For my second post in 100 Musings on Writing Fanfiction I've attempted to summarize my fanfiction writing activities over the past 16 years. Warning, there are some hilariously juvenile excerpts from fanfiction I wrote about 10 years ago under the cut.
The first fandom I can remember writing in was Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was about ten years old, very in love with science fiction and space ships, and I wanted Captain Picard to be my dad so much. For some reason that I'm not really sure about Riker was almost always the bad guy (I think it was the beard), and the first fic I can remember putting down on paper was a story about all of them living on a really cool bus. I was ten and apparently I thought that living on a bus was the most awesome idea ever. A story that never made it to a written form that I frequently acted out with my Star Trek action figures was one where they were an 80's rock band. I very much wish that I could remember the specifics of this because I would still write that sixteen years later.
I continued to write little stories, all on paper because I didn't know how to type yet, and had no idea that other people did this. For an assignment in 8th grade I wrote a continuation for The Witch of Blackbird Pond and both my teacher and my mom asked me if I'd copied it down from somewhere. I think it was at that moment I got the idea that writing was something I could do.
In high school I wrote a story about a group of friends who all lived in together in apartment and went grocery shopping and there was possibly a cult at some point (my mind always made the strangest connections), based on a group of people I'd met on the Terry Brooks fan forum. Shortly after that I was shown fanfiction.net and learned that lots of other people wrote stories about characters and shows and books they liked.
The first piece of fanfiction I wrote and posted online was an Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter fic titled "Escapades with Microwaves". The plot was the microwave at the Circus of the Damned broke and Anita took everyone to Walmart to go buy another one. Hilarity, or my fifteen year old self's idea of hilarity, ensued.
An excerpt, because now I find this completely hilarious in a different way than it was probably intended:
Damian looked over at him and replied, “If we get a microwave that Jean Claude doesn’t like then he will be angry, I do not want to be locked in a coffin with crosses on it.”
Anita looked around helplessly and saw Nathaniel. “Nathaniel, what on earth are you doing?” Anita asked as Nathaniel turned around.
Nathaniel grinned, “I put my hand in a toaster, it feels good.”
Anita stared horrified at his hand, which was indeed, in the toaster.
Jason ran over to him, “Cool, can I try?”
Anita glared at Jason and said, “Nathaniel, put the toaster down, after you take your hand out of it.”
The toaster rang a bell and Nathaniel’s hand was released. “I’m done,” he stated.
High school was a strange time for me.
From there I ventured into the Harry Potter fandom, which I was reading pretty much at any opportunity I had to be on the computer. The fifth book wasn't out yet, but the title was, and I started a pice called "Harry Potter and the Quest of the Order." Naturally it never went anywhere, but it also had some pretty hilarious parts. Apparently I went through a phase where when I wanted something to sound dramatic, I'd have the character restate whatever they'd just said. For example:
"Harry, someone spotted You-Know-Who in Hogsmeade. He was there Harry, he was.” Hermione said, as she broke into tears. Ginny and Hermione held each other.
“We were so scared Harry, we thought…” Ginny said as she cried.
Dumbledore stepped forward. “Did you see him Harry, did you see him?”
Harry stepped back a bit. “No, I didn’t see him, I didn’t. All I went down there to do was to get some candy, that’s all.”
Professor McGonagall shook her head, “Why did you go down there, why did you? You could have been killed.”
It probably is not polite to laugh at my teenaged writing, but I can't help it. It's so ridiculously funny. One of my friends stated that he dropped his laptop on his cat (on accident) because he was laughing so hard when he read this piece. I can't blame him in the slightest.
After that I wrote a few more Harry Potter pieces throughout high school along with a handful of collaborations with friends.
For the next few years I disappeared from fandom, still writing scenes and ideas on paper, but nothing ever made it out to the internet. Pretty much every school notebook I have has some kind of fanfiction written in it somewhere, mostly Harry Potter and Star Trek. In 2008 I took a Cult TV class at the University where my passion for reading and writing fanfiction was fully activated once more. I went to Spain for study abroad for five weeks in 2009, and while there I hand wrote about 40k of Star Trek: Voyager fic about B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris, where B'Elanna is pretty crazy and Tom is just kind of along for the ride. And Captain Janeway isn't all that nice, but she gets better. Yeah, that one will never see the light of day, even though I do love parts of it. I also write three original NaNo novels over those years and started several more.
In late 2009![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kityye started me reading Stargate: Atlantis fic, and I started watching Stargate SG-1 around the same time. I learned about fandom on livejournal and in early 2010 I signed up for my first Big Bang (Summer of Stargate, I wrote a Vala-centric story called Probabtion where Richard Woolsey is not a good guy at all). Shortly after that I joined Kink Bingo and a variety of other bingo type communities. At the end of the summer 2010 I joined Stargateland, where I really started to talk with and connect to other people in fandom, including race_the_ace and emeraldsnakes. I deleted my unfinished fics from fanfiction.net, signed up on archiveofourown.org and began writing and posting fanfiction in earnest.
From there, I've done Summer of Stargate three times now, I'm signed up to do Atlantis Big Bang for a second time, I've been in five different land comms, and I've written for a variety of different fan fests.
For about a year and a half my primary fandom was Stargate (I've written over 70 stories between SG-1 and SGA) and I also wrote/still write semi-frequently for Supernatural and Leverage.
In January 2011race_the_ace suggested I watch Criminal Minds and I fell in love fast and hard, and a year and three months later I've written 44 stories in the Criminal Minds fandom (one was my NaNo Novel in 2011, Strength of the Pack and is my longest piece of fiction to date). I have three lengthy unfinished Criminal Minds projects in the works and I anticipate continuing to write in this fandom for quite some time.
