Well, since Classicalla included me in her 'icon' categorisation, I'll explain my position - which it seems most people know anyway
About a year ago, I got sucked into another fandom. Almost exactly a year ago, I posted my first fic in that fandom - as a complete nonentity, a newbie whom no-one knew. Although I was still finishing 24 Hours at the time, and also working on a Christmas L&C fic and a birthday fic for Elena, I didn't have anything like the same excitement for those as for my Doctor Who writing. In fact, for months I was far more prolific in writing for DW than I've ever been in L&C. Yes, you can let your jaws drop. I was pretty stunned myself. My story count on the DW archive (and there've been a couple of short stories I never posted there) is currently 90. Add to that another four stories, one multi-part, that I co-authored and were posted under my co-author's nick... well, it's embarrassing.
Thing is, I discovered that I don't seem to be capable of maintaining intense interest in two sets of characters at once. I fell in love with the characters in my other fandom. While I didn't exactly fall
out of love with the characters in L&C, I have zero interest in writing about them any more. Though it's true that I was already finding it difficult to sustain motivation even before my fandom shift. Maybe - entirely possible given my story count on the archive - I'm just out of inspiration. But I also don't really feel any desire to
read fanfic about L&C any more. Some of my favourite authors have posted long stories in the last year, and I haven't read them - that's a real first. I don't follow new stories on the boards any more.
Those of you who are new here won't know, but I used to read almost everything and if I liked something I
would post feedback. I never cared who the author was - a friend, someone I never knew, whatever. So the only reason I haven't commented on fic by new authors I'm hearing are really, really good is that I'm just not reading L&C fic at all.
Caroline said:
you can't bring yourself to leave the fandom entirely. You move on to other things, yes, whether real life things or new fandom things, but you poke your head in at the old place, too, every now and then, just to touch base with those old friends. Gradually, the authors' names on the new fics get less and less familiar, but every now and then, one of those wonderful old friends - who are, after all, the real reason you poked your head in in the first place - will post a fic. And of course you'll read it. And you'll let them know you read it. And it's really not an insult to the new people that you're doing this, and it doesn't mean that you think they're not capable of writing good stories. It's just that you're more motivated by friendship at this point than by genuine interest in the fandom.
That's it absolutely. It's happened a couple of times during the year that a good friend has posted something and I've read it, out of friendship and out of knowing that I've enjoyed their work in the past. Yvonne, for example, is one of my closest friends in the fandom. She posted a story - I read it. (Of course, I also loved it, even if it didn't make me want to read more L&C).
But I do know that there are some wonderful new authors this year, and I'm looking forward to the hot competition for Best New Author in the Kerths
Wendy
