you can upgrade the code, but anyone can make a character list.

So for instance, you might charge a small fee to add a list that's just a timesaver for one person, make shared world or small fandom lists a perk that doesn't cost anything, and make popular fandom lists "make me one of these, and get a free list of your own choosing."

>> and also figure out a way so that more significant projects could be sensibly specified and estimated by non-experts. <<

Just writing a good how-to document for that would a Very Useful Thing. I would happily link the heck out of that. I'm certain I have readers who'd want it.

>> One problem is I'm much more used to estimating projects in terms of days and weeks rather than hours, so I'll need to figure that out as well. <<

Changing scale takes practice. I recommend that since you're already working on this stuff free as a hobby, just keep doing that for a while, but clock your time. Use that to backtranslate how long it takes you to accomplish tasks. When you have enough data, then you can start pricing things, and be confident that you'll get the numbers in approximately the right place. You can tweak from there as needed.

I've done this with my wordsmithing. My first professional editing gig paid by magazine issue. Consequently I had no frigging clue how long it took me to do things. When I went freelance, I did some research and some practice work in order to estimate my workspeed and set prices. Much the same with fiction, I had need to check speed on that because I was trading hour-for-hour with someone; comes out to roughly 1,000 words per hour, although research-heavy writing will slow me down. About the same rate for nonfiction if I can write it off the top of my head.

>> of course, if it starts earning significant sums, I'll then have to figure out tax! There's a reason I like being a salaried minion... but let's cross that bridge if and when we come to it, eh? <<

Sole proprietor with a Schedule C is what most writers, creative people, and freelancers use. Remember that most expenses related to your business activities will be at least partially tax-deductible, so save receipts. Find a friend who knows taxes, or hire someone if necessary, to figure out what will work for you. Do this when you start making a little money, before it becomes significant income. It's not a task you want to do at the last minute, nor after you've gotten into habits that are counterproductive in some way.

>> Since "overhaul online bingo generator" is now on the to do list I'll consider all this when I get to it! <<

Great! While it's fresh in your mind, you might want to make notes about the concepts desired for the project, any specific tasks you know you'll need to do, and things you want to think about. Then it will all be in one place when you've got the time to work on it.