Reading and writing fanfiction is one of those things that has both been a constant throughout my life and has changed me so much as I've grown.
The first fandom I can remember writing in was Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was about ten years old, very in love with science fiction and space ships, and I wanted Captain Picard to be my dad so much. For some reason that I'm not really sure about Riker was almost always the bad guy (I think it was the beard), and the first fic I can remember putting down on paper was a story about all of them living on a really cool bus. I was ten and apparently I thought that living on a bus was the most awesome idea ever. A story that never made it to a written form that I frequently acted out with my Star Trek action figures was one where they were an 80's rock band. I very much wish that I could remember the specifics of this because I would still write that sixteen years later.
I continued to write little stories, all on paper because I didn't know how to type yet, and had no idea that other people did this. For an assignment in 8th grade I wrote a continuation for The Witch of Blackbird Pond and both my teacher and my mom asked me if I'd copied it down from somewhere. I think it was at that moment I got the idea that writing was something I could do.
In high school I wrote a story about a group of friends who all lived in together in apartment and went grocery shopping and there was possibly a cult at some point (my mind always made the strangest connections), based on a group of people I'd met on the Terry Brooks fan forum. Shortly after that I was shown fanfiction.net and learned that lots of other people wrote stories about characters and shows and books they liked.
The first piece of fanfiction I wrote and posted online was an Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter fic titled "Escapades with Microwaves". The plot was the microwave at the Circus of the Damned broke and Anita took everyone to Walmart to go buy another one. Hilarity, or my fifteen year old self's idea of hilarity, ensued.
An excerpt, because now I find this completely hilarious in a different way than it was probably intended:
Damian looked over at him and replied, “If we get a microwave that Jean Claude doesn’t like then he will be angry, I do not want to be locked in a coffin with crosses on it.”
Anita looked around helplessly and saw Nathaniel. “Nathaniel, what on earth are you doing?” Anita asked as Nathaniel turned around.
Nathaniel grinned, “I put my hand in a toaster, it feels good.”
Anita stared horrified at his hand, which was indeed, in the toaster.
Jason ran over to him, “Cool, can I try?”
Anita glared at Jason and said, “Nathaniel, put the toaster down, after you take your hand out of it.”
The toaster rang a bell and Nathaniel’s hand was released. “I’m done,” he stated.
High school was a strange time for me.
From there I ventured into the Harry Potter fandom, which I was reading pretty much at any opportunity I had to be on the computer. The fifth book wasn't out yet, but the title was, and I started a pice called "Harry Potter and the Quest of the Order." Naturally it never went anywhere, but it also had some pretty hilarious parts. Apparently I went through a phase where when I wanted something to sound dramatic, I'd have the character restate whatever they'd just said. For example:
"Harry, someone spotted You-Know-Who in Hogsmeade. He was there Harry, he was.” Hermione said, as she broke into tears. Ginny and Hermione held each other.
“We were so scared Harry, we thought…” Ginny said as she cried.
Dumbledore stepped forward. “Did you see him Harry, did you see him?”
Harry stepped back a bit. “No, I didn’t see him, I didn’t. All I went down there to do was to get some candy, that’s all.”
Professor McGonagall shook her head, “Why did you go down there, why did you? You could have been killed.”
It probably is not polite to laugh at my teenaged writing, but I can't help it. It's so ridiculously funny. One of my friends stated that he dropped his laptop on his cat (on accident) because he was laughing so hard when he read this piece. I can't blame him in the slightest.
After that I wrote a few more Harry Potter pieces throughout high school along with a handful of collaborations with friends.
For the next few years I disappeared from fandom, still writing scenes and ideas on paper, but nothing ever made it out to the internet. Pretty much every school notebook I have has some kind of fanfiction written in it somewhere, mostly Harry Potter and Star Trek. In 2008 I took a Cult TV class at the University where my passion for reading and writing fanfiction was fully activated once more. I went to Spain for study abroad for five weeks in 2009, and while there I hand wrote about 40k of Star Trek: Voyager fic about B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris, where B'Elanna is pretty crazy and Tom is just kind of along for the ride. And Captain Janeway isn't all that nice, but she gets better. Yeah, that one will never see the light of day, even though I do love parts of it. I also write three original NaNo novels over those years and started several more.
In late 2009
kityye started me reading Stargate: Atlantis fic, and I started watching Stargate SG-1 around the same time. I learned about fandom on livejournal and in early 2010 I signed up for my first Big Bang (Summer of Stargate, I wrote a Vala-centric story called Probabtion where Richard Woolsey is not a good guy at all). Shortly after that I joined Kink Bingo and a variety of other bingo type communities. At the end of the summer 2010 I joined Stargateland, where I really started to talk with and connect to other people in fandom, including race_the_ace and emeraldsnakes. I deleted my unfinished fics from fanfiction.net, signed up on archiveofourown.org and began writing and posting fanfiction in earnest. From there, I've done Summer of Stargate three times now, I'm signed up to do Atlantis Big Bang for a second time, I've been in five different land comms, and I've written for a variety of different fan fests.
For about a year and a half my primary fandom was Stargate (I've written over 70 stories between SG-1 and SGA) and I also wrote/still write semi-frequently for Supernatural and Leverage.
In January 2011
race_the_ace suggested I watch Criminal Minds and I fell in love fast and hard, and a year and three months later I've written 44 stories in the Criminal Minds fandom (one was my NaNo Novel in 2011, Strength of the Pack and is my longest piece of fiction to date). I have three lengthy unfinished Criminal Minds projects in the works and I anticipate continuing to write in this fandom for quite some time.Reading and writing fanfiction is one of those things that has both been a constant throughout my life and has changed me so much as I've grown.
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