Serenity feels a lot like exhaustion
I am home. It is late. I have pretended I was in college and slept far too little, since last Saturday. I left the event with contacts, and with workshop leaders coming up to me to say, "You've really been a contribution," and "your insight into offering feedback is phenomenal", and more than one person saying "role model" (which I thought was a
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I had a great experience at the writers' conference about fanfic, actually. During a social hour, I was talking with one of the workshop leaders. Somehow "Fifty Shades..." came up and she started bitching: "But it's *fan fiction*. *FAN fiction!*", clearly suggesting that fan fiction had little to differentiate it from dog poop on one's shoe. I said, "I heard that too, but what's important is that it's *bad* fiction." She said, "Yes, fan fiction!", clearly--and ignorantly--reiterating that fanfic equaled crap.
Later, I thought about how she was so openly and casually trashing fanfic and I thought, "She could have totally crushed somebody."
So I looked her up the next day, pulled her aside, told her that I'd cut my teeth writing fanfic, and that while I had a thick skin, if she'd talked like that around someone who felt vulnerable or intimidated coming to this conference, she could have really crushed them. I said that I knew her goal was about supporting writers, so regardless of how she felt about it, she might not want to so publicly deride fanfic.
She said, "Understood, got it. Thanks."
So while I'm content to fly under the radar in some ways (I'm going pro under my pseudonym, for now), I am proud to feel more emancipated from my own... "fanfic shame," let's call it. I felt really proud to correct her; to protect other, newer writers; and to own the fact that I was at that event because writing, reading, editing, publishing, and discussing fanfic was what had given me both the skills to write (however strong or not they may be) and the confidence to attend.
Anyway, that's the long way of saying, "I completely relate to the urge to chicken out sometimes." *g*
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