melannen | diary of a fanfic fiend

switchknife is running a poll on fandom and addiction. Go. Fill out. Ponder. I actively avoided reading hp fic for years because I knew my personality well enough to know that if I started, I wouldn't stop. And I was right: the first two months or so, it was my life. I read the entire Diagon Alley archive in five days and didn't even leave my room to eat; I was living off of boxed apple juice. It settled down a little after that, but still *all* my free time was spent reading or thinking about fic. I lived in the stories to the point where if I had a dream that didn't involve the characters, it freaked me out. I've gotten better-- rather it comes and goes in waves, I have bad days and good-- but it's still a much larger part of my life than it should be.

I say "should be" as if it's automatically bad. But the reason I haven't cut down more than I have is that I don't want to. I am entirely capable of leaving fandom almost entirely behind for a month or more at a time, when I'm off the internet or really tied up in the real world. But it's an emotional addiction; I still enjoy reading and writing fic, and get a high off of getting and sending feedback, and it's safe, and I can't convince myself that I don't want to be wasting my life this way, and I always decide to come back, like Pop-pop and his cigarettes. But if I have something else going on I really care about I can pull myself out until it's over. So perhaps the only way I'll control it is to find something enduring that I care more about than this. I just haven't found it, and I'm not sure I want to. There are worse things I could be spending my college years doing, although I'm not sure exactly how I'll explain it to the grandkids.

And it's not fanfic exactly. Or rather, the fanfic has in large part taken over from other addictions which I now follow less intensely, like comic strips and sf novels. Actually, I'm struck by the number of people in this discussion who've confessed that they were used to using novels as mood-altering drugs, as a way to avoid dealing with life, and find that the only difference between that and fandom is the infinite supply and the fandom's enabling sense of community. I know in my case it's not so much becoming addicted to fandom as simply finding a cheaper, stronger, more plentiful and less legal version of my old drug, like somebody on prescription morphine who switches over to heroin. And that might be part of the problem, that society still prescribes "morphine"-- being drawn into writing that way is so foreign to most of the populace these days that thay can't even conceive of the danger, and encourage reading in the very people who are most at risk of becoming dependent on it. That wasn't always the case; I've always been intrigued by the 18th and 19th century conviction that novels were dangerous for young women. You read old articles about keeping your daughters safe from the evils of books, and they sound exactly like modern anti-drug ads, only people laugh at them these days. I don't; I know what it's like; I always have.

Sorry, getting off track. So, I was already having all the aforementioned symptoms with published sf novels, to the extent of almost flunking calc in high school. It's something of a trade-off-- now, I stay in my room at the computer, then, I did actually go to class and meetings, but I would be reading a paperback novel the whole time instead of living. Now, when I do leave my room, I leave the stories behind, and I seem to live *better*. (Just pray I manage to resist the temptation to start printing fics out.) I won't even swear that I'm worse off under fandom than I was then, despite all the unwise choices and lost opportunities I blame on it; at least I'm building my writing and analytical and interpersonal skills a little bit meanwhile.

On a vaguely similar topic, a variety of things-- including

stellar_dust's poll on fanfic writing and schoolwork, and a discussion in writing workshop today, has got me thinking about why I write, and why I write what I write. I've gotten so caught up in the wanting to be a professional author idea that I'd lost touch for a long time in why I wanted to write in the first place. It was because I like to make up stories. Granted, I was about five at the time, so the stories mostly involved flying horses that lived in a castle in the clouds (and the plots mostly revolved a)the sexual and reproductive mores of such a society or b)classic sf-style gadget-of-the-week stories about how the heck they kept that castle from falling out of the sky, with occasional forays into c)religious and mystical philosophizing about the duality of magic and grit.) They were elaborate and I had fun making up the society and plots but it seemed like a waste to do all this work and have it be nowhere but in my head. I felt like I should *do* something with it. I tried to tell the stories to friends from kindergarten or

stellar_dust but they wouldn't ever sit still long enough, so I eventually realized if I wanted them preserved somewhere else I'd have to write them down.

