Do Other People Do This?
Apr. 21st, 2023 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse I've got this abandoned fic on AO3.
It is a series of series of Bleach fic that I added to faithfully for literal years. I abandoned it when the manga series finally ended in August of 2016 and the canonical end ships broke my pairing. I haven't written on it since.
It was, however, for a long time a fic that a lot of the Byauka/Renji community hung out in. I still get a LOT of pleas to finish it. I have successfully ignored all the of the angry, demaning ones, but I've noticed a shift in the past several years. More and more people who reach out to me around that fic have been very patient and loving. They tell me how grateful they are for the effort I put in and are far more understanding that I may never finish it.
Weirdly, this has made me look at it again.
So, the thing I'm wondering is: do other people do this? Do you ever re-read your own fan fic? It's not terribly embarrassing to me to be doing it in this case, as a sort of research, a prelude to considering writing more. But, I've also re-read finished fics of my own for pleasure. Do you? It feels kind of weird because I'll get caught up in my own work and be all, "Damn, this is GOOD." I feel like I should be more cringe. Like, I'm supposed to look back on the things I wrote and sigh: Ah, my youthful indiscretion! My juvenilia! But, I wrote all this stuff as a full adult, and during/post my professional career as a novelist, so....
I dunno.
I just want to say? That junko on AO3. Helluva a writer. Highly recommend. *wink*
And not a terrible artist, either.
Image: in which I drew fan art of my own writing. This one isn't the Byakuya/Renji fic, however, but one that I wrote with my friend Josey, called Shattered Souls in which this character, Renji, becomes a Vizard.
It is a series of series of Bleach fic that I added to faithfully for literal years. I abandoned it when the manga series finally ended in August of 2016 and the canonical end ships broke my pairing. I haven't written on it since.
It was, however, for a long time a fic that a lot of the Byauka/Renji community hung out in. I still get a LOT of pleas to finish it. I have successfully ignored all the of the angry, demaning ones, but I've noticed a shift in the past several years. More and more people who reach out to me around that fic have been very patient and loving. They tell me how grateful they are for the effort I put in and are far more understanding that I may never finish it.
Weirdly, this has made me look at it again.
So, the thing I'm wondering is: do other people do this? Do you ever re-read your own fan fic? It's not terribly embarrassing to me to be doing it in this case, as a sort of research, a prelude to considering writing more. But, I've also re-read finished fics of my own for pleasure. Do you? It feels kind of weird because I'll get caught up in my own work and be all, "Damn, this is GOOD." I feel like I should be more cringe. Like, I'm supposed to look back on the things I wrote and sigh: Ah, my youthful indiscretion! My juvenilia! But, I wrote all this stuff as a full adult, and during/post my professional career as a novelist, so....
I dunno.
I just want to say? That junko on AO3. Helluva a writer. Highly recommend. *wink*
And not a terrible artist, either.
Image: in which I drew fan art of my own writing. This one isn't the Byakuya/Renji fic, however, but one that I wrote with my friend Josey, called Shattered Souls in which this character, Renji, becomes a Vizard.
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Date: 2023-04-21 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-22 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-21 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-22 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-21 09:58 pm (UTC)i am not surprised to learn that you have been a good writer for a long time.
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Date: 2023-04-22 12:23 am (UTC)I recently went back to look at an old journal of mine, and... oof. That was cringe-worthy! I'm glad to hear that yours aren't!
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Date: 2023-04-21 10:36 pm (UTC)Perhaps if I read my actual pro fiction more often I’d have fewer plot holes for the betas to correct.
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Date: 2023-04-22 12:25 am (UTC)You're so right. That's a huge part of what's appealing about it. I can still feel the urgency when I re-read.
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Date: 2023-04-23 09:07 pm (UTC)And I have a certain urgency to my original writing, but it’s much more deliberate. Even though my fanfic tendencies have always been long, meandering sagas in small fandoms posted chapter-by-chapter (so, high comments), the intended audience is myself. Whereas I’m much more intentional when I construct something from scratch, and it’s be necessity something that has my conscious mind all over it. Much less fun to reread.
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Date: 2023-04-21 10:49 pm (UTC)*My current WIP resembles fanfic of my own earlier work in some regards, and it is also like some fanfic in that it is impossibly long and never quite finished. Rereading earlier sections of that is also astonishing.
I can tell you're a good writer from Iriyel's letters alone. I don't care about gaming at all, but the letters are wonderful.
P.
P.
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Date: 2023-04-22 12:29 am (UTC)And, yeah, I don't even want to think about my current WIP. It's a mess. I need to re-read THAT and put some energy into it. Meanwhile, my brain is like.... "mmmm, more fic, plz!" Sigh. I think writers are always like this. The new idea is always shiniest.
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Date: 2023-04-22 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-22 12:30 am (UTC)I wrote what I wanted to read. So I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm the best audience for it. :-)
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Date: 2023-04-23 03:46 am (UTC)I re-listen to my podfic a lot less, but that's possibly because I don't have a lot of time to listen to podfic at ALL. Maybe if I had boat loads of podfic time, I'd relisten to my stuff on the regular too.