Another post because another topic: genfic

[lobelia321]

Genfic.

Inspired by badgermonkey, I am, once again, pondering genfic.

I have this fic that I made up in the mid-1980s while having lunch in the coffee shop down from the detective agency (!!!!!) where I was working in a part-time student capacity at the time. I have schlepped this fic round with me ever since. I know the entire story. I am intimately acquainted with all the main characters, the settings, the moods. There is a homoerotic plot element (retrospectively easily identified as proto-slash of the highest order). There are snatches of this story written here and there and even typed up and put in a ringbinder. The snatches are all written in German except for a few more recent attempts.

But I never finished it. I never really finished any story until Jan. last year and the discovery of LotR slash.

Bad thing about the genfic: As with k/d, this one has lived in my head for so long that it feels almost a chore to put it down in text form. Yet I would love to have it there, to read before bedtime. But one thing I learned writing slash is that I like stories to evolve as I write them. I don't feel as excited about stories that are ready-made in my head, waiting to be translated into words.

Good thing about genfic: What I miss is having something private and all to myself in my head. Fair enough, the characterisations and plots I make up for Orli, Karl, Bern and orcs are also mine but not as much mine, as it were, because they also belong to the thousands out there. I did not *make them up*. I might have forged a particular characterisation but it's indebted to what I've gleaned about the real people and to what others have said or written about them (be it in protest or acquiescence). It's dependent on canon and fanon. Genfic is not. I do like the indebtedness: there's a special something about pulling fanon and canon around into a new direction that I like and about weaving bits and pieces of information into a coherent characterisation. But it's a characterisation, not a character. In genfic, even the way people *look* is totally up to me, the author.

Genfic is scary. But I would really like to give it another go.

That's what I think every other day. Every even day I'm bored with it. And can't find the right tone. That fic from the 1980s is such a (wait for it) cathected site! Maybe I should just write office-fic as a trial run.



I am also pondering my real-life non-fiction book. There are 507 items in my database of Things I Have Read for this book (books, articles). That is more than my Dompix and Orlipix together! I feel overwhelmed because I can remember perhaps one percent of the content of these items. I am crouched on the living-room floor, surrounded by paper, and am attempting to create some form of order and (haha, I wish!) a chapter plan.

Comments

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I would still like to write genfic. Unfortunately, every abortive attempt is connected in my head with the various 'you'll never amount to anything' thoughts that panicked me into starting them in the first place. I think I might have to trick myself into it. I'm sort of working up to it by slashing aphid experts and fairytale characters and so on. One day I'm hoping I'll look up and find I've written something entirely unconnected to fandom, by mistake.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

If it means more aphidfics, I like the strategy.