Ravings of an emotionally unstable fan.

[merricatk]

So, I heard it through the grapevine that all of the yuletide stories are being moved to A3O. I don't move in that circle, so everything I know comes secondhand. I've only ever written one story that's on the yuletide website, a NYR story. It was a whim, and I was still thinking that fandom might work for me.

This was several years ago. There was nothing bad about the experience.

Since then I've come to a few realizations about myself. One of them is, I was born, and will probably die, an outsider. I don't fit. Sometimes, for short periods, with certain groups, I can be part of the in-crowd. But I always ask the wrong questions, the ones nobody else thinks of. I always cause trouble, and I need way too much down time from people, and I'm way, way too needy.

The movers and shakers of fandom don't want to answer my questions, they don't want to be bothered with my moodiness, and they certainly don't want to cater to my needs, which are emotional in nature.

They do want my stories. I've had more than one offer to archive my stories, and I've said yes more than once because of my neediness. I thought the offer to "work with me" on putting my stories online meant they wanted to spend some time with me. What I found out was that except of approving a layout and emailing the stories, I was now extraneous to the whole process. So I've put my stories back in my pocket and am (slowly) posting them on my LJ.

Now the yuletide stories are being moved to what I, in my infinite ignorance, consider to be a potentially more public venue, which I'm not comfortable with. (Why do I see it as being more public? Because it's supposed to be easier to find things there, because it has been so publicized and so has yuletide. Am I wrong about this? Everyone says so.)

It's also being run by movers and shakers--things always are; they're the ones who run things, they have the temperament for it, it's nothing against them. But I'm not comfortable with them. And I'm in a position of either letting them take my story and be quiet while put it wherever they want it--without, so far, them saying a word to me about it; or taking my story back and have people call me names.

Or I can orphan my story by taking my name off of it.

I wish they weren't using the word orphan. It's too poetic, it puts to sharp a point on the abandonment, it makes me feel terrible. I have abandonment issues. Call me a thief for taking my story back and I can deal with it. Say I'm making my story an orphan, I'll cry.

And I wish they weren't telling me again that I can go--just leave the story. Because I already know I'm extraneous, except for the stories.

I'm perfectly aware that I'm completely wrong about all of this, but being told how wrong I am is only going to push me harder into putting this story in my pocket, too. I'm perfectly aware that my feelings--and all this is nothing but my feelings--are indefensible. But I don't like it when the powerful people come and tell me how unreasonable I am not to want to do things their way. Not ask, just tell.

I can live with being disliked, considered a screwball, or an angry, shitty, classless, selfish jerkass, and I can live with people believing the lie that I'm doing this because I hate OTW and/or A3O. I can live with the whole rest of the world considering me irrational.

Comments

(frozen)

[broomstyx.livejournal.com]

Mel:

I don't really know or care who the "cool kids" are but I will bet you 100 percent that you are NOT ignored by them. If you write something they love, they will find a way to read it without you knowing. People will say they are never going to read so-and-so maybe because of past "bad blood" but if that person is a good writer, you know they are lying. They'll "sneak read" your zine or LJ under a different name or get someone else to download it or print it for them.

And yes, welcome back to high school. It's so pathetically funny.

I'm going back to my regularly scheduled program of guys running their hands through each other's hair. Good thing I have the month of Jan. off.

(frozen)

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I meant online cool kids. There is a whole sea of LJ "BNF" writers who can't write a decent page of prose to save their lives who are considered to be interfandom gods by their sycophants (with whom they enjoy a circle jerk of mutual succor and bootlicking). There is a whole House/Wilson fan circle that ignores me completely even though I've written several stories and a novel while a tide of crap (and I do mean CRAP) their friends have written is fawned over. That's kinda what I meant.

I really don't care. I care that the wonderful writers and artists like you and merricatk and enkiduts respect me. Beyond that, it doesn't matter.

(frozen)

[broomstyx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know you meant online "kids." And I'll bet those House people have secretly read your stuff and are just jealous. This is my experience over a lifetime with how powerless people who need to feel big behave (but they still secretly read enemy stuff.) I left fandom and all writing (except personal poetry) for 10 years and let's just say, yeah, I was jaded, but I had other reasons, too. It is very very hard to see bad writers lauded and good writers ignored. And it's not always a matter of taste and being bitter about people not having it. The difficulty lies in when it becomes a personal popularity contest and not about what is really good...like what most awards ceremonies are about.

It is nice to have re-discovered you, and found merricat. Even if you guys never wrote one word to me, I'd still read your stuff because it is that good and that's that point.

(frozen)

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

It's all a popularity contest. The awards and everything (and I say this having won my share of MediaWest awards).

As for other problems, see my trade of comments with nestra. lol