There is no shame in starting over. Or not outlining. Or writing slowly. Or using clichés. Or writing multiple projects at the same time.
You are in charge of your own writing journey. It’s up to you which path to take, and none is less valuable than the other. – D
everyone is fucking but no one is horny
one of my twitter friends recently said that if she could order up a fic it would be a story written by someone who has only ever read the classics, 1.5 star trek novelizations, and their mother’s romance novels from 1970, written about two people are so out of their minds horny for each other it causes them to make the absolute worst choices anyone’s ever made.
and i almost lost my mind laughing because i do know exactly what she means. there is a weird vibe i can sometimes sense within the first few paragraphs a fic that really bums me out. it’s almost like i can tell the author is thinking way too much about what i’m thinking about their id and it’s suddenly like we’re all suddenly wondering how riding a bicycle works when we’re mid-ride. when you start worrying too much audience interpretation or how a fic is going to do or play or ugh marketability, it genuinely adds some weird self-conscious distance to whatever you’re doing. and it’s the pits from the reader side because it removes so much horniness from your story even if the idea you have is genuinely good! i know this is not a niche complaint–you find it literally everywhere as every sector of the creative internet gets #content-ed and people can’t escape the stats of how any given creative outlet does.
but god there’s literally nothing better than sitting down and reading some freaknasty person’s art where they do not give a single shit if you like it. they had something to say and my god they were gonna say it. i’ve accidentally acquired so many kinks by clicking on a story where someone took me on the most insane ride of my life and i thrilled about it. i don’t wanna read about polite normal regular love. i don’t wanna read about people using therapy-speak on each other. i wanna read about two people feeling the biggest craziest feelings of their entire life and they cannot do anything about it except bang it out. what else are we doing here? if they’re not fucking down an entire house, well jed i don’t even wanna read it.
K so this is the third time this exact ask has been sent to me in like a month. In order to shut you up, I’ll just be as politely blunt as possible.
I do not care. Not even a little bit. It doesn’t matter to me how a fan of my work might interpret a relationship. Why?
You said it yourself. It wouldn’t be canon. It can’t “ruin” my work, because it wouldn’t be my work. It’s a fanwork. I do not have to like or wholeheartedly approve of a fan’s work that they make based off of something I made. No creator does. Once you put a work out there into the world, and once other people touch it… It doesn’t belong to just you. The idea enters society and comes out changed by every person who touches it. And while I would still have my own, original, perfectly canon set of events within the story… The act of creation is also in the hands of those who consume. A fanfic or piece of fan art is its own separate bubble. It cannot alter canon, but that doesn’t mean it has no right to exist.
If someone really wants Keir and Crow to smooch… They can do that! It wouldn’t be canon to my story, but neither is 80% of what I’ve written down for the book. I refuse to police the creativity of other people just because I personally wouldn’t do a thing. The story I’m telling is still mine. Other people have every right to see a different story. Their fanmade story does not hurt my own.
K so this is the third time this exact ask has been sent to me in like a month. In order to shut you up, I’ll just be as politely blunt as possible.
I do not care. Not even a little bit. It doesn’t matter to me how a fan of my work might interpret a relationship. Why?
You said it yourself. It wouldn’t be canon. It can’t “ruin” my work, because it wouldn’t be my work. It’s a fanwork. I do not have to like or wholeheartedly approve of a fan’s work that they make based off of something I made. No creator does. Once you put a work out there into the world, and once other people touch it… It doesn’t belong to just you. The idea enters society and comes out changed by every person who touches it. And while I would still have my own, original, perfectly canon set of events within the story… The act of creation is also in the hands of those who consume. A fanfic or piece of fan art is its own separate bubble. It cannot alter canon, but that doesn’t mean it has no right to exist.
If someone really wants Keir and Crow to smooch… They can do that! It wouldn’t be canon to my story, but neither is 80% of what I’ve written down for the book. I refuse to police the creativity of other people just because I personally wouldn’t do a thing. The story I’m telling is still mine. Other people have every right to see a different story. Their fanmade story does not hurt my own.
fucking a south cal dude call that Californicating