At 01:03 PM 1/4/2002 -0800, Helen Krummenacker wrote:
People really write stories just for themselves?
(As usual, I feel guilty answering this sort of question, because I haven't written any B7 in years. But I do write fanfic still, so....)
I don't write for anyone else *but* myself. Which is a good thing, because I tend to write things nobody but me *wants* to read. (My usual feedback for the fanfic I'm writing these days: "Never would have thought of that. I'm now trying to forget that *you* did." <g>)
So, tell me, why does a peerson write it out if they don't care if anyone reads it?
Not only don't I care if anyone reads my fanfic, but occasionally (though I'm usually coaxed by a friend or my partner into putting the stories on my web page or some other public/semi-public forum) there are stories that I don't *want* to know anyone else has read. The last story I wrote (different fandom) is like that.
Sometimes, I write things that I want to share with the world. Sometimes, I even write things specifically to please other people.
But then there are things like that last story. I finished it on New Year's Day. It had been in my head for about six weeks before that. It popped up at random moments, it turned up in my dreams, it started getting on my nerves. A lot. So I started writing it, about four weeks into the obsession. Now that it's done--sure, I think about it a little bit, but *as a story.* I think things like "did I *really* handle that character right?" or "I wonder if I ought to write a sequel..." But I don't keep getting pictures in my head (and they weren't pictures I wanted, especially).
So...writing as exorcism, maybe?
But I really do write for me. I wrote fanfic before I knew there was such a thing, and I wrote fanfic during a period of my life when I didn't know any other fans any more and (because fandom had left a bad taste in my mouth) didn't care to. I write because *writing* -- not merely "making up stories," but *putting words on paper,* arranging them, playing with them, looking at them--that's what I do.
-- Michelle Wren-Moyer mmoyer@mninter.net "It was excruciatingly unbearable, but strangely fun."