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the fandomless state
5 Jan 2025 11:08 pmI am in the habit of saying I've had writer's block since the 2016 election, because November 2016 was the last time I managed a daily writing routine and the last time I worked on a piece of writing regularly. I was so upset by the election result that I couldn't do anything creative for months, and by the time I could have the Penguins (NHL pro hockey team) had gone to the Trump White House and they all shook hands with him. I had been writing a silly telepathic AU but one of the protagonists was Sidney Crosby, and I couldn't bear to write it after that and didn't want to read any of it either.
There have been several times since then when I've tried to work on abandoned WIPs. I spent some hours over a few weeks trying to cut and paste bits of the hockey fic, trying to get a version I could publish without any RPF names (in this case because I refuse to associate myself with them, and not for any monetary reason), but I gave up because the connection to real events was too strong and I didn't want to end up with the equivalent of those films where they change one or two letters out of a well-known brand to make sure you know which one they mean. I was like, that's the whole POINT, that I don't WANT it to be about them, but the problem is that it was and they were recognizable, there are thousands of words' worth of WORK that went into making it recognizable, but I don't WANT to publish anything recognizably about them, so I guess I have to leave it in the trash. It's sad, though, because I was having a lot of fun with the telepathy stuff. I greatly enjoy both reading and writing deconstructions of popular fanon tropes that are typically written with the same poorly-thought-out logistical problems. The telepathy trend in hockey RPF was a prime candidate because I've always loved telepathy in fiction, going back to actual sff novels in my childhood.
Anyway, that wasn't the only time. I spent even longer trying to pick back up and work on a My Chemical Romance novel that I was about 50% done with in 2008, the last time I was writing really volubly and prolifically, a story that I lost the ability to finish when my support network of friends active in the fandom and talking about it and keeping all our fannish interest up sort of tapered away. (I think this was one of those periods when people were mad at various members of the band and there was lots of vagueblogging, but I could be misremembering.) This latter one was such an extreme AU that I'm confident it would totally work if I changed all the names and everything; but I have never managed to get back into a groove, or to really decide how to tackle the next act of the plot.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about these over the years since then, because although I am used to saying that I have writer's block, I think a lot of what's happening is actually a completely different problem: not having a fandom anymore. I have spent time reading in a lot of fandoms since 2008, but I have not felt excited to participate in an active community with other fans whom I want to share ideas with since then. It's not simply that I haven't had an idea for something to write, because that isn't really an insuperable barrier; phrasing it that way is, I think, a bit backwards; it's really that I can't get excited about taking part in the fanfiction conversation.
If there's a great body of fannish work stretching back years and I'm still really interested in all of it and I have a new idea, but it's basically a dead fandom that doesn't have other writers I'm excited about currently writing in it, then I'm not going to get excited about writing.
If I have a fantastic idea and I know for a fact that one of my best friends is interested, but there's literally no fandom and the only way anybody else will read it is if I manage to write it for Yuletide, then I'm not gonna get excited about writing it (uh, unless I get a chance to write it for Yuletide, I guess, but that would require me to sign up, and I have more and more trouble finding enough fandoms I can sign up for as time goes on).
If the canon is current and still updating and there's plenty of buzz, but there's only a tiny smattering of fanfiction, I'm not going to get excited about writing.
There has to be a COMMUNITY of writers having a conversation that I'd like to join in; it has to be more than just one or two, so that there's like a whole... pool of ideas in the shared universe that everybody is participating in. It usually seems to me that only a minority of fandoms are really active enough to describe this way, and the canon has to be exciting to me too. And also, these writers have to be people I want to enter a conversation with, which will not be the case if they're all posting WIPs with authors' notes about how they haven't bothered to get a beta or an American picker. More power to them, I guess, if they're enjoying fandom the way that feels good to them, but it's not a conversation I'm gonna be eager to join any more than a conversation about sports or the Bachelorette or where to buy vinyl records in Turku.
I suppose in theory the answer to all this might be to write something original instead, but they aren't really equivalent.
I have spent more and more time "without a fandom" as the years go by. Not even just not having a fandom to belong to, but not even having a fandom that I'm currently reading in: that is truly impoverished, from the point of view of me fifteen years ago. I can always find fanfiction to read - there's years' worth of stuff to reread out there! But you don't always want to reread things, either. (Maybe this is why I've spent so much time reading genres/bodies of work like vintage Golden Age murder mysteries and medieval romances.)
