Of Ravens and Writing Desks

Of Ravens And Writing Desks

A Fanfic By April CK

"If you possess the ability to dream,

the potential to fulfill your dreams

lies within you."

Introduction and Credits

Around two years ago I finished my first ever fanfic, Game Theory. Directly after that, I had this great idea for another story and so I posted the beginning of one called The Gift.

The Gift was a story of WonderLand, a place I have always loved but never had the confidence to explore in writing. Four parts of the story were written, and posted to this website. Then writers block prevailed and after a time, it vanished. The idea remained however, on printed paper in the depths on my closet.

About a year later, the idea dragged itself out of the closet. This resulted in the first version of Of Ravens & Writing Desks. It was a considerable improvement on my previous writings, but it too suffered writers block. The main problem was that the plotline I wanted to be the main focus - the characters origin - had become a subplot. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next, and ended up sticking the idea back in the closet.

Out of sight, but not out of mind. The toughest decision was do I take Of Ravens & Writing Desks down and start over or just write the emerging new idea as something separate? And the answer that I eventually arrived at was: I can write better than that, I'm going to start over. So, here we go - again.

Life is full of learning processes. Writing well is one of them.

I need to thank:

Sharee-san, Justin, Rox'E, Kim-san, Joanna, Blue & Wendo - These are the friends who honestly believe I have a talent for writing. They have been great friends to me, as well as sources of information, inspiration, and humor. I always enjoy hearing from them, and it's for them that I always try to write the better story.

Alt.dragons-inn - By playing around on this role-playing newsgroup, I've had the chance to improve my writing skills. When you make writing fun (and are able to overlook typos), you start doing it better.

TMNT-L - The mailing list for turtle fans. For them I started the Fanfic MasterList and Archive. Seeing so many fanfics as an Archiver gave me the confidence to write my own.

Credit also goes to the following places/people.

Lewis Carroll aka Charles Dodgeson - Alices Adventures in WonderLand has been his intellectual property since 1856 when he first told the story. Alices Adventures Through the Looking-Glass has been his work since 1871.
Alice Liddell - Thank you for asking Mr. Dodgeson to write down that story he told you, your sisters, your nanny and who/whatever else was around when you all got stuck waiting for a storm to pass on a picnic.
L. Frank Braum - Author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was published in 1900. Munchkins and all Oz references come from the book, movie and musical.
Terry Pratchet - Author of the all the DiscWorld books. Lesson 201 in decent writing: "You don't need to lose your sense of humor to write well." Death of Rats is one of his original characters; Death of Mice is something I based off that character.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery - Author of the The Little Prince, yet another of my favorite stories. "What is essential is invisible to the eye."
Crow: City of Angels - A movie I've not seen so forgive me if I've mangled the title. When I found the red crow/raven that I'm using with the title of this fanfic, it said that it was a logo for that movie at one point, then they changed it. I'm not trying to infringe here, it just looked right.
Mirage Studios - Owners of the TMNT and all related characters since 1984. In particular my thanks for Mirage Collected Book Volume 2.
Also, I owe much to Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, which helped with some of the research I did.
This text, and all original characters are copyrighted to April Lacey and may appear in a future work. It is both illegal and immoral to remove the text from this page or to quote the text without giving credit to the author.

Enjoy the story.