I was super sick a few months back and holed up in bed like a sweaty, fevered mess. I was bored out of my mind and high on DayQuil. But through delirious, watery eyes, I somehow tapped my phone over to FanFiction.Net.
Before getting sick, I'd been in the middle of a Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild binge, since video games are my other major love (besides books, of course). All my fried brain wanted was some Zelda-themed gushy romance and wholesome adventuring. And I luckily found the gold mine for any nerd who's delved into fanfic: a 100,000k+ word, 30+ chapter, 100+ reviewed story with my favorite ship...and it even had that mythical "story complete" status in the info bar. Bless.
I devoured the entire thing in two days and had zero regrets. But the whole experience also had me feeling strangely nostalgic, since I hadn't even touched FF.Net since, like...high school? I had avoided the site after becoming a fancy English major in college, because writing sappy fics about my favorite books and games was so not "mature," right??
But I now felt guilty for those thoughts, since the story I'd just read was very well written and completely enjoyable. Why had I stayed away from fanfic for so long? When had I gotten such a complex about something I genuinely enjoyed?
I wanted to write this post because I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been through this. If you're a bookworm or gamer, if you're a nerd or fangirl, there's a 95% chance you've read or written some fics. A lot of us are bombarded with reminders of fanfiction's bad rep (hello, My Immortal). But here's some reasons you should never be ashamed to get back to fics if you haven't written in a while.
YOU GOTTA FAIL TO SUCCEED
One of the most annoying things about reading/writing (at least for me) is that I when I get inspired, I want my own awesome product right now. When I read, I wanna write. And when I read a good book or fic, I wish I had my own good book or fic in my hand right this second and was already internet famous
Bad news is, writing can be a slow progress. Your first attempts will never go as planned (shout out to my 2009 romance oneshot that somehow turned into a dark multi-chapter exploration of relationships and death and loss despite being about, uh, Pokemon). It's easy to imagine a story in your head, but the true battle is the nitty gritty of building it up one word...sentence...paragraph...chapter at a time. Shit will get weird. Plot gaps will open up like crazy post-earthquake sinkholes. But you learn because you tried, and you can't write a better second story if you haven't written your first.
GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME
Speaking of bravely winging it: remember that some writing is better than no writing. Just like an artist in any other medium, there's something to be said about quantity over quality -- at least at first. You have to throw ideas at the wall to see what sticks, and that involves writing your ass off until your brain starts developing its own muscle memory.
And hey: I know a lot of this post sounds like, "just write random shit, fanfics suck, who cares!!" but that's not the message I'm going for. Rather, if you're trying to get back in the writing game, fanfic is the perfect way to embrace this mind set because the stakes are set so low. You're not out there to impress anyone (well...maybe until you get back to your A-game). You're there to have fun with the process and enjoy a fandom with others who love these characters as much as you. I have so many friends that don't write anymore not because they don't want to, but because they're afraid to get back on the horse while not in peak form.
Learn to embrace writing and story crafting for what it is and the joy it brings. Strip it all back to the basics.
IF YOU ENJOY IT...WHO CARES?
And to get real for a moment... I feel like a lot of us, especially if we're on the book blogging scene, feel a pressure to take our lit seriously. We read and write because we love it. We know the work that goes into a book, goes into making a blog post, and we want to show the best of what the publishing world has to offer. Unfortunately, that pride can sometimes make something nasty: elitism. But hi, I'm here to tell you that elitism is dumb af.
Just like we remind ourselves we don't blog for the views and followers, we also shouldn't write (only) for the cheers and accolades. Deep down, all of us remember what it was like when we first joined a fandom, first started spinning our own plots and dreams long after we put the book, game, movie aside. Fanfiction is born out of a love of imagination. We're so connected to these characters we meet, the world someone else has created, that we do it the ultimate honor of giving it a home in our minds too. And if people wanna make fun of your for having that deep experience...who cares?
As the legendary Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way would say: fuck the preps (and losers who're too scared to join in our fun).
I spent 99% of this post agonizing over stylizing it "fan fiction" or "fanfiction." But ANYWAY...where my fanfic nerds at?
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