My wife has been watching the terrible US primetime soaps in the 911 franchise and reading that recently, and before that she was watching the terrible show Roswell: New Mexico, and in each case she started off by reading some random fiction and progressed to watching the show, but by the time I was desperate enough to have potentially considered reading some, I had had time to be put off permanently by seeing the show. In the case of 911, I've seen enough to say the shipping seems probably correct but I hate one of the characters too much to want nice things to happen to him. (I would probably have been fine if I read first, but too late.) She contends that the fandoms are fairly active and there's a good proportion of good fiction in them, but I suspect her standards are affected by shipper lenses. Also I might be more picky in general, although it's hard to say because I read things that I don't consider to be good on purpose, and enjoy them (just in a different way), whereas she tries to only read things that are mediocre or better, and likes to discover things by surfing around through bookmarks and rec lists to try to improve the odds. My habit, on the other hand, has always been kind of bottom-dredging - I used to call it archive-diving or fic-spelunking - combing through the archive myself with my chosen filters, scanning and discarding on the basis of headers. I usually find that a random rec list is no better than throwing a dart at a pile of fic; only recs from someone whose taste I have some reason to trust have a good enough success rate for me to spend time on them.
We were both really excited about Hannibal and Black Sails, and although I did read some fanfiction in both cases, even then we couldn't join the fandoms, or actually even want to join the fandoms... possibly because the show writing was too good? We are really into Interview with the Vampire (television) now, and Wax even reread all the Anne Rice vampire books up to the point where they got too crazy like, last year, in celebration. But even though IWTV is decidedly NOT too good, I guess maybe the show is good enough that it seems more rewarding to see where it's going? But it also might be that after reading the Taltos books I am not sure if I'm up to reading any more of Rice's work and I would never consider writing in a film fandom without reading the books it was based on, while Wax just could not vibe with it (if I remember her expressed sentiment correctly). There is a fandom there - not a huge one, but one that it would be possible to follow and read, but it's kind of... I keep going back and checking on it to see if I find it more appealing yet and then sighing and leaving again.
Maybe I just got old and, you know, lost too much synaptic plasticity to adapt to what the big fandom masses are doing anymore. I'm only 42, by the way. But I guess that could actually be it.
There have been several times since then when I've tried to work on abandoned WIPs. I spent some hours over a few weeks trying to cut and paste bits of the hockey fic, trying to get a version I could publish without any RPF names (in this case because I refuse to associate myself with them, and not for any monetary reason), but I gave up because the connection to real events was too strong and I didn't want to end up with the equivalent of those films where they change one or two letters out of a well-known brand to make sure you know which one they mean. I was like, that's the whole POINT, that I don't WANT it to be about them, but the problem is that it was and they were recognizable, there are thousands of words' worth of WORK that went into making it recognizable, but I don't WANT to publish anything recognizably about them, so I guess I have to leave it in the trash. It's sad, though, because I was having a lot of fun with the telepathy stuff. I greatly enjoy both reading and writing deconstructions of popular fanon tropes that are typically written with the same poorly-thought-out logistical problems. The telepathy trend in hockey RPF was a prime candidate because I've always loved telepathy in fiction, going back to actual sff novels in my childhood.
Anyway, that wasn't the only time. I spent even longer trying to pick back up and work on a My Chemical Romance novel that I was about 50% done with in 2008, the last time I was writing really volubly and prolifically, a story that I lost the ability to finish when my support network of friends active in the fandom and talking about it and keeping all our fannish interest up sort of tapered away. (I think this was one of those periods when people were mad at various members of the band and there was lots of vagueblogging, but I could be misremembering.) This latter one was such an extreme AU that I'm confident it would totally work if I changed all the names and everything; but I have never managed to get back into a groove, or to really decide how to tackle the next act of the plot.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about these over the years since then, because although I am used to saying that I have writer's block, I think a lot of what's happening is actually a completely different problem: not having a fandom anymore. I have spent time reading in a lot of fandoms since 2008, but I have not felt excited to participate in an active community with other fans whom I want to share ideas with since then. It's not simply that I haven't had an idea for something to write, because that isn't really an insuperable barrier; phrasing it that way is, I think, a bit backwards; it's really that I can't get excited about taking part in the fanfiction conversation.
