Snowflake_Challenge #10 - Talk about a creator/someone who inspired you

Challenge #10

 

In your own space, talk About A Creator/Someone Who Inspired You. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

 

This is a hard one, mainly becuase off the top of my head I can think of so many authors and writers in general who I feel inspire me. Also I've been going through my weekly cycle where I hate everything I create so bear with me.

Tamora Pierce

 

 

I discovered Tamora Pierce's books when I was in middle school. I started with the Wild Mage series and I can still remember the awe and sheer joy I felt while reading them. More than that, it was about a girl close to my own age, which was its own kind of revelation that 'life' could happen to someone my age, rather than the same routine of school, home, school I was living in. More than that, it was a simple story. Not simple as in basic or uncomplicated, but it was a fairly straight forward story and I'd been writing my own stories a little over two years by this point. It made me realize that maybe my dream to be a writer wasn't completely far-fetched, that it wasn't something beyond my grasp. I still re-read her books and every time I do I try to remind myself that I have stories tucked away inside my head as well, and there is nothing stopping me from writing them down except for...myself.

Vathara
Ugh, Vathara. I can't even remember when I first started reading their work, but holy shit did they change the way I viewed fanfiction. I have been reading their works for the past 15 years at least, and the one thing they do over and over again that continues to blow my mind is the details they bring to bear in the fanfiction pieces. They do research into professions and cultures that are prevalent in the original work (or not) and bring it to life in the story. Argh I'm struggling to find the words to describe what it is about Vathara that has me reading every single story they've posted. I suppose a good example would be their Urgan Legends series. They took several fandoms and just kind of...stitched them together into one universe, but in a way that made everything believable rather than farfetched. There are several stories that take place in New York, featuring Godzilla: The Series, Gargoyles, and The Ghostbustters. The way they blended them all together while pulling from a clearly learned scientific base...yeah I'm not explaining it right. Basically Vathara looks at all the small details from the kind of reaction a person would have while going into shock and the kind of remedies that would be used in the 15th century, to why a particular style of clothing would cause a culture clash during a mission off world. Also Vathara has taught me most of everything I love about 'show, don't tell.' They always have wonderful details and are so skilled at threading info through the warp and weft of their stories without leaving me feeling I just got hit over the head with an info dump.

There are so many more writers out there who have inspired me and given me inspiration for what I want to do with my life, but these two are the first ones to mind when I try to actuall pin down a specific name.