I wrote the climactic chapter in a marathon writing session on July Fourth and posted it before I left for a friend's party. I then wrote the first part of the last chapter during "down time" at said friend's party when the other guys were playing beer pong, his wife was knitting, and I figured I had more productive things to do than get their cat chasing after the laser from an infrared thermometer.
It's done. I started writing this a few days after I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
in 2009. I essentially wrote this story to prove a point, or several points:1. It is possible to have epic Michael Bay-esque action sequences and have a coherent plot and characterization. I had friends who said they saw the movie for the action scenes and the storyline was a secondary consideration. My question is, why can't you have both? Bay can command massive amounts of resources--finding good writers should not be a problem.
2. I could write something better than what appeared on-screen. The concept was sound, but how it was executed was just aggravating. I will give props to the people who wrote Revenge of the Fallen for being successful screenwriters, but there were some massive plot-holes in that movie.
3. Anyone can complain, but providing constructive ideas and suggestions shows talent.
This one took me a lot longer to write because I had a lot of other projects going on, like my Harry Potter story "Lord of the Werewolves" (which I was about halfway through at the time) and my original novel Battle for the Wastelands. The latter was one reason why at one point "The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot" went six months without an update--I think at this point, I was writing the first few chapters of Battle.
Ironically, taking as long as I did to write it meant I was finishing up around the time Transformers: Dark of the Moon came out and interest in the Transformers series revived. I'm not going to claim to be the best Christian in the world, but I was reminded of Romans 8:28.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, NIV)
It seems like lack of and/or diversion of focus actually came in handy. :)
This will be my last fan-fiction. I have much better things to do with my time, especially since now I've got a quarter to a third of Battle to go before the first draft is done. As I said in my last chapter, I've played in others' sandboxes long enough. Now it's time to build a new sandbox, so others can play in it later.
(Given how my first two, possibly three finished novels are fan-fic, I'd be a massive hypocrite to object to people using my ideas in their own work, especially if they acknowledged I was the creator and final authority. Many writers are advised to throw away their first completed novel--however, by using other people's ideas in a non-commercial context, hopefully I "worked the bugs out" in my own writing without sacrificing any of my ideas.)
There's not going to be a "Dark of the Moon Reboot," however much that movie needed one. If I did write one, I'd keep the space-race, Sam-job-angst, and the stuff that happened with Sentinel Prime, but not replace Mikaela with Carly, keep Bumblebee with Sam, and rewrite the entire invasion plot to account for the probability the human nations and armies would make a much better account of themselves.
I hope y'all enjoy the ride. It's as good as my Harry Potter stories and about one-half to one-third the length, so it won't take as long to read.
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