Year in Fandom meme thingie - 2007

[eregyrn]

Well, everybody's doing it. Fannish output for 2007:

WRITING: it wasn’t really a big writing year for me.

SG-1: wrote “LEGENDARY” for the 2007 J/D ficathon

Pern fandom: wrote one ~5000 word story; wrote ~6000 more words for a group story yet to be published. Just wrote ~3500 words today on a story that by god I would like to finish this year. :P Might even do it.

EQ fandom: wrote 3 stories, ~2500, ~1500 and ~5000 words.

That? Is pathetic, for me.


ART: maybe my writing output was pathetic this year because I was in an art mode instead?

Pern fandom: 11 pieces (8 in color; 18 figures total)

EQ fandom: 50 pieces (most in color; 91 figures total)

Now that’s more like it! Also taught myself a new art medium (Copic markers).


Further, I can announce today that one of the pieces of art I did for EQ fandom was an entry for a juried fan calendar, and it was chosen for inclusion in the official 2008 ElfQuest FanArt Calendar (OMG was so nervous!) – I’m July. (http://www.elfquest.com/fan/fancalendar2008.html)

Bye-bye, 2007!

Comments

[cofax7]

You know, I didn't know you wrote in Pern & Elfquest. Coolness! Where would I go to read these, if I may ask?

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

*blush* Well, one of the big caveats would be that it's not in the sense of media fandoms in which I'm writing stories about canon characters and situations. Both of those fandoms lean heavily towards organization into small groups that do a quasi-RP sort of thing, where the group plays in the world (or some more or less AU version of the canon world), and members own original characters about whom they write (or draw), and within the group members write cooperatively and construct shared storylines and so on. (There are more directly RPG-esque groups in both fandoms, but I'm not drawn to those; I like the "running an OC in the world" angle, but I prefer groups based on the idea of constructing ongoing storylines through actual stories.) The EQ group has about 25 members. The Pern group has 160+, but of those only about 20-40 are active writers.

Because of that set-up, I would say that the focus on the writing is a bit different from what you see in media fandom, to. Even in groups like the ones I'm in, which place more emphasis on full stories and "good" writing, there is a certain element of time pressure, because the group's storylines are cooperative. (Not that you can't also toddle along constructing an ongoing story-arc by yourself, too.) This is a way of saying that I feel that the "best" writing or the "best" storytelling is sometimes sacrificed in favor of "actually getting something done", because as part of the greater group storylines one has obligations.

I've been doing this kind of fandom for so long (no joke, in Pern since I was 12) that the difference doesn't always stand out to me. Just when I think of trying to explain what/how I write to someone in another type of fandom in which a writer doesn't have as much pressure and can take time to craft a story and revise and so on. We have an editing phase in both groups I belong to, but usually I'm left feeling like "good is good, but done is better, gotta get this out and then move on to the next thing".

That being said...

My Pern group: www.kadanzer.org
My EQ group: www.rivertwine.com

I would imagine it to be hard to jump in and pick something to read out of the tangle of ongoing, branching, cooperative storylines. It's also hard for me to point to any "best" (and many "favorite" stories are unfortunately "wouldn't make sense out of context" pieces), but a sample from each that I've done that might be standalone enough to give a sense of what my writing in these fandoms is like (if you're interested):

EQ: "The Moon-Wolf Swallows the Sun"
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=98

Pern: harder to point to; stories are downloadable PDFs, not webpages with their own addresses. But page-search in these locations for the story-titles; these may be as comprehensible without a lot of additional context as anything I've got.

"Nightwatch, Pt.1"
http://www.kadanzer.org/pubsub.php?type=NinthPass

"Flaming Dragons"
http://www.kadanzer.org/pubsub.php

[cofax7]

Well, cool! I'm intrigued. ::bookmarks::

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! Fabulous wonderful news.

:::twirls you about in big smoochy hugs:::

And happy new year to you as well.

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You knew how nervous I was about that. :)

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

You are very deserving. *smooch*

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

You did 50 Elfquest pieces last year? Blimey.

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Dude, I'm a pretty fast and prolific artist. It's just that most of my RL friends and most of my LJ friends (including the overlap between them) don't hang out with me in the places where I do that stuff, so y'all don't get to see it.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

It's all furry Elf/Wolf porn, isn't it!

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

*snort* I have not, in fact, committed any elf/wolf porn yet. And I say "yet" but I don't really expect to. This is not to say that there are not parts of EQ fandom where you were once able, and perhaps still are for all I know, to find elfie porn. (Whit has some hilariously scary stories about groups she once belonged to.) We tend to be "tasteful", though, even when involving full or partial nudity.

You will I am sure be (no, "pleased" isn't the word I'm looking for; "bemused"?) to know that we did have a long discussion thread about "whaddaya suppose elf penises look like? 'cause they're not human, so there's no reason to automatically assumme... etc. etc.".

[xandra-lj.livejournal.com]

W000T! on your inclusion in the calendar! Go you!

(And also, that's a most impressive art total for the year, IMHO.)

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It came out sounding more impressive when I totalled it up than I would have guessed. ;-) (On the other hand, I've never done such a tally for myself before, so I have no way to compare it to anything, or know whether it's normal for me, or high, or what.)

[raqs.livejournal.com]

That's so extremely cool! Good for you! (The EQ calendar - I'm looking at the artwork. I love how yours is so definitely Yours as well as EQ.)

That's not a bad output overall. I think you beat me.

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Funny, other people have said that too (that while the EQ stuff I does looks EQ-y, it also looks like my own), and I don't really know what that means. All this time and while I'm really good at identifying the styles of others (such that I often can't comprehend it when talking to people who say they *can't* tell the difference between two artists' styles), I don't really have a good sense of what "my" style would be, what makes something identifiably "my style".

Surely you don't mean I wrote *more* than you in the year? That can't be possible.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

YAY! I'm so glad you're in the calendar! I've seen your art and you deserve it!

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's more major, outside affirmation than I usually get (or indeed seek) for my art, so it feels weird, but good.