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Wherein I ramble. A lot.
So I’ve been doing a lot of fandom reminiscing over the last week. My thoughts are jumbled on this, but I wanted to get it out there somewhere.
The original worlds I’ve built since leaving fandom are where I feel I belong. The Sinners & Saints series, when it’s finished, will be a personal literary achievement—first series plotted and completed. I love that world—it took me a long time to get to know it as well as I knew Buffy. And that, I think, was the single hardest thing about transitioning from fanfic to original work. I’d played so long in Joss’s sandbox, with established, towering castles and recognizable features, that starting in an empty one was a shock.
I’ve been reminded in the last week alone how rewarding fanfic is on a creative level. Writing original work is incredibly fulfilling, but I’m throwing my work out there against an overcrowded wall, and it gets buried almost immediately. The romance market is oversaturated and that’s never going away. Self-publishing has made the job of becoming a best-selling author, or even a reader’s autobuy author, damn near impossible. This would be problematic for me if I cared about the money, which I don’t. I mean, would it be nice to receive EL James’s royalty checks? Of course. But I have always written for me first, readers second, and money third.
But it’s been such a long time since I’ve had readers—readers who actually follow me and care about what I write—that I’d forgotten what that felt like. Publishing can be very lonely. Now, I have made some terrific friends and my work has been well reviewed, but it does feel a bit like shouting down an empty hall and waiting for something other than your own echo to shout back.
I have an ambitious writing schedule plotted for 2017 and 2018. Right now, I’m working on Book 6 in the Sinners & Saints series (of a planned 8 books) and a modernization of Pride & Prejudice. And while I don’t have new fanfic plans, part of me has been ensnared by the idea of not only finishing the WIPs I’d left behind, but tackling one final fanfic that I’d started twelve years ago but never shared because I was writing it so sporadically. Granted, coming back to Strawberry Fields seems more likely, but I’ve learned to never say never.
I don’t know if this will happen, but I’m thinking about it. Sometimes the pressure of publication can be overwhelming to the point of blockage. I felt this way in fandom once, too, which is why I created the Ameeya penname. And I’m already seeing a difference in my writing quality when I don’t feel pressured. For instance, the Pride & Prejudice retelling is a book I will self-publish, so I only have my own standards to live up to, and it’s coming very smoothly. The Sinners & Saints book is one that will be with my publisher, Totally Entwined Group, and it follows a book that was not only enormously difficult to write (because, among other things, I channeled my grief about watching my father die through the heroine), but one that I feel is probably the best thing I’ve ever written. So how do you top that by your own standards?
What I don’t want to do is get anyone’s hopes up about Strawberry Fields…but at the same time, I feel tugged toward that story in a way I haven’t since I first got blocked on it. Were I to come back to it, I’d likely start posting from the top, and maybe not posting at all until I had it complete. And maybe this feeling will go away, but it’s lasted longer than any of my old Spuffy pangs have since I left. And there’s no rule out there that says you can’t do both. My mind is just structured to be either/or—it always has been. But writing for fun is why I write. I want to have fun telling stories.
So if the urge here remains another week…who knows? I decided on a whim to re-up Echoes and Possession, and I’m very glad I did. I feel like they are home, where they should have always been. Even though the same stories will be told in original form elsewhere, they will be different enough (and in ways they weren’t the last time) to be their own thing. That’s another thing about leaving the fandom—it was a while before I could shake Buffy’s influence. They didn’t feel like new works, rather works that were trying too hard to not look like retouched Buffy fanfic. What I have planned for both of them should address this—if not entirely, then at least to my satisfaction.
I will say I’ve recovered my old outline for SF as well as the original Word.doc. I’ve also recovered my outline for Sacrament, as I left that with one chapter to go. And I found, after some digging, the six chapters I’d penned on a fic I never posted but shared privately with a few close friends. It was going to be dark and ambitious, and part of me would still like to do that too. But who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow? That’s why I don’t want to say this is definitely happening. But were it to, I wouldn’t mind. I’d just have to find the time.
The original worlds I’ve built since leaving fandom are where I feel I belong. The Sinners & Saints series, when it’s finished, will be a personal literary achievement—first series plotted and completed. I love that world—it took me a long time to get to know it as well as I knew Buffy. And that, I think, was the single hardest thing about transitioning from fanfic to original work. I’d played so long in Joss’s sandbox, with established, towering castles and recognizable features, that starting in an empty one was a shock.
I’ve been reminded in the last week alone how rewarding fanfic is on a creative level. Writing original work is incredibly fulfilling, but I’m throwing my work out there against an overcrowded wall, and it gets buried almost immediately. The romance market is oversaturated and that’s never going away. Self-publishing has made the job of becoming a best-selling author, or even a reader’s autobuy author, damn near impossible. This would be problematic for me if I cared about the money, which I don’t. I mean, would it be nice to receive EL James’s royalty checks? Of course. But I have always written for me first, readers second, and money third.
