Musings of a self-proclaimed fanwriter
Well, I'm healing up so far. Fortunately, just one more day of wrapping my elbow up like the walking wounded before I get two days off. Hopefully by the time I go back to work, I'll be able to go down to just a large band-aid.
Since I've been told the people on my f-list don't mind my nonsense, I'll post a bit here. (I really, really should be replying to entries on my f-list, but I have to get this off my chest)
Just feeling a bit like an odd one out at the moment. Almost all of my writer friends have such big thoughts and original projects they want to work on. Projects that make them burn with enthusiasm and life, and I honestly wish them the best. However, it makes me wonder why I'm so different from them. I've had original ideas, and there are even some original characters floating around in my head. But the thing I love, the thing that makes me happiest even after all these years, is fanfiction.
There seems to be a school of thought that writing stories for someone else's characters is either lazy or bad somehow. That every writer must "outgrow" that stage in order to be a "real" writer. However, I consider myself a real writer. I have that burning passion inside me that insists I must write. Yes, I have gotten up at odd hours to type out a random scene. Those close to me know that when I'm in a writing frenzy not to disturb me because I'm not even a part of the real world at that point. Even through my head injury and my whole life falling down around me, writing is one of the things I still enjoyed, and still do. If I were told I could never write again, I can't imagine how I could survive. Record stories verbally on audio tape, perhaps?
Yet somehow because I write fanfiction, I appear to be "less of a writer" than those who have aspirations of being published and "making something" of their talent.
But for me, "making something" of my writing means having people enjoy it. Every time someone leaves me a review, or e-mails me, and especially when somehow they decide they want to know me better and become my friend, especially the latter, it means the world to me. I've used the analogy before, but I'm like the cook who has spent hours preparing a meal, and seeing everyone devour it in less than a quarter of the time spent making it is the reward I love.
I love delving into other people's characters, trying to take them apart and make them tick. The challenge is keeping the characters "in character", which I think is much harder than coming up with your own characters. Your own characters, you know them better than anyone else. But someone else's, it's rather hard keeping at least some similarity, or making logical assumptions about them. And I'm very proud of myself when I emerge, dazed and exhausted, with the characters someone else made relatively intact.
I suppose that makes me merely a fanwriter. Not an author. Not someone who could write a bestseller (worthless tripe most of it is *grumble*). Just someone who tells stories using other people's characters and apparently I should be shot because I do so. Or I am inferior.
I say to the world... deal with it. I may not be in Japan, and I have no artistic talent, so I could never be a doujinshi-ka, but I'm proud of the stories I'm able to tell, and the fact that I have creativity that I can use, rather than some of the awfully stale stuff I've found on bookshop shelves for years.
*just saw "Brothers Grimm" and so is going to go play with one of her novel-length story ideas that she's learned not to start posting until it's completely done so that nobody else is left in the middle of one of her stories*
Since I've been told the people on my f-list don't mind my nonsense, I'll post a bit here. (I really, really should be replying to entries on my f-list, but I have to get this off my chest)
Just feeling a bit like an odd one out at the moment. Almost all of my writer friends have such big thoughts and original projects they want to work on. Projects that make them burn with enthusiasm and life, and I honestly wish them the best. However, it makes me wonder why I'm so different from them. I've had original ideas, and there are even some original characters floating around in my head. But the thing I love, the thing that makes me happiest even after all these years, is fanfiction.
There seems to be a school of thought that writing stories for someone else's characters is either lazy or bad somehow. That every writer must "outgrow" that stage in order to be a "real" writer. However, I consider myself a real writer. I have that burning passion inside me that insists I must write. Yes, I have gotten up at odd hours to type out a random scene. Those close to me know that when I'm in a writing frenzy not to disturb me because I'm not even a part of the real world at that point. Even through my head injury and my whole life falling down around me, writing is one of the things I still enjoyed, and still do. If I were told I could never write again, I can't imagine how I could survive. Record stories verbally on audio tape, perhaps?
Yet somehow because I write fanfiction, I appear to be "less of a writer" than those who have aspirations of being published and "making something" of their talent.
But for me, "making something" of my writing means having people enjoy it. Every time someone leaves me a review, or e-mails me, and especially when somehow they decide they want to know me better and become my friend, especially the latter, it means the world to me. I've used the analogy before, but I'm like the cook who has spent hours preparing a meal, and seeing everyone devour it in less than a quarter of the time spent making it is the reward I love.
I love delving into other people's characters, trying to take them apart and make them tick. The challenge is keeping the characters "in character", which I think is much harder than coming up with your own characters. Your own characters, you know them better than anyone else. But someone else's, it's rather hard keeping at least some similarity, or making logical assumptions about them. And I'm very proud of myself when I emerge, dazed and exhausted, with the characters someone else made relatively intact.
I suppose that makes me merely a fanwriter. Not an author. Not someone who could write a bestseller (worthless tripe most of it is *grumble*). Just someone who tells stories using other people's characters and apparently I should be shot because I do so. Or I am inferior.
I say to the world... deal with it. I may not be in Japan, and I have no artistic talent, so I could never be a doujinshi-ka, but I'm proud of the stories I'm able to tell, and the fact that I have creativity that I can use, rather than some of the awfully stale stuff I've found on bookshop shelves for years.
*just saw "Brothers Grimm" and so is going to go play with one of her novel-length story ideas that she's learned not to start posting until it's completely done so that nobody else is left in the middle of one of her stories*