Fannish vs. Original: My Writing Thoughts

[chasingtides]

I have been doing a lot of fannish writing since finals ended, about fifteen thousand words of it, give or take a bit. That's quite a lot for me, especially as I haven't been writing every day.

I kind of feel bad that I'm not writing my original stuff - or I feel like I should feel bad that I'm not writing my original stuff. I have plenty of in-process original ideas and some waiting around in the wings. I've got zombies and werewolves and a whole steam powered Mongolian empire.

Somehow, though, I feel like my fannish work is more fulfilling. People actually read it for one. I periodically post my original stuff to my writing journal (journeybysea) when I feel proud of it, but as far as I can tell, no one ever bothers to read that. And certainly no one wants to publish it. It languishes.

And writing, as much as I do it because it brings me joy and fulfills me, is about communication. I am expressing myself and my ideas and interacting with my world in words. If I'm interacting with a void, speaking but not hearing, writing but not reading, I am having only half of a conversation and I have never been one to talk to myself when I can talk to others. Even when I was an angst-ridden teenager, I was never big on private journaling - my private thoughts just spiral in on each other until they are incomprehensible - and that is much how my original works are feeling at the moment.

I had hoped to find fellow writers, ones I could interact with on perhaps a monthly basis, but the groups around me explicitly say that they have no desire to welcome science fiction and fantasy writers. While I don't write hard sci-fi/fantasy, I am sure that my zeppelin riding Mongolians and post-apocalyptic zombie cities wouldn't be welcome in these circles. And that's fine - I probably wouldn't be happy workshopping Harlequin-style romance.

But it leaves me a little high and dry with my original writing activities. I could do it. I do do it. But it often ends up feeling like a dead end activity. Communication is a two way street and, at least for the moment, my original writings feel like a one-way dead end. (In addition to these problems, I ask myself, how can I improve as a writer if I am the only one who can give myself feedback? This is a recipe for disaster.)

Fannish writings, on the other hand, particularly if I am participating in a contest or an exchange or even, as I ponder signing up for spn_j2_bigbang, a time lined project with a pre-existing support system, I have a community. They will, I hope, tell me when my writing is lousy. I know they let me know when my writing is good. I am currently floating on writer's cloud nine after seeing the reception of my holiday exchange pieces. (I like making people happy. This is a flaw of mine - I knit for people, I cook for people, I write for people, and often the biggest reward I can get is someone saying, "Wow. Thank you for taking the time and energy. This made me happy.")

I was going to put this under my "writing thoughts" filter, but then I thought better of it. I'm interested in seeing what people have to say about this, whether you are involved in fannish writings yourself or not, whether you write or not.

Comments

[brni.livejournal.com]

Community is really important - not "key" per se, as there's many folks who hid away and wrote alone and did amazing things - but really important to helping center and improve us as writers, and to provide the support we need when we hit the inevitable "OMFGeverythingIwriteiscrap" stage.

I'm still finding my way into groups of people who can give the sort of support and feedback I need to help me grow as a writer, but they exist.

Another way to get feedback is to expressly solicit it from editors when you submit a story. Many editors have a policy of not offering feedback, largely because there are enough people out there who do things like - start arguing, become abusive, post the letters on the internet, etc. But some of them will make exceptions if you ask in your cover letter/cover email: "I am always looking for ways to improve my writing, so any feedback or advice is much appreciated." Even a single line of personal response is often very useful.

I don't often read your fanfic, pretty much because my taste doesn't tend to run toward fanfic. I do enjoy your original fiction, particularly the Mongolian steampunk one. So much of our worldview is so anglo-american and western european slanted that we really don't have much out there representing the massive parts of our world and history that don't fit that mold. Mongol world domination is not much of a stretch, and it's really refreshing to see something that explores that.