POP QUIZ

[bironic]

Or not. I was going to make this a poll with radio buttons-"Which of the following embarrassing sentences did bironic not write once upon a time"-but you know what? I had too much fun picking out passages. So: All of the following come from stories I wrote between the ages of about 13 and 18. Hope you enjoy.

Warning for indirect references to noncon.

Comments

[euclase]

Your excerpts are really wonderful and endearing, but the rest of the post--holy moly, it's blowing my mind with awesome. It's not familiar territory at all, having the kind of foundation you have and the kind of long-term relationship you have with fanfiction. I sort of want to hang onto it. Like the shiny, valuable bits in rocks.

Also, hi, I'm insane.

Also, thank you for the birthday wishes a couple posts ago. <3

[bironic]

You're very welcome. :)

I have a sort of three-- no, four-stage relationship with original- and fan fiction:

1. Fantasies when I was a kid

2. Proper fic/fanfic, written down, inspired by and written for only myself; around this time I was also reading professionally published fanfic in the form of Star Trek novels

3. Written fic/fanfic after I discovered "real" fic online, even through a time where I was reading other people's stuff on LJ

4. Fanfic deliberately written for posting

So, yeah. Many stages, and definite differences in what and how I've written in each of them.

I remember that you've talked before about feeling pressure from your readers/audience, even if you suspect you're making it up (or if people tell you you're making it up). I wonder if this has any relevance to it.

[blackmare]

Oh. Okay, yes, I get this; I struggle with "audience block" with my art. It absolutely kills creativity.

You have my deepest sympathy there. And you know what? Your younger-days writing was pretty darn good!

[bironic]

Ha! Thanks.

Have you found any solutions to "audience block" for yourself?

[blackmare]

Yes, I have found one thing that does help a lot and, in fact, just earlier today I was thinking I needed to start again. Eight years of custom mural work (and living in a town that cared basically nothing for art in general, let alone mine in particular) has left me with a pretty bad block.

What worked for me before was to get notebook paper out and write stream-of-consciousness garbage as I sat with my morning coffee. Just whatever came out, whatever I thought, was worried about, happy about or aggravated over. I wouldn't think of what to write; I'd just start writing and whatever came out would come out. Sometimes it was whatever I remembered dreaming. Sometimes I'd sketch or doodle. Sometimes I'd end up writing free-verse. Sometimes I'd write crap that just didn't seem to mean anything. Basically what this did was clear away all that internal noise by putting it on the page.

It doesn't sound very helpful, but it really, really was.

[bironic]

I bet it was. One thing I'm doing is just like what you've described: I've broken out a notebook to restart a nightly journal. I was kind of astonished to find that I could still write full-speed with a pen and paper after so long spent slowly composing emails and posts. I hope it eventually helps with the creative writing.

[bironic]

Interesting!

I find myself wanting to comment on this part:

So when I finally got to fanfic, when I was nineteen, I was initially contemptuous of just how bad so much of it was. I knew I was better than that--and I felt like I was above it all, too. Pride goeth before a fall!

Because, ha, me too. Probably most everyone here too. I've always been a reader, and I've always prided myself on being a good writer. I've never shied away from criticism. It's just perhaps that the sort of writing I was doing for myself was of a different nature, essentially, than what I started writing when I started posting. Not that I held myself to any lower standards, but that the material was much more personal/revealing and thus harder to share.

[purridot]

I think your first fanfic forays are adorable. Well, maybe adorkable? Like the pictures parents put on their fridge. But as Dr. Johnson said (I think it was Samuel Johnson!) "the process is the reality." As a language teacher one of my favourite moments of the semester is when the students turn back to the very first reading of the textbook, and everyone has a good laugh about how easy the text is now, when at the time it was so scary! I think it's wonderful to see a writer's evolution. You only learn by doing.

Your insight into audience reception was so heartfelt. I have found on LJ lately that the writers who make the leap out to write whatever they like to entertain themselves or their circle of readers seem to be having the happiest time of it (rather in the spirit of karaoke), while others worry about writing "fanliterature", not just fanfic. Maybe you should take up a second pseudonym, as many famous authors do?

[bironic]

I dunno. I think half the battle is actually producing something. Once it's there, posting it under this name might not be an issue. But you're right, keeping the idea in mind may help with that part of the writer's block.

Well, maybe adorkable?

*g* For whatever reason, I find this phase more embarrassing than the stuff I wrote when I was just a few years younger, 10 or so. This is when *I* -- modern, mature, current me -- started showing up in there. Like having one's growing pains, or sexual awakening, documented electronically, indefinitely. But that's what makes it so special too.

[bironic]

:) Yes, always good to know. Mary Sues seem to be like training wheels for fiction writers. Graduating to a two-wheeler may happen at about the time you learn the definition of a Mary Sue.

I was going to suggest you experiment writing things you promise to youself you won't share

Yes. The most success I've had with returning to personal fiction-writing was... ah, late last year, maybe... when I did exactly what you've said: swore I wouldn't post it, and just wrote something I'd had in mind for a while. No beginning, no end, just the part I wanted, no worries about dialogue or sentence structure beyond what I thought sounded good, no worries about the nature of what I was writing about and what its reception might be, etc. Very freeing. But getting into that headspace is not easy.