Fannish Things

Jenn was musing about fan circles and fandoms and general closeness among writers. Lots to agree with there - especially the VOY comments and the intimidation factor.

Even after all this time, there are certain people I simply won't FB in VOY for the intimidation factor. Gak. I've spent hours - well, not hours - but I'll sit down, write an email, and then promptly delete it because I'm not sure of what X's response will be. Or whether they'll care. Or whether it's even worth the time necessary. So yes, intimidation. It's there. Even in Trek. After All This Time.

How wrong is that? I mean, seriously, how wrong is that? I know some of these people - read their work, they read mine, hey, occasionally they rec it - but I can't bring myself to drop them an email of FB because frankly, they scare the heck out of me. Don't ask why. I can't figure it out myself.

We won't even start on X-Files - I've only gushed to Jill Selby and that's only because I didn't realize that she was a BNF at first - only that I really, really enjoyed "Paper Saints" and ended up going as for to OT rec it on a Trek list. For the record, she was very un-Divalike. "Paper Saints" is another one of those stories I wished I had saved to my hard drive - Jill's site disappeared before I could finish reading everything there. ::sniff::

Anyway, Jenn writes: And I wasn't very--I suppose the term has to be social--with any of the more established Paris/Torres writers. I'm not exactly sure why now--part of it was intimidation, part of it was a strong anti-social thing I had going, and part of it, to be honest, was just the fact that I was new to the web and really wasn't that aware there WAS a social component to fanficsters outside of conventions and so forth.

Social component aside - it depends on the fandom. Some welcome you with open arms. "Hey newbie, cool!" Others don't necessarily take notice of you - no welcome wagon in some places and so it can be a very solitary thing to be plugging away in fandom with absolutely no company. Seriously, instead of welcoming you, the wagons circle up and then you've got to make the decision whether you're strong enough to do this without the support of the BNFs. It's so easy if you get a BNF support when you first burst onto the scene (because face it, many people who 'make it' in fandom do it immediately - there's none of this 'creeping onto the scene' deal, no, they simply explode onto the fannish scene). But back to the BNF support - if you get it at first, wow, you're pretty much set if you have the work to back it up. But if you don't, don't expect that support to last. The BNFs unfortunately are a fickle lot. They can take away their support as quickly as they gave it.

But that's another topic entirely. I was more thinking along the lines of how social interaction and the lack thereof affects what you do in fandom. You either have it or you don't - no real gray areas, unfortunately. Which leads to one of two things: you either a) become self-sufficient and do what you'd like or b) you drift to another fandom.

More Jenn: It's the social influence that actually DOES anything for me. Granted, I wrote a lot while off-line, but with a few exceptions, most of it is going to be hitting the trashcan or being totally rewritten now that I have my outside influence.

Ah that social influence. It made me actually think about the possibilities of J/C (and only once, have I attacked that pairing head on in fic, I think - meaning 'writing') when previously I stayed away from that pairing with a 6-foot pole. That pole is now just a 3-footer. Darn her. ::g::

But what I'm saying is that outside influence is fun. It's someone making an offhand comment about "Risa and checkers" and voila, there be a story. Someone throws out R/C and I'm intrigued. A discussion about Beverly in season 2 gets the wheels turning. And so on. Maybe the reason why DS9 is so slow for me these days is that the social influence is so far removed with Una off on her dissertation and me no longer haunting IM (and thus Liz) for ideas.

But then, I realize that I was out there alone before Liz came along and found me. But it was sure much more fun once I got 'found.'