Eventually I fell in love with the idea of being a write for its own sake; I learned to adore the language, the craft of literature and wordweaving; I liked the idea of the lifestyle and the image that went with it. (That is, spending hours in a room with a typewriter getting frustrated and hungry and always worrying about bills and deadlines but *never* about getting up on time in the morning.) I lost sight of the fact that what I really wanted to do was *tell stories*; the writing was just something I might as well do, if I was making up the stories anyway. Writing fanfic, I've got that back. I can tell stories and share them right away and they'll get read by at least one or two people, and all I have to worry about is the story, not all that other crap. Not that I'm finishing any more fanfic than original stuff, but at least what I finish goes somewhere other than my hard drive now. So I've stopped trying to make myself write original stuff. I still work on it when I'm in the mood, and still have story ideas, but I'll let that happen if it happens. The story's what matters.

Speaking of, writer's workshop is looking like it'll be good this semester. It's Writing for Publication and a major part of the grade is actually submitting poems to two magazines. I't'd be cool to get a short story polished to go to an sf rag at the same time, since I have to take the plunge anyway, but I probably won't.

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it's not so much becoming addicted to fandom as simply finding a cheaper, stronger, more plentiful and less legal version of my old drug, This is oh so true!!! Wonderfully put!!! Yes, it's cheaper, it's easier to access, it's virtually unlimited, it has the sex, *and* you get the community to boot (though I read for over 4 years without even participating in that aspect).

I used to read in class, I read while walking home from school, while eating, I remember my parents always being annoyed on vacation b/c I'd rather read than look at lanscape...now I read while driving (well, in very slow traffic and traffic lights)...same thing!!!

I managed to find something that pulled me off reading sf, playing muds, and the whole nine yards. Unfortunately, that something has her own life to live. Back to the sf and mudding. Yes, they are drugs. Yes, they keep me from being depressed and angsty, most of the time.

I admire your ability to be able to turn off your forays into this or that for a month or more at a time. If I don't have something else to throw myself into, it's back to the same old.

Oh, right, fic. I wish I could write.

--C

And, of course, now that that something is away from you, she's become addicted to fandom.

It's not so much choosing to turn them off, as getting yanked away, like when I'm at home and have very dodgy internet or long family vacations, and I have other shiny things to play with. And of course I know I can come back anytime I need to.

Don't forget getting yanked out to play too!

Yes, precisely! I have actually suffered from the stereotypical facial bruises from walking into lamppoles while reading, sad as that sounds. I've been thinking about that idea for a while, but I think this is the first time I managed to articulate it adequately.

Been trying to break the Mud, Sci-Fi, computer, EE cycle of issolation and procrastination, but I'm begining to think I'm not in control of my own mind. Damn hormones and male attraction to curved bodies of course why Mel... ok quieting up now. I'm trying to be better.

Speaking of, writer's workshop is looking like it'll be good this semester. It's Writing for Publication and a major part of the grade is actually submitting poems to two magazines. I't'd be cool to get a short story polished to go to an sf rag at the same time, since I have to take the plunge anyway, but I probably won't.

And why not?

Do! You will thank yourself (and your box of apple juice) later.

Yes, yes, yes!

I used to read in class, I read while walking home from school, while eating, I remember my parents always being annoyed on vacation b/c I'd rather read than look at lanscape...now I read while driving (well, in very slow traffic and traffic lights)...same thing!!!

Reading was better than my life, broader than my life, opened into more interesting dimensions than my life. I learned really early to use peripheral vision to guide me while walking so that I could read without slamming into things - my friends would try to get me to crash into them and I'd walk around them without raising my head.

Now the process is simply interrupted more by RL. The net has made it possible to pursue intake via hard copy in hand or via screen at work or home or via Palm where WiFi is open. Reading is not dead; it morphs and endures - god, I hope forever.

Meris

diary of a fanfic fiend

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