One of these days I am going to have fun doing my hobbies

[obstinatecondolement]

I've been signing up for a lot of fandom bingo stuff and feeling Very Bad about how many bingo cards I have signed up for in the past and then never finished (or, in many cases, started), so I guiltily took a look at my 100fandoms bingo card (never updated since I signed up in January 2019 until now) and filled out what squares I could from fic that I have posted since I signed up. Technically, it's not against the rules to use fic you wrote before signing up, but I wanted to limit it to what I've done since then. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to fill out 23 squares even though I hadn't been actively working on it. Like, sure, it's nearly been five years, but it's certainly more than I expected given how all-consuming Cobra Kai was for me for a hot minute of several consecutive years there, lol.

I think I am going to keep chipping away at it, because going through my works on AO3 for all these various fandoms where I only ever wrote one (or a few) fics made me realise how much I like those works and how good I think a lot of them are. I said this in my update to the post I linked above, but I have often felt inhibited from writing in certain fandoms either because I think No One Will Care outside of Yuletide season, or because I only have 1–3 ideas in me for that fandom and I don't want people to be disappointed if I just breeze through, drop a few things they like, and then leave forever. But, like, that's very silly. I should write things because it's fun and because I like them before I worry about My Public. I am not a professional writer whose livelihood depends on having a wide readership and nor do I have to tie myself down to a specific Brand Identity to avoid confusing or alienating readers who liked my X books but then hated my Y books. It's just for fun! So I should have fun! Which I do, when I let myself, so I think I'm just gonna take this as a sign to give fewer shits and just write the damn thing if I have an idea I am compelled by.

Comments

[flamingsword]

💜 This sounds like a good plan!

[obstinatecondolement]

I just rewatched The Producers this evening, a movie I routinely go completely crazy about every few years for a few intense weeks at a time. I think I'll actually write fic this time, because literally why not? Even if I'm the only one who'll read it, I re-read my own stuff to scratch obscure itches all the time and my future self deserves it!

Why not indeed!

[flamingsword]

*hums Springtime for Hitler*

I should re-read more of my own fic. 🤔 Thanks for the idea!

Re: Why not indeed!

[obstinatecondolement]

I'm always a fan of rereading your own fic: it's like it was written exactly to your tastes!

[vriddy]

just write the damn thing if I have an idea I am compelled by.

Hell yeah!!! :D

There's something very satisfying about watching a movie or series and feeling like you're going to explode with an idea or thought, and then letting it all out and just... moving on :D And feeling good The Thought is out in the world, now. Happy writing!!

[obstinatecondolement]

There really is! And even with fandoms I stay in for more than a short amount of time, I have so many stories I just rotate in my mind for years upon years before I write them and I could just... write them. Instead. XD

[amado1]

The idea that a writer should have a brand really fucks with me sometimes!! There was a time, a few years back, when I even deleted a bunch of fics, somewhere like 100 of them -- maybe 5% because I thought they were embarrassingly bad, but 95% were good, I just felt like they weren't "me." I felt silly just a week or two later.

[obstinatecondolement]

Yeah and like I do make a lot of jokes about my "brand" because there are a few very weird niche things I've been drawn to repeatedly, but I think that people certainly can get caught up on taking it as a serious idea that they are (for example) A Fluff Writer, so they shouldn't write angst, or A [insert ship here] Writer, so they can't ever write those characters in other ships, or explore the dynamic from another angle. Which is, like, if you only want to write a certain kind of thing then great, go for it! But if you're holding back from writing things that you'd like to write out of a perceived obligation to maintain your fandom brand identity then that's very much a joy killer ime.

I don't think I've ever outright deleted anything, but I've put a bunch of things in the anonymous collection because I don't want to be associated with them anymore.I have a weird neurosis about deleting fic, because part of me is like That's Destroying Literature—which, to be clear, I do feel objectively is a very frivolous comparison for me to be making, especially with the rise of censorship happening at the momentand an author choosing to delete their own fic is nothing approaching the same thing as book burning, but I somehow can't shake the feeling. I also don't want to orphan works, because I'm a control freak, lol. But taking my name off them seems to work for me. On that topic though, I do also want to get around to putting a bunch of my LJ-era fic on AO3 at some point, but I Do Not want to put it on my account without also putting it in the anonymous collection. It's kind of weird reconciling these twin feelings of "This does not reflect my current values and in many ways I do not think it should have been written" with "It would be morally wrong for me to remove access to this work to others." And, again, no it wouldn't be morally wrong for me to do that and I am not relevant enough to the literary canon to merit this kind of chin stroking in the first place, but I guess some feelings are hard to shake.

[amado1]

See! I'm the same way now, re: deleting fics. Maybe a few months after I deleted those fics, I started to change my mind ... it feels somehow, slightly morally wrong to take those works away from people who were offered it freely. I don't like orphaning either for the same reason you mentioned, although I orphaned like, all my 2023 and 2022 fics earlier this year 💀 I had gone through a whole year's worth of fics before I realized I could anonymize them and I was SO AGGRIEVED!! It wiped out all my TNG fics completely.

[obstinatecondolement]

I know someone who said that they have a fic on FFN that they absolutely hate, but haven't deleted it because so many people have said it is their favourite fic, so I definitely don't think that the feeling is coming from nowhere. And there's been stuff I really loved that got deleted and I'm bummed that it's gone (a lesson to me to download more of the fic I like, honestly), so I feel sometimes like I don't want to take away a fic that might mean more to someone out there than I know. And, I mean, if I did delete a fic of mine that would be my right even if it was the whole fandom's favourite fic (which... is unlikely, but just for the sake of argument, lol). I suppose it's not that I don't think I should be allowed, but... I don't know, exactly.