Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.

I used to write a lot. Long, detailed, plotty yet character driven pieces that made me feel like I had done something worthwhile. I wanted to write these fics. I wanted those characters to take their place in my mind and stay there until their stories had been told. Last night I was lying in bed trying to figure out where I had strayed from that path to bring me to the place where I am now - a place where the very idea of putting fingers to keys and creating stories seems like too much of a bother.

It happened sometime after Human Behaviour and before In Between Love. That's a two year span of time where I tried to force myself to write stories that had meaning and obtuse ways of saying the same thing I had been saying in past stories without having to try. I blame myself. But, and this is going to sound very mean, but I also blame the people that showed up in the fandom during that time and wrote stories that said what I had been saying but in more literary ways. I stopped thinking that what I was writing was enough and started trying to emulate those new writers.

I wrote some good stories in popslash before they came around and I wrote some good stories afterwards. However, I have not had a fun time writing since I wrote Human Behaviour. I finished that story during the summer of 2001. That's a horrifying thing for me to think about.

I count the time from HB to IBL even though stories were posted post-IBL. But IBL was the last story I wrote for me. Everything after that, including I'm With You in Rockland and The Motionless World of Time, were written for the fandom. The characters were mine, but the plots were what the fandom wanted, what the fandom saw as the Topic of the Time. Those stories were popular and IBL was not, so I learned that writing for me was not what the fandom wanted. So I stopped. And now I find myself here.

I am two fandoms removed from popslash now, but still unable to write a story for myself. I give myself bits of a story here and there, but I can't say I've written fic for myself with the possible exception of Mrs. Brown's Washing, which like IBL, was recieved with silence. I don't want to write in metaphors and twisted language when all I want to say is Jack kissed Daniel or Snape sneered at Harry. I want to tell a story that means something without trying to make it about layers and glimpses of the truth. I want to tell a story that means something but doesn't mean too much.

I want it to be about me again.

So I find myself back at the beginning, writing a dialogue and character-driven fic without layers or deep meaning. I find myself writing popslash again.

The real people are the easiest to write in the end.

Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.

I used to write a lot. Long, detailed, plotty yet character driven pieces that made me feel like I had done something worthwhile. I wanted to write these fics. I wanted those characters to take their place in my mind and stay there until their stories had been told. Last night I was lying in bed trying to figure out where I had strayed from that path to bring me to the place where I am now - a place where the very idea of putting fingers to keys and creating stories seems like too much of a bother.

It happened sometime after Human Behaviour and before In Between Love. That's a two year span of time where I tried to force myself to write stories that had meaning and obtuse ways of saying the same thing I had been saying in past stories without having to try. I blame myself. But, and this is going to sound very mean, but I also blame the people that showed up in the fandom during that time and wrote stories that said what I had been saying but in more literary ways. I stopped thinking that what I was writing was enough and started trying to emulate those new writers.

I wrote some good stories in popslash before they came around and I wrote some good stories afterwards. However, I have not had a fun time writing since I wrote Human Behaviour. I finished that story during the summer of 2001. That's a horrifying thing for me to think about.

I count the time from HB to IBL even though stories were posted post-IBL. But IBL was the last story I wrote for me. Everything after that, including I'm With You in Rockland and The Motionless World of Time, were written for the fandom. The characters were mine, but the plots were what the fandom wanted, what the fandom saw as the Topic of the Time. Those stories were popular and IBL was not, so I learned that writing for me was not what the fandom wanted. So I stopped. And now I find myself here.

I am two fandoms removed from popslash now, but still unable to write a story for myself. I give myself bits of a story here and there, but I can't say I've written fic for myself with the possible exception of Mrs. Brown's Washing, which like IBL, was recieved with silence. I don't want to write in metaphors and twisted language when all I want to say is Jack kissed Daniel or Snape sneered at Harry. I want to tell a story that means something without trying to make it about layers and glimpses of the truth. I want to tell a story that means something but doesn't mean too much.

I want it to be about me again.

So I find myself back at the beginning, writing a dialogue and character-driven fic without layers or deep meaning. I find myself writing popslash again.

The real people are the easiest to write in the end.