Friends List and WIPs
Two thoughts on my mind right now. I feel somewhat morally obligated to point out that I majored in English Literature and Fiction Writing in college, and thus I can be a bit verbose -- so I'm putting these being LJ cuts so as not to eat up your friends page. I guess I'm just crescent fresh like that.
So, when I posted Chapter Three of The Twins earlier today, I made a comment that I only had one person on my friends list who wasn't me.
Not true, now.
nwhepcat, ludditerobot, and hpchick have all added me to their respective friends list. Which, really, is cool. Very cool. Now I have four talented writers as my fanfic LJ friends. Of course, this is also very intimidating, as my thoughts go something like, "Oh, dude... these four are good. You better write some good stuff, dude, because you don't have just some hacks reading your stories now."
I also hope that I wasn't friended solely because I friended them. I mean, obviously I like the stories I write. If I didn't, they'd either be in the scrap heap or still in the revising stage. But I just don't get the "I friended you, now friend me back" mentality LiveJournal seems to breed. I friend people whose writings I want to read; to me, that's the entire purpose of a friends list. I just hope I'm on lists for the same reason, and not out of a sense of obligation. My ego says, "Of course they want to read your writing! You're a genius." My insecurities (id? superego?) say, "Dude, it's all pity. And this is a really lame entry. Shut up. You sound like a bad emo album."
liz_marcs posted earlier about WIPs. I've read comments from people in nwhepcat's story Lilac City where people will say they don't want to get into a work in progress, that they prefer to wait until it's done. And, honestly, I just don't get that.
Buffy and Angel were both, in their finest forms, works in progress. We watched an episode, there was a bit of closure for that episode, but the best storylines always took several episodes to finish up. Surprise, episode 02x13, had nine full episodes after it before we finally got the slightest bit of closure for that storyline -- and then it just picked up the next season, and led to the spin-off. I loved that. I loved not knowing what would happen next, waiting for the next week when the next episode would come and give me another morsel of yummy goodness.
That's what fanfiction is to me. It's the closest I can get to having the series back on the air. Plus, I don't have to put up with ME killing the characters I loved so much -- people who love the characters just as much tell the stories now, instead of someone who views it as a job. So when nwhepcat comes out with another chapter for Lilac City, I don't think, "Aw, shit. It's chapter eight million, four hundred sixty-five thousand, two-hundred twenty-four point three. She needs to finish it up so I can read it." Instead, I think, "Yes! Another chapter -- and it's still not the last! It's not done yet. No off-the-air, SMG wants to go do lame horror with even lamer title cancelling for this baby!"
ME left Buffy so open, there's really no end to what can be done. There's no end to good stories out there; stories for Xander, for Willow, Buffy, Faith, whomever. Even the way Angel ended, tons of stuff to do there.
That wonder of what happens next -- that's what WIP means to me. It makes my legs bounce. It makes HJ of the happy.
Back to your regularly-scheduled programming.
So, when I posted Chapter Three of The Twins earlier today, I made a comment that I only had one person on my friends list who wasn't me.
Not true, now.
nwhepcat, ludditerobot, and hpchick have all added me to their respective friends list. Which, really, is cool. Very cool. Now I have four talented writers as my fanfic LJ friends. Of course, this is also very intimidating, as my thoughts go something like, "Oh, dude... these four are good. You better write some good stuff, dude, because you don't have just some hacks reading your stories now."
I also hope that I wasn't friended solely because I friended them. I mean, obviously I like the stories I write. If I didn't, they'd either be in the scrap heap or still in the revising stage. But I just don't get the "I friended you, now friend me back" mentality LiveJournal seems to breed. I friend people whose writings I want to read; to me, that's the entire purpose of a friends list. I just hope I'm on lists for the same reason, and not out of a sense of obligation. My ego says, "Of course they want to read your writing! You're a genius." My insecurities (id? superego?) say, "Dude, it's all pity. And this is a really lame entry. Shut up. You sound like a bad emo album."
liz_marcs posted earlier about WIPs. I've read comments from people in nwhepcat's story Lilac City where people will say they don't want to get into a work in progress, that they prefer to wait until it's done. And, honestly, I just don't get that.
Buffy and Angel were both, in their finest forms, works in progress. We watched an episode, there was a bit of closure for that episode, but the best storylines always took several episodes to finish up. Surprise, episode 02x13, had nine full episodes after it before we finally got the slightest bit of closure for that storyline -- and then it just picked up the next season, and led to the spin-off. I loved that. I loved not knowing what would happen next, waiting for the next week when the next episode would come and give me another morsel of yummy goodness.
That's what fanfiction is to me. It's the closest I can get to having the series back on the air. Plus, I don't have to put up with ME killing the characters I loved so much -- people who love the characters just as much tell the stories now, instead of someone who views it as a job. So when nwhepcat comes out with another chapter for Lilac City, I don't think, "Aw, shit. It's chapter eight million, four hundred sixty-five thousand, two-hundred twenty-four point three. She needs to finish it up so I can read it." Instead, I think, "Yes! Another chapter -- and it's still not the last! It's not done yet. No off-the-air, SMG wants to go do lame horror with even lamer title cancelling for this baby!"
ME left Buffy so open, there's really no end to what can be done. There's no end to good stories out there; stories for Xander, for Willow, Buffy, Faith, whomever. Even the way Angel ended, tons of stuff to do there.
That wonder of what happens next -- that's what WIP means to me. It makes my legs bounce. It makes HJ of the happy.
Back to your regularly-scheduled programming.