But it’s been such a long time since I’ve had readers—readers who actually follow me and care about what I write—that I’d forgotten what that felt like. Publishing can be very lonely. Now, I have made some terrific friends and my work has been well reviewed, but it does feel a bit like shouting down an empty hall and waiting for something other than your own echo to shout back.
I have an ambitious writing schedule plotted for 2017 and 2018. Right now, I’m working on Book 6 in the Sinners & Saints series (of a planned 8 books) and a modernization of Pride & Prejudice. And while I don’t have new fanfic plans, part of me has been ensnared by the idea of not only finishing the WIPs I’d left behind, but tackling one final fanfic that I’d started twelve years ago but never shared because I was writing it so sporadically. Granted, coming back to Strawberry Fields seems more likely, but I’ve learned to never say never.
I don’t know if this will happen, but I’m thinking about it. Sometimes the pressure of publication can be overwhelming to the point of blockage. I felt this way in fandom once, too, which is why I created the Ameeya penname. And I’m already seeing a difference in my writing quality when I don’t feel pressured. For instance, the Pride & Prejudice retelling is a book I will self-publish, so I only have my own standards to live up to, and it’s coming very smoothly. The Sinners & Saints book is one that will be with my publisher, Totally Entwined Group, and it follows a book that was not only enormously difficult to write (because, among other things, I channeled my grief about watching my father die through the heroine), but one that I feel is probably the best thing I’ve ever written. So how do you top that by your own standards?
What I don’t want to do is get anyone’s hopes up about Strawberry Fields…but at the same time, I feel tugged toward that story in a way I haven’t since I first got blocked on it. Were I to come back to it, I’d likely start posting from the top, and maybe not posting at all until I had it complete. And maybe this feeling will go away, but it’s lasted longer than any of my old Spuffy pangs have since I left. And there’s no rule out there that says you can’t do both. My mind is just structured to be either/or—it always has been. But writing for fun is why I write. I want to have fun telling stories.
So if the urge here remains another week…who knows? I decided on a whim to re-up Echoes and Possession, and I’m very glad I did. I feel like they are home, where they should have always been. Even though the same stories will be told in original form elsewhere, they will be different enough (and in ways they weren’t the last time) to be their own thing. That’s another thing about leaving the fandom—it was a while before I could shake Buffy’s influence. They didn’t feel like new works, rather works that were trying too hard to not look like retouched Buffy fanfic. What I have planned for both of them should address this—if not entirely, then at least to my satisfaction.
I will say I’ve recovered my old outline for SF as well as the original Word.doc. I’ve also recovered my outline for Sacrament, as I left that with one chapter to go. And I found, after some digging, the six chapters I’d penned on a fic I never posted but shared privately with a few close friends. It was going to be dark and ambitious, and part of me would still like to do that too. But who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow? That’s why I don’t want to say this is definitely happening. But were it to, I wouldn’t mind. I’d just have to find the time.
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This goes double for shorter pieces, I think. If I write an insert or an alternate scene to a Buffy episode, I can trust that my readers have all the framework they need to 'get' it. I love that you can do that! I think it's also a lot of fun to try and take existing characters and give them growth - maybe even change them - whilst keeping them recognisable. It's just so different to original fiction and so interesting. I get frustrated with certain writers who claim that writing fanfic is inherently lesser because it's too easy. I would love to challenge some of those naysayers to borrow someone else's characters and make something new with them without spoiling what makes them unique and interesting, AND to frequently take characters from one medium to another. It's not easy if you're doing it properly!
... I feel like I'm waffling LOL. I kinda strayed from my point here! But I guess it shows you made me think, which is a Good Thing (TM).
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Writing fanfic is definitely not inherently less. I actually just presented to a college class over the weekend about writing and we had a 20 minute sidebar on the value of fanfic. As a shy kid, I was never comfortable sharing my work with others. It took me forever and a day to share them with my best friend, and even now I get a little nervous when I know my husband is going to read something that has s-e-x in it.
Fanfic is a way for young writers to evolve. I absolutely wouldn't be where I am now writing/editing wise were it not for it, and I think more authors are becoming comfortable in saying the same.
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Thank you. *hugs*
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I'm going to try to post more here.
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I can't tell you how excited I was to get an email notification that you'd posted at EF. And as much as I'd love more of SF, you've gotta write what you've gotta write, and I don't think anyone in fandom is going to be unhappy if they're getting something from you.
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I actually am going to try and write some on SF. I'd forgotten where I left it off, which made it kinda like reading someone else's work. It's super strange.
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Only apparently I was a madwoman and had planned something like 60 chapters. But hey, at least I kept the outline.
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~e!
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This
shall behas been rectified.Bad LJ. Bad!
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~e!
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Still blaming LJ, though.
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~e!
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Yet here we are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