Subject: [FFML] Re: [Essay] Major Trends in FFML Criticism
From:
Date: 1/29/2004, 5:37 PM
To:


But my point is that sometimes you can't make a story work unless you can
sell yourself on it.  Many people here and elsewhere have been waiting for
my sequels to Hikage, everblue, and White Butterfly.  To this date, I
haven't been able to write more in them simply because I haven't found a
way
to make them work.  Until I do, they'll lay fallow.

Writing to be published can be a worthwhile goal but it's also a lot of
work.

I've been a member of a local writing group (in Seattle -- contact me if you
think you'd be interested ^_^) for over ten years now.  Most of what we do
could be described as original fan fiction -- stories that we publish in our
own fanzine, but which are not based on any other existing author's work.
I've been known to read some of my anime fan fiction there, and some of the
writers in our group write completely original stuff.

Allow me to talk about two of my friends, to illustrate both sides of this
discussion.

The first friend is Edd Vick.  When I met him, he was the publisher of a
small comic company called Mu Press.  Over the years he's written for our
little fanzine, but about three or four years ago he decided to make a very
concerted effort to write for professional publication.  It took a while,
but this last Summer he had a short story published in Isaac Asimov's
magazine, and he has sold two more stories since.  So while he's hardly
raking in the dough, he's accomplishing what he set out to do.  ^_^

The thing is, while Edd is an excellent writer, I don't know if I could even
say he's the best writer in our group.  But he is certainly the most
original... and that's what makes him a good professional science fiction
(or science fantasy) writer, that he consistently comes up with original,
novel ideas (and some pretty weird ideas too I must admit).

The second friend is Chuck Melville, who is both a  talented writer and a
talented artist.  He's published his own comics and worked for a long time
with Edd on Mu Press.  Chuck is, in some ways, one of the most prolific and
talented authors I've ever known, but everything he writes is for our
fanzine or original work of the sort that he may never be able to publish
professionally.  But Chuck has never given any hint that he's even mildly
interested in doing anything else.  He enjoys writing to a given audience,
most of them his friends.  He seems completely satisfied in writing at what
is essentially the fan level.

He is also not the kind of writer who writes about original ideas, as Edd
does.  Chuck's stories are all character-driven rather than idea-driven.  He
would probably make an excellent genre-writer... well, to be honest, he IS
an excellent genre-writer... he's just not interested in writing for genres
that sell well (or at all).

Anyway, I have several other friends just in my local group that I sometimes
wonder, "when is this person ever going to try and get published?"  And some
of them do talk about trying... but writing original fiction for publication
is often much harder than just writing whatever for your own pleasure.  I do
look at a lot of the writers on the FFML and in fan fiction circles and
wonder why they're "wasting their talent" so to speak.  ^_^  But the answer
is that it really depends on what expectations you have for yourself.  If
you have a strong desire to "go pro" then you will work hard at it.  And it
does take hard work.  If you write mostly for your own pleasure and
amusement, then the hard work needed to do more may be something that
removes all of the fun, and thus the original incentive for writing in the
first place.

m a davis / miko


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'