Originally posted by Nan:
It wasn't until I discovered the Fanfic Archive in late 1999 that I actually contemplated letting anyone else see my work. My daughter bet me that I could write as well as the stories written there and challenged me to try. The rest is history.
Nan, please thank your daughter for the rest of us.
) For most of the almost 9 months I was posting ML, I would only get occasional feedback (
Joan, Laurach, and Michael), but even so, it was more FDK than I'd ever received for my writing before. Now, I'm addicted. If it dried up, I'd miss it, but I'd still write.
Not only do I write for the entertainment value, I find it fun, but also because it gives me complete control (or the appearance of complete control*) over some aspect of my life. It's also a wonderful feeling to put "The End" to something (rare that that feeling is now-a-days), to see definite progress, and to have a sense of accomplishment. While I love my kids, they are a decades long WIP, and I would be in a padded room if the only sense of accomplishment I received was them going to bed the *first* time I told them to do so. (This still hasn't happened, in case you're wondering.)
* My characters actually have control on where my stories go. I try to nudge them in the correct direction, but they insist that the story has to go their way or no way, they throw up writer's blocks until I give in to them.
TOC wrote:
So I started writing down my thoughts, and found it a very satisfying way of thinking. I just did it, naturally and for my own sake, more and more. And the need to write stories - to write stories - which I'd never really had in the first place, disappeared even more.
As a Classics Major, I envy anyone who can tell a story, which hasn't been written down. The orator or storyteller is a lost skill in recent generations. Congratulations for keeping it alive.
Krissie Wrote:
I've sometimes wondered where the point would be in writing down readerless stories when I can simply lie in bed, close my eyes and let them play out in my head during that in-between time between closing my eyes and falling asleep. Not translating the images in my head into words on paper or on screen is a great way of saving both time and effort!
Me, too! I often can't keep my eyes open at my desk, and go and lie down and work through the next scene in my head (and my dreams). When I was writing 'Missing Lois', I often went to sleep having Clark calling to Lois in my mind (or vice versa) to see where it would lead. Glad to see I'm not the only crazy one out there.
It is disappointing though when I go to write it down the next day and the ideas I generated at this restful point were suddenly gone, or didn't come out sounding anywhere as good. Many of plot tangles, though, have been solved by stepping away from the computer or lying down to sleep.
