I'm the worst blogmom

I have been neglectful and cruel to my poor little blog, and that is something that is very sad.

It's okay though, blog - my novel probably has similar feelings at the moment.

See here's the thing. I started reading Homestuck, which I documented, no big deal, but then I wrote some Homestuck fanfiction, which I swear I am trying so hard to not write fanfiction right now but it just happened I don't even know. BUT it's not all bad, and now I'm going to talk about why I think All Aspiring Writers Should Try Fanfiction.

Yeah, it's lame, alright, I get that. You write for nothing, don't make up your own characters, nothing. But here's the thing: there are no stakes. Technically there's nothing to gain (there is, we'll talk about it later) but that means that there's nothing to lose! And that means you can try shit you wouldn't normally try, or play with other things that maybe you're not fully satisfied with. The trap, of course, is getting too "fanficcy", and imitating your source too much - that's where fanfiction really does get pointless and lame. Okay, great, so you can write exactly like Stephen King, and turn out scary fanfiction by the pound. But how do you write? Do you even know how to write like you?

For a very long time, I wanted to write like Terry Pratchett. I tried to write like Terry Pratchett. And it wasn't for nothing, because I did learn a lot, but eventually I realized that okay, I could write really similarly to Terry Pratchett, but that's not how I write. And that's when I realized that I knew more about how Pratchett writes than how I write. And that was the day where I stopped writing fanfiction.

I took a two year hiatus - freshman and sophomore year of college. I think I posted maybe four fanfictions during that time period. And then junior year I took a creative writing course and found out that I could write, and I had my own style, and it was actually not terrible. I wish I could say I started writing all my own shit at that point, but that's a lie. I wrote fanfiction again, but this time I didn't try to be Terry Pratchett. I tried to be me, with my stories and my takes on the characters, and my voice. Some people liked it, some people thought it was bad fanfiction. And yeah, maybe it was. But my writing was better, way better, and that was progress.

This spring I wrote a novel, and that was the hardest thing I've ever done, writing-wise. Not only was I trying to use my own voice extensively and consistently, I was creating a story, characters, a canon, everything. I will readily admit I was stretched as a writer. It was hard. And yeah, I'm really proud of my story and of myself for getting to the end, but when I re-read it there are parts where I can tell I was reaching. I'd never done that before, never played in that sandbox or however you want to put it. I mean, yeah it's all writing, but there's so many subtleties, so much shit you have to manage and so many irons to keep in the fire (yeah Vriska), that it can get away from you really really easily. And it did and that's okay, it's my first (okay well if we're going to get super technical third, but first serious) novel.

So I am going to go back to it but in the meantime I picked up this Homestuck thing. And I found something important out about my writing: I'm still struggling with my "voice". Pratchett fanfiction has a very English feel, even when I write it, just as part of the nature of it. Homestuck though, is fun and crazy and manic and gritty and American-written. And suddenly I'm realizing that when I just write, rather than try to be from a country I've only visited twice, things just sort of fall out onto the page. I don't know why it took me so long to realize this because I've been blogging for a while, but I guess it's just one of those things you have to come to at your own pace.

I realize that I said I was going to get to things you can gain from fanfiction later, and while I just expounded on what I think it's done for me, there is one more thing it's done, and one more thing it can do: get you feedback. Get your work out there, in the hands of others. People read it, tell you what they think, and that is invaluable. Seriously. And the other upswing of that is, if people read your stuff, and people like your stuff, you gain another invaluable resource: fans. People who like your shit enough, and maybe even like you enough (as a writer, never try to be likeable and a people-pleaser: be a selfish hooker because otherwise you'll never feel right about what you're writing) will follow your career and will maybe maybe spread word of your stuff to their friends.

You can't put a dollar sign on that. You can't put a value on that.

I will never, ever tell anyone not to write fanfiction. It's not a waste of time. It's not counterproductive. As a writer, it's one of the best things you can do.