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gyzymOH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, THE OUTPOURING OF LOVE FOR THAT COFFEE SHOP THING, I CANNOT EVEN. THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU HAVE MADE MY MONTH, AND I APOLOGIZE FOR THE FACT THAT I AM NOW GOING TO FLOOD YOUR FLISTS WITH RANDOMNESS. IT IS A VERY POOR THANK YOU.
That said:
Some navel gazing on the topic of original fiction
So, uh, really what started this is that it's NaNoWriMo--no, that's not true. Really what started this is the realization that I've written approximately one hundred and thirty thousand words of Inception fanfic in less than two months, what the hell, and so there's really, really no reason I can't write a novel. And I am writing a novel, I've been writing it for over a year, but the thing is, I hate it. I hate it, I don't get any joy out of it at all, and I haven't been able to suss out why.
And then I wrote that coffee shop AU, and it's the most fun I've had in ages, and I figured something out.
I love Inception because there isn't a lot to base the characters off of. I love Inception because the canon is loose and varied and lets you do anything--I love Inception because it's the closest I can come to writing original fiction without writing original fiction.
And I hate my novel because at some point down the line, I decided that I had to do something Loftier and More Vaunted than writing silly love stories.
But this is the thing--I love writing silly love stories. I love writing them because I don't really think they're silly at all; I love writing them because I think we're our most human, our most flawed and flayed and opened up and closed off, when we're on the precipice of letting someone into our lives. I love writing them because everyone is a work in a progress and a picture in motion and a piece of a puzzle, and because there's nothing like falling in love to bring that to light. I love writing them because it's character study, and at the end of the day I am That Kind of Writer. At the end of the day what I want to bring to light is who and how and why people are.
And I think the places I go with Arthur and Eames--the way my characterizations of them fall further and further into these people they never were in the movie--and hell, I don't mean fanon stuff, because I don't mean to take credit for or appropriate that at all . I mean just, these certain things I do with them sometimes that maybe I'm only seeing because I'm looking for it, because really I'm looking for this other story. I mean the way I find myself drawn toward writing Arthur as this person who's so strung up in his own awkwardness and expectations of himself that he can't see straight sometimes; the way I keep wanting to write Eames as gentler and more patient than canon ever led me to believe he could be. And, fuck, this sounds like ego and I swear to god I don't mean it like that, I don't think of myself as some kind of--fucking, I don't know, I'm trusting you guys to know that what I'm trying to do here is certainly not any form of self praise. I'm just, I'm trying to figure this out, and I think what I'm drawing towards is the idea that underneath these things I'm writing are maybe some characters of my own.
And is that even possible? Can I ever legitimately say that I have any claim to original characters if I'm basing them even partially on my own version of characters that belong to fandom? Which is a convoluted question at best, and I guess that's the struggle of writing fanfic, is how much of it is and isn't yours, how much of it you can hold onto.
But I just. The most fun I've had writing anything in months is the closest thing I've done to original work for any fandom, and it's not like I can't produce the volume of words necessary to write a novel. I can't speak for the quality, but just, like, speaking strictly factually, I have produced a wordcount in two months that is far and away long enough to qualify. Longer, really. And if I can produce the volume and I like the things closest to original work best, then what...what is my excuse, exactly? What line of defense am I operating under here? I don't really have any arguments left against at least trying, except for the inevitable possible failure/well it might suck/I don't have the talent shit, and I make it a point to try to ignore those voices, because they don't really do anybody any good.
I don't want to write the novel I've been writing. I want to write a book about falling in love--I want to write a book about choices and how they haunt you and how maybe you go through your whole life waiting to make the wrong ones and hoping the right ones will just occur to you. I want to write a book about someone who grew up being the kind of boy who always knew what he was going to do with his life, because everyone around him always knew what he was going to do with his life--no, no, because he always knew, didn't he? And he lives with that doubt, and he wonders if that's why he's never found anything that felt quite right, if it's because he's fallen into this path that's always been laid out for him. I want him to dream, and when he dreams I want it to be of frontiers. I want him to imagine the Old West and be envious, because he's never--there's never been anything that open for him, because even if he could escape there aren't any frontiers left, not really, not anymore; because he's never going to be an astronaut and all the land's been walked before and who is he to expect anything different.
I want to write about what it is to second guess yourself and second guess your choices and your friends and the people you love, and love them anyway, and I think--well, that maybe that's the story I keep trying to tell in my fanfic? And maybe it's blurring the lines and maybe it's wrong but I...I kind of think I want to do it anyway. Just to try. Just to see.
