The Web Imperialist: Fan Sites and Domain Names

One of the ways to gain higher visibility on the Internet is to register domain names and establish fan sites where you can put up a forum for comments.
The major problem you will find however, is tracking down a subject whose domain name has not been taken yet. I tried recently with a host of lesser-known gods and goddesses, and miserably failed.
Would you believe there are already domain names taken for people like Odette Yustman and Jessica Lucas, two minor and young Hollywood actresses whose foray into fame is just beginning thanks to the gimmicky monster movie Cloverfield?
Or try Stana Katic, a beautiful Canadian actress of obviously Croatian origin, who had minor parts in the fifth season of '24' and the first season of 'Heroes.' You will find, not only is her domain name gone, but she herself has set up quite an attractive website. Same counts for Dania Ramirez, an actress whom I first learned about when watching the first episode of the second season of 'Heroes.'
Maybe one way out of this quandary is to go foreign, to try and find a name that's hardly common yet on Main Street USA or Chungshan Road Taiwan. Well, there again, you'd be amazed what you find. There are already fan sites for Marion Cotillard, the Oscar nominee for the Edith Piaf movie. There are already fan sites for Eriko Tamura, the woman you saw in that first episode of the second season of 'Heroes,' again. But then she's already a star in her native Japan, so what did you expect? I didn't even bother to search for Olga Kurylenko or any other of the newest batch of Bond girls, or for British singers Leona Lewis and Kate Nash.
And guess what? Even French fraudmeister Jerome Kerviel now has a website dedicated to him, even I'm sure he's not the guy running it.
So where's the solution? Maybe stick close to home, Taiwan in my case. There's a whole batch of supermodels here, new tennis players, and minor actors and actresses. The hope that any of them is ever going to hit the big time in Hollywood or at Wimbledon might be idle though, but maybe it's worth a try.
I tried my luck with actress Judy Hu Ting-ting and tennis star Hsieh Shu-wei. Let's see what happens. With Taiwanese subjects of course, you still have to get lucky with the way they spell their name, because your interpretation of pinyin or other romanization systems might not be theirs.

Fan Fiction : Waste of Time or Good Exercise?

With the second season of the US TV series 'Heroes' shown here in Asia and the name of the next James Bond movie announced - 'Quantum of Solace' - fan fiction will get another shot in the arm.
What is fan fiction? It's basically new writers writing a piece in the style of their favorite movie or TV show.
The debate has gone on for ages about the usefulness of such work. Some people spend as much as a year out of their lives writing a fan fiction story. You can find examples at http://www.ranefiction.com/ for the TV series '24,' and at http://www.mi6.co.uk/ for James Bond. Those are just two of the most popular sources of inspiration for fan fiction writers, along with the hot TV series of the moment, such as 'Lost,' 'House,' and the aforementioned 'Heroes.'
Yet fiction like that is unlikely to be published, because the copyright to those shows and characters of course belong to the authors, most likely the major movie and TV companies in Hollywood. So you cannot approach a publisher and hope he will pay you to publish the thing you worked on for the past year.
The only positive use for a fan fiction is when you want to get a job writing for US television. Because ironically, the best way to prove you're a talented TV writer is to write one episode of a popular existing show, just to show that you can catch the spirit of that program.
Others have said writing a fan fiction can help train you for a real writing job, by teaching you how to master pace, structure, plot, dialogue, characterization, and the other necessary elements of good writing. But I'm just wondering: can't you really do that by creating your own original characters, set in their own world, rather than ripping off or imitating the creations of others?
Of course, I enjoy thinking about what kind of James Bond movie I could write, or what adventures I would like to put Jack Bauer or Sawyer and Kate through, but I just don't have the time to spend months on them. They are somebody else's babies, I have to take care of my own.

1,000

My writing career took another small step forward this morning.

I sent in a 1,000-word story to a Dutch competition. Alright, I hear you thinking, not another one of those competitions like NaNoWriMo where you write whatever you want just to make the total amount of words.

This one is different. It has to be a tense story, and from the examples on the website I gathered they prefer something with a limited number of characters and locations, like a cheap horror movie.

My story isn't horror, but it's creepy. It's very loosely inspired by Patricia Highsmith's 'Strangers on a Train,' even though there are no trains involved. It's a story written in the first person, about a man who visits a certain location and does something really terrible which he thinks is not terrible at all. Through short flashbacks we learn that this is not his first exploit. I can't tell you more, but I'll let you know once the awards are handed out.

The awards? Well, only one story can win. It will be published at www.duizendwoorden.nl and will be read on a national Dutch radio station. There's also a possibility, but not a guarantee, that the story will be published in one of the Netherlands' main national daily newspapers, the NRC Handelsblad. I will let you know how I fare, but it might take another two months before I know. In the meantime, I'll continue work on a 100,000-word thriller and on two stories for another competition, a British one this time.

Taiwan's Got Game

Think Taiwanese elections are as boring as this picture here?
Well, think again. At least, that is, if I find a publisher for a little game I've been thinking on.
It's a board game, and it takes as its main topic the upcoming March presidential elections in Taiwan and Taiwanese politics in general.
I know it, you're fed up with the sound trucks, the firecrackers exploding when a candidate passes by, the speeches on TV, etc.
But politics can also be fun if you don't take it seriously.
And that's what I did with this game of mine. It's a board game, as I said, so it bears a slight resemblance to Monopoly, as do most board games.
You need a couple of dice, the board, some special cards, and at least two players, though more are welcome.
At this point, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you because for copyright reasons I'm not allowed to reveal more at the moment.
All I can say is, that it's 90 percent ready, it's in Chinese - sorry for those of you who don't read the language - and it's being prepared for presentation to possible publishers.
One of the problems is copyright - I am worried about somebody seeing the game, turning it down, and then going to produce it on his own - and timing - with the presidential election being only two months away, I don't know if there is still time to print it and market it properly.
Anyway, you'll here more about it as I proceed with my plans, and in the meantime - "enjoy" this Saturday's legislative elections.