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Do I love my own fics best, then?
Oct. 5th, 2005 10:52 pmI had really interesting responses to my question 'Do you love your own fics best or others' fics?' Thank you for writing such interesting things! It made me ponder and try and come up with a response of my own.
I've been re-reading a fic of mine after months (years?) of not having touched that ringbinder and not wanting to be reminded of those days. And I really loved the fic! I had forgotten some of the twists and turns of it, and some of the phrases, and it was a delight to rediscover them and to be impressed by my own word-wendingness. It was just the sort of fic I like to read!
So I was being a reader of my own fic, not a writer. And there is the rub in the question. When I wrote 'do you love your fics?', did I mean the fics or did I mean the process, and can the two be separated? I meant the fic, the product, but can I really ever forget the process of writing that fic, even when re-reading it years later? I don't think my own fic can ever be to me as the fic of another. I will always remember the blood, sweat and tears that went into its making (as Sheldrake and Thamiris also mentioned), and also the delight and the flowingness. I will remember how the story started out, how it changed and meandered and transformed into what it is now, what feedback I got for it, how I chose the pairing, what frame of mind I was in when writing it, what this pairing meant to me. I will also remember what I was trying to do with the fic stylistically and spot bits when it came off wonderfully and other bits where, alas, my fingers itch to go and revise.
This is also a fraught self-love. As Giglet says, others' fics are friends but your own fics are family. It's the blood and sweat, and then I often get that sinking feeling: 'This is so good I can never repeat this, I can never write another word ever again.' So it's a love but an angsty one. Although at other moments I just re-read blithely.
Also I realised this question was about love not about quality evaluation (as pointed out by a number of my kind respondents). I will re-read my fics with a critical eye and notice flaws but some part of me will love that fic despite or because of these flaws, or at least the idea, the motivation, the core of that fic. Some part of me will love the very fact of the fic's existence! I used to write!!
Being a reader of my own fic is a different experience from being a reader of others' fic. That can be, as Sheldrake said, a painless, happy, refreshing, easing-myself-into-delight experience. It is also a reading of surprises because I am not surprised by my own fic in that sense. I don't ask, 'what's going to happen?' I might ask that during the writing but not during the reading. Reading another's fic is reading and reading my own fic is a reading/writing experience.
The wonderful thing about fandom is that like almost nowhere else these two activities are so intertwined, the reading and the writing. Ultimately, even the readers who don't write fic still write.
But I am starting to digress. I've been reading Bakthin and it's addling my brain -- in a good way! Fuck, what am I saying, in a fantastic way. Bakhtin is possibly the most exciting theorist I've read since Genette. And that's saying some because, as some of you know, I am abject about Genette. Once I have digested Bakhtin a bit, I will try and post some of my musings on the man. It's funny, I never wanted to read him before because he gets quoted such a lot by so many pretentious, jargon-riddled would-be theorists.
I've been re-reading a fic of mine after months (years?) of not having touched that ringbinder and not wanting to be reminded of those days. And I really loved the fic! I had forgotten some of the twists and turns of it, and some of the phrases, and it was a delight to rediscover them and to be impressed by my own word-wendingness. It was just the sort of fic I like to read!
So I was being a reader of my own fic, not a writer. And there is the rub in the question. When I wrote 'do you love your fics?', did I mean the fics or did I mean the process, and can the two be separated? I meant the fic, the product, but can I really ever forget the process of writing that fic, even when re-reading it years later? I don't think my own fic can ever be to me as the fic of another. I will always remember the blood, sweat and tears that went into its making (as Sheldrake and Thamiris also mentioned), and also the delight and the flowingness. I will remember how the story started out, how it changed and meandered and transformed into what it is now, what feedback I got for it, how I chose the pairing, what frame of mind I was in when writing it, what this pairing meant to me. I will also remember what I was trying to do with the fic stylistically and spot bits when it came off wonderfully and other bits where, alas, my fingers itch to go and revise.
This is also a fraught self-love. As Giglet says, others' fics are friends but your own fics are family. It's the blood and sweat, and then I often get that sinking feeling: 'This is so good I can never repeat this, I can never write another word ever again.' So it's a love but an angsty one. Although at other moments I just re-read blithely.
Also I realised this question was about love not about quality evaluation (as pointed out by a number of my kind respondents). I will re-read my fics with a critical eye and notice flaws but some part of me will love that fic despite or because of these flaws, or at least the idea, the motivation, the core of that fic. Some part of me will love the very fact of the fic's existence! I used to write!!
Being a reader of my own fic is a different experience from being a reader of others' fic. That can be, as Sheldrake said, a painless, happy, refreshing, easing-myself-into-delight experience. It is also a reading of surprises because I am not surprised by my own fic in that sense. I don't ask, 'what's going to happen?' I might ask that during the writing but not during the reading. Reading another's fic is reading and reading my own fic is a reading/writing experience.
The wonderful thing about fandom is that like almost nowhere else these two activities are so intertwined, the reading and the writing. Ultimately, even the readers who don't write fic still write.
But I am starting to digress. I've been reading Bakthin and it's addling my brain -- in a good way! Fuck, what am I saying, in a fantastic way. Bakhtin is possibly the most exciting theorist I've read since Genette. And that's saying some because, as some of you know, I am abject about Genette. Once I have digested Bakhtin a bit, I will try and post some of my musings on the man. It's funny, I never wanted to read him before because he gets quoted such a lot by so many pretentious, jargon-riddled would-be theorists.