If there's a great body of fannish work stretching back years and I'm still really interested in all of it and I have a new idea, but it's basically a dead fandom that doesn't have other writers I'm excited about currently writing in it, then I'm not going to get excited about writing.
If I have a fantastic idea and I know for a fact that one of my best friends is interested, but there's literally no fandom and the only way anybody else will read it is if I manage to write it for Yuletide, then I'm not gonna get excited about writing it (uh, unless I get a chance to write it for Yuletide, I guess, but that would require me to sign up, and I have more and more trouble finding enough fandoms I can sign up for as time goes on).
If the canon is current and still updating and there's plenty of buzz, but there's only a tiny smattering of fanfiction, I'm not going to get excited about writing.
There has to be a COMMUNITY of writers having a conversation that I'd like to join in; it has to be more than just one or two, so that there's like a whole... pool of ideas in the shared universe that everybody is participating in. It usually seems to me that only a minority of fandoms are really active enough to describe this way, and the canon has to be exciting to me too. And also, these writers have to be people I want to enter a conversation with, which will not be the case if they're all posting WIPs with authors' notes about how they haven't bothered to get a beta or an American picker. More power to them, I guess, if they're enjoying fandom the way that feels good to them, but it's not a conversation I'm gonna be eager to join any more than a conversation about sports or the Bachelorette or where to buy vinyl records in Turku.
I suppose in theory the answer to all this might be to write something original instead, but they aren't really equivalent.
I have spent more and more time "without a fandom" as the years go by. Not even just not having a fandom to belong to, but not even having a fandom that I'm currently reading in: that is truly impoverished, from the point of view of me fifteen years ago. I can always find fanfiction to read - there's years' worth of stuff to reread out there! But you don't always want to reread things, either. (Maybe this is why I've spent so much time reading genres/bodies of work like vintage Golden Age murder mysteries and medieval romances.)
My wife has been watching the terrible US primetime soaps in the 911 franchise and reading that recently, and before that she was watching the terrible show Roswell: New Mexico, and in each case she started off by reading some random fiction and progressed to watching the show, but by the time I was desperate enough to have potentially considered reading some, I had had time to be put off permanently by seeing the show. In the case of 911, I've seen enough to say the shipping seems probably correct but I hate one of the characters too much to want nice things to happen to him. (I would probably have been fine if I read first, but too late.) She contends that the fandoms are fairly active and there's a good proportion of good fiction in them, but I suspect her standards are affected by shipper lenses. Also I might be more picky in general, although it's hard to say because I read things that I don't consider to be good on purpose, and enjoy them (just in a different way), whereas she tries to only read things that are mediocre or better, and likes to discover things by surfing around through bookmarks and rec lists to try to improve the odds. My habit, on the other hand, has always been kind of bottom-dredging - I used to call it archive-diving or fic-spelunking - combing through the archive myself with my chosen filters, scanning and discarding on the basis of headers. I usually find that a random rec list is no better than throwing a dart at a pile of fic; only recs from someone whose taste I have some reason to trust have a good enough success rate for me to spend time on them.
We were both really excited about Hannibal and Black Sails, and although I did read some fanfiction in both cases, even then we couldn't join the fandoms, or actually even want to join the fandoms... possibly because the show writing was too good? We are really into Interview with the Vampire (television) now, and Wax even reread all the Anne Rice vampire books up to the point where they got too crazy like, last year, in celebration. But even though IWTV is decidedly NOT too good, I guess maybe the show is good enough that it seems more rewarding to see where it's going? But it also might be that after reading the Taltos books I am not sure if I'm up to reading any more of Rice's work and I would never consider writing in a film fandom without reading the books it was based on, while Wax just could not vibe with it (if I remember her expressed sentiment correctly). There is a fandom there - not a huge one, but one that it would be possible to follow and read, but it's kind of... I keep going back and checking on it to see if I find it more appealing yet and then sighing and leaving again.
Maybe I just got old and, you know, lost too much synaptic plasticity to adapt to what the big fandom masses are doing anymore. I'm only 42, by the way. But I guess that could actually be it.
