I appreciate your "ravings" perhaps more than you can know.
I am only 49, not really all THAT old, but I started out in Star Trek fandom way back in the 70s, the dark ages, I guess. I wrote in that fandom for over 25 years. I wrote in Blake's 7 for about 10 years. I wrote one Wiseguy story published in a multimedia zine in the early 90s. Then I took a 10 year period off from fandom, totally jaded, starting around 1999. Then I made the firm mistake of re-watching not Star Trek, not B7 but...Wiseguy and went looking for communities for the first time in 10 years. I have run into more fandoms in Heaven and Earth than could ever be dreamed of online. I am overwhelmed. I come from a time of fanzines, and newsletters and, yes, email, but smaller communities that were easy to navigate. Now I can't make heads nor tails (tales?) of any of it. I look for WG on a WG community list and find people writing about or asking for Yuletide gift/prompts/whatever in fandoms I have never ever heard of, over 2000 fandoms! That's okay. I don't judge. But I can't organize it or navigate it. I can't begin to join because I can't find the jumping off point. And I can't find much of what I like, so I simply give up. And I can find the prompts and the greetings from fans to each other, but not the stories themselves!
I tell ya, I don't know what the hell OTW or AO3 even are. I don't even know how to offer my own work, or whether or not it will even be acknowledged. Like you, I'm moody. I'm an outsider. I want a community but I can't find one that isn't way overwhelming or even speaks my same language. I like "slash" but not just ANY slash. I'm discerning about that...so sue me.
I might like to write stories as gifts or receive them, but how do I even do that? It's too much. Too huge. I tell ya, I'm a writer. What I do is write. And I feel completely wasted, sitting here writing tons of stuff, sharing none. I could write 10 yuletides in one day. That's how much of a writer I am. But I don't. I won't. I don't even know why I would. Who would care? Stuff I've posted to some communities has gone unacknowledged completely...no one's fault...the community is just that old.
I may do a fanzine. I still have friends in that arena. I can offer it on my partner's fanzine website. I, frankly, feel weird doing it any other way because I cannot wrap my mind around the hugeness of it all, this Yuletide thing...ohmygod I'm having a nervous breakdown here.
I'm with you re: feedback, too. It's kinda important, otherwise why give the stories away?
Right now it's still WG for me, and I am, as I said, discerning, but I have other interests. I do like many things. Okay, so maybe I'm not "in love" with them all, but I might like to read an occasional "24" story or something that just "hits" me. But I don't fit. I'm not a good joiner. I don't even like much TV or hardly watch it. I catch up on shows all at once on DVDs (like watching all 7 seasons of "24" in two months.) So where do I fit. Who knows?
yuletide
I am only 49, not really all THAT old, but I started out in Star Trek fandom way back in the 70s, the dark ages, I guess. I wrote in that fandom for over 25 years. I wrote in Blake's 7 for about 10 years. I wrote one Wiseguy story published in a multimedia zine in the early 90s. Then I took a 10 year period off from fandom, totally jaded, starting around 1999. Then I made the firm mistake of re-watching not Star Trek, not B7 but...Wiseguy and went looking for communities for the first time in 10 years. I have run into more fandoms in Heaven and Earth than could ever be dreamed of online. I am overwhelmed. I come from a time of fanzines, and newsletters and, yes, email, but smaller communities that were easy to navigate. Now I can't make heads nor tails (tales?) of any of it. I look for WG on a WG community list and find people writing about or asking for Yuletide gift/prompts/whatever in fandoms I have never ever heard of, over 2000 fandoms! That's okay. I don't judge. But I can't organize it or navigate it. I can't begin to join because I can't find the jumping off point. And I can't find much of what I like, so I simply give up. And I can find the prompts and the greetings from fans to each other, but not the stories themselves!
I tell ya, I don't know what the hell OTW or AO3 even are. I don't even know how to offer my own work, or whether or not it will even be acknowledged. Like you, I'm moody. I'm an outsider. I want a community but I can't find one that isn't way overwhelming or even speaks my same language. I like "slash" but not just ANY slash. I'm discerning about that...so sue me.
I might like to write stories as gifts or receive them, but how do I even do that? It's too much. Too huge. I tell ya, I'm a writer. What I do is write. And I feel completely wasted, sitting here writing tons of stuff, sharing none. I could write 10 yuletides in one day. That's how much of a writer I am. But I don't. I won't. I don't even know why I would. Who would care? Stuff I've posted to some communities has gone unacknowledged completely...no one's fault...the community is just that old.
I may do a fanzine. I still have friends in that arena. I can offer it on my partner's fanzine website. I, frankly, feel weird doing it any other way because I cannot wrap my mind around the hugeness of it all, this Yuletide thing...ohmygod I'm having a nervous breakdown here.
I'm with you re: feedback, too. It's kinda important, otherwise why give the stories away?
Right now it's still WG for me, and I am, as I said, discerning, but I have other interests. I do like many things. Okay, so maybe I'm not "in love" with them all, but I might like to read an occasional "24" story or something that just "hits" me. But I don't fit. I'm not a good joiner. I don't even like much TV or hardly watch it. I catch up on shows all at once on DVDs (like watching all 7 seasons of "24" in two months.) So where do I fit. Who knows?