Long time no see...
So… its been a long time. Since I’ve written here in this blog. It’s been even longer since I’ve written fanfiction for any length of time.
Which is odd because reading fanfiction is a sporadic habit, but truly a dangerous one. Dangerous because it makes me want to write my own, but lethal when I start thinking, gee this author is amazing I MUST READ ALL THINGS THEY’VE WRITTEN.
Truly it is a serious game that my mind plays on me. Some other creator out there in the world puts out a book, a movie, a show and all of the sudden it ends. Without any consideration for us the audience; book endings I can usually take, shows abruptly stop production less so. MOVIES are by far the worst for me to handle.
This all leads to a discussion of fanfiction. There seems to be this pervading sense of shame and secrecy in RL about it. Well that’s somewhat understandable if you’re writing PWP that you wouldn’t talk about in public anyways. Still I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and I think its absurd that I can talk about novels I’m working on, or about my other blog that’s really quite personal and not about my fanfiction.
Basically, I’m wondering why did I ever allow my friends disdain for fanfiction to deter me from writing?
Sure so far I’ve only ever posted a few Blood Ties stories but in the years since I’ve written more than a few thousand words for different fandoms. I have a 15k+ story for SG-1 in a notebook somewhere in my boxes, from at least three years ago. My reasoning for not typing it up and putting it out there? Simply put I was afraid the fandom was too big and that maybe what I was writing might have been done before (and better) or that I’d simply get negative reactions.
I know, I know I should not have to worry about that stuff but there it is. (Silly me, worrying about other people’s reactions… Hell, if you’re reading this you’ve got access to some of my most intimate thoughts and fears.)
I actually started a few other blurbs as fanfictions but they morphed into completely different (and abandoned) things. About a year ago I was reading a certain fandom and I was inspired to write something that was relatively short. The next day I made it longer and eventually a week or so had gone by and I opened the file and as I continued to write I found they were no longer the characters from that fandom, they’d evolved into citizens of an existing world that I’ve been working on for over seven years. These few thousand words basically jumpstarted my work in a world I’d essentially abandoned.
It suffices to say that the characters are now nearly unrecognizable from the original fandom and while the guilt lingered for a while (of stealing the characters, but let’s face it, they are FAR from canon). I’ve gotten a lot of joy from that simple exercise of a few thousand words for a fandom. Also I’m terrible at writing prompts.
Since then I’ve let life take me for a ride, got a new job, new worries, family things going on… its all very time consuming. Still, I really think I need to make a habit of using my fanfiction urges and not try to bury them so much. After all if I can’t damn well stay in canon and I’m introducing original characters everywhere then how much harder write brand new characters that share some DNA but are simply distant cousins.
Thoughts?
Which is odd because reading fanfiction is a sporadic habit, but truly a dangerous one. Dangerous because it makes me want to write my own, but lethal when I start thinking, gee this author is amazing I MUST READ ALL THINGS THEY’VE WRITTEN.
Truly it is a serious game that my mind plays on me. Some other creator out there in the world puts out a book, a movie, a show and all of the sudden it ends. Without any consideration for us the audience; book endings I can usually take, shows abruptly stop production less so. MOVIES are by far the worst for me to handle.
This all leads to a discussion of fanfiction. There seems to be this pervading sense of shame and secrecy in RL about it. Well that’s somewhat understandable if you’re writing PWP that you wouldn’t talk about in public anyways. Still I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and I think its absurd that I can talk about novels I’m working on, or about my other blog that’s really quite personal and not about my fanfiction.
Basically, I’m wondering why did I ever allow my friends disdain for fanfiction to deter me from writing?
Sure so far I’ve only ever posted a few Blood Ties stories but in the years since I’ve written more than a few thousand words for different fandoms. I have a 15k+ story for SG-1 in a notebook somewhere in my boxes, from at least three years ago. My reasoning for not typing it up and putting it out there? Simply put I was afraid the fandom was too big and that maybe what I was writing might have been done before (and better) or that I’d simply get negative reactions.
I know, I know I should not have to worry about that stuff but there it is. (Silly me, worrying about other people’s reactions… Hell, if you’re reading this you’ve got access to some of my most intimate thoughts and fears.)
I actually started a few other blurbs as fanfictions but they morphed into completely different (and abandoned) things. About a year ago I was reading a certain fandom and I was inspired to write something that was relatively short. The next day I made it longer and eventually a week or so had gone by and I opened the file and as I continued to write I found they were no longer the characters from that fandom, they’d evolved into citizens of an existing world that I’ve been working on for over seven years. These few thousand words basically jumpstarted my work in a world I’d essentially abandoned.
It suffices to say that the characters are now nearly unrecognizable from the original fandom and while the guilt lingered for a while (of stealing the characters, but let’s face it, they are FAR from canon). I’ve gotten a lot of joy from that simple exercise of a few thousand words for a fandom. Also I’m terrible at writing prompts.
Since then I’ve let life take me for a ride, got a new job, new worries, family things going on… its all very time consuming. Still, I really think I need to make a habit of using my fanfiction urges and not try to bury them so much. After all if I can’t damn well stay in canon and I’m introducing original characters everywhere then how much harder write brand new characters that share some DNA but are simply distant cousins.
Thoughts?