I DON'T KNOW IF THIS HAS MADE ANY SENSE, BUT I AM POSTING IT ANYWAY. I'd love your thoughts--on whether you'd even been interested in reading original work from me, on whether this sounds completely crazy, on fandom-vs-original-work in general. SPEAK TO ME, FLIST. TELL ME YOUR THINKY THOUGHTSSSSS.
That said:
Some navel gazing on the topic of original fiction
So, uh, really what started this is that it's NaNoWriMo--no, that's not true. Really what started this is the realization that I've written approximately one hundred and thirty thousand words of Inception fanfic in less than two months, what the hell, and so there's really, really no reason I can't write a novel. And I am writing a novel, I've been writing it for over a year, but the thing is, I hate it. I hate it, I don't get any joy out of it at all, and I haven't been able to suss out why.
And then I wrote that coffee shop AU, and it's the most fun I've had in ages, and I figured something out.
I love Inception because there isn't a lot to base the characters off of. I love Inception because the canon is loose and varied and lets you do anything--I love Inception because it's the closest I can come to writing original fiction without writing original fiction.
And I hate my novel because at some point down the line, I decided that I had to do something Loftier and More Vaunted than writing silly love stories.
But this is the thing--I love writing silly love stories. I love writing them because I don't really think they're silly at all; I love writing them because I think we're our most human, our most flawed and flayed and opened up and closed off, when we're on the precipice of letting someone into our lives. I love writing them because everyone is a work in a progress and a picture in motion and a piece of a puzzle, and because there's nothing like falling in love to bring that to light. I love writing them because it's character study, and at the end of the day I am That Kind of Writer. At the end of the day what I want to bring to light is who and how and why people are.
And I think the places I go with Arthur and Eames--the way my characterizations of them fall further and further into these people they never were in the movie--and hell, I don't mean fanon stuff, because I don't mean to take credit for or appropriate that at all . I mean just, these certain things I do with them sometimes that maybe I'm only seeing because I'm looking for it, because really I'm looking for this other story. I mean the way I find myself drawn toward writing Arthur as this person who's so strung up in his own awkwardness and expectations of himself that he can't see straight sometimes; the way I keep wanting to write Eames as gentler and more patient than canon ever led me to believe he could be. And, fuck, this sounds like ego and I swear to god I don't mean it like that, I don't think of myself as some kind of--fucking, I don't know, I'm trusting you guys to know that what I'm trying to do here is certainly not any form of self praise. I'm just, I'm trying to figure this out, and I think what I'm drawing towards is the idea that underneath these things I'm writing are maybe some characters of my own.
And is that even possible? Can I ever legitimately say that I have any claim to original characters if I'm basing them even partially on my own version of characters that belong to fandom? Which is a convoluted question at best, and I guess that's the struggle of writing fanfic, is how much of it is and isn't yours, how much of it you can hold onto.
But I just. The most fun I've had writing anything in months is the closest thing I've done to original work for any fandom, and it's not like I can't produce the volume of words necessary to write a novel. I can't speak for the quality, but just, like, speaking strictly factually, I have produced a wordcount in two months that is far and away long enough to qualify. Longer, really. And if I can produce the volume and I like the things closest to original work best, then what...what is my excuse, exactly? What line of defense am I operating under here? I don't really have any arguments left against at least trying, except for the inevitable possible failure/well it might suck/I don't have the talent shit, and I make it a point to try to ignore those voices, because they don't really do anybody any good.
I don't want to write the novel I've been writing. I want to write a book about falling in love--I want to write a book about choices and how they haunt you and how maybe you go through your whole life waiting to make the wrong ones and hoping the right ones will just occur to you. I want to write a book about someone who grew up being the kind of boy who always knew what he was going to do with his life, because everyone around him always knew what he was going to do with his life--no, no, because he always knew, didn't he? And he lives with that doubt, and he wonders if that's why he's never found anything that felt quite right, if it's because he's fallen into this path that's always been laid out for him. I want him to dream, and when he dreams I want it to be of frontiers. I want him to imagine the Old West and be envious, because he's never--there's never been anything that open for him, because even if he could escape there aren't any frontiers left, not really, not anymore; because he's never going to be an astronaut and all the land's been walked before and who is he to expect anything different.
I want to write about what it is to second guess yourself and second guess your choices and your friends and the people you love, and love them anyway, and I think--well, that maybe that's the story I keep trying to tell in my fanfic? And maybe it's blurring the lines and maybe it's wrong but I...I kind of think I want to do it anyway. Just to try. Just to see.
I DON'T KNOW IF THIS HAS MADE ANY SENSE, BUT I AM POSTING IT ANYWAY. I'd love your thoughts--on whether you'd even been interested in reading original work from me, on whether this sounds completely crazy, on fandom-vs-original-work in general. SPEAK TO ME, FLIST. TELL ME YOUR THINKY THOUGHTSSSSS.
