Translating your own stories, pros and cons.

I sometimes translate my stories from English to Spanish, though I've never done it the other way around, so that more people can read them.

There are a few good things about this, though this also comes with some negative ones.

Some pros include:

• Translating some of your stories helps you practice another language.
• It gives your story more exposure and a new audience.
• You can then get to know more people this way.

Some of the cons are:

• It takes time away from your other projects.
• Some things can't be translated as they are, and you have to change them.
• Your readers in one language may feel left out.

In the end, however, I think translating something that you wrote to another language, if you are able to do it, is very much worth it, if only for the practice it brings, as that's very good to help improve your writing skills.

If you can, you may want to consider giving it a try, it can be a fun and rewarding experience!

More fanart in color!

Lost Together, hug scene from chapter 7

As I mentioned before, I decided to do another illustration for the Ranma 1/2 story I am cowriting with Daisuki Fox, an alternate universe titled Lost Together.

This particular one is based on a scene from chapter 7, and I think it looks quite good now that it was colored.

I really like the way it looks now. It's very nice.

So... I ended up revisiting another story.

Cover used in For her, I'll do it.

After taking a look and rewriting one of my oldest stories a few days ago, I decided to see if the rest of my old stories could be improved in one way or the other. And yes, I noticed they could be better.

So I ended up rewriting "For her, I'll do it" which is a story I also wrote in 2001 and after looking at it now, well... let's just say it wasn't really that good. It is written in first person, which I don't like much, but back then I was experimenting and wanted to give it a fair try to see if I could do something with it. I discovered first person PoV is not my thing, and in fact, this fanfic is mostly responsible for my decision of dropping first person PoV for good; I find it limits my options a lot when I'm writing.

After rereading the story, I realized the ending was weak, and that it wasn't as strong as it could be, I also didn't offer an explanation on how the shock ending could be possible, so I was forced to add a second chapter to expand on the initial situation to make the ending have the required impact on the reader.

I'm not sure I was able to do what I wanted, but one thing is for sure, the story is much better now, and I feel satisfied with it.

Old, and I mean really old, fanart.

Genma's Daughter fanart

I recently found some fanart I drew and colored way back in late 2000. I had forgotten about it, but it seems I was able to color stuff on my own back then. All things considered it seems I have not improved or gotten worse, which surprised me a bit.

I made this illustration (and also another I remember not being very good and couldn't find, though I guess it's on the internet somewhere) for a particularly nice Ranma story titled Genma's Daughter, which was uploaded to Fanfiction.net, along with its sequel, in 2011, around ten years after its original publication.

Anyway, something funny about this is that even when I know I drew it almost twenty years ago, I can't actually remember the whole process or how I did it. Oh well, at least it's not so bad.

A rewrite can give your old stories new life and improved quality.

Cover image for When life is not what you expected.

When life is not what you expected is one of my oldest Ranma 1/2 stories. I first published it in the old FFML (Fanfiction Mailing List, now defunct) and in Fanfiction.net way back in 2001.

Since then, the story has gone through two revisions.

The first one was back in 2015, when I did the first rewrite to correct grammar mistakes (I can admit the story was awful in that one aspect), add a bit of background to the situation described on the story, give some actual character development to the protagonists and include an epilogue to give the story some closure.

I did the second revision only recently, which consisted in yet another rewrite of the main story and the epilogue, as well as writing a second epilogue. Of course, now I decided to divide the story in three 'parts'.

Part 1 deals with the main story, which tells the story of what would happen if Ryoga married Akari, but never got over his feelings for Akane, even after she marries Ranma. Hint: it doesn't end well.
Part 2 deals with the aftermath of the events in the main story and how that affected the two main characters.
Part 3 deals with the lives of the rest of most of the Ranma cast in this Alternate Universe, though only in passing, since most of part 3 focuses on how Ukyo was affected by Ranma and Akane's wedding.

An interesting detail I like from this story is that I was able to use two very minor characters from the Ranma universe, the first being Anna Brown, who only appears in the anime as one of Ryoga's love interests, and the other is Hayato Myojin who is one of Ukyo's rivals and appears very late in the manga. I did this because I sometimes enjoy using obscure characters, and this story gave me the chance to do just that.

So, with this second revision I can finally say the story is completed as it should be, and I feel satisfied with it.

Maybe I should give the same treatment to other of my old Ranma 1/2 stories, some of them really need it, I believe.

Fanart now in color!

KiyomuMitsune, who I cowrite Lost Together with, was kind enough to color two of my previous illustrations, one for the fanfic we're writing and another I did for my Mega Man story Relic from the seas.

I really like how they look in color, so I am sharing them with you here.

First the illustration I drew for  chapter 6 of Lost Together:

And now the illustration I made for Relic from the seas,  which corresponds to chapter 39:

Lost Together illustration 2

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to do another illustration for my Ranma 1/2 collaboration Lost Together, in this case for a scene you can find in chapter 7 of the story.

As I've said before, I can't do digital coloring, so again this is just the line art. I don't know about you but I think this one is a little bit better than the previous one all things considered.

If it ever gets colored I'll share it here as well.