Five Questions

[smallhobbit]

howsmyenglish  on DW recently answered five questions, so I asked them to provide me with five, and here goes:

1. Why do you write? What does writing give you? Is it just pastime for you or do you have a specific goal?
I write because I enjoy it.  It gives me personal satisfaction at having achieved something, and, as a side note, it's given me new friends who I would never have met otherwise, which has to be good.  It's a pastime; I'm a story teller, so I tell stories.

2. You write both fanfiction and original stories, right? How are they different for you?
I only write the occasional original story, and generally because I'm responding to a prompt where what I want to say won't fit into one of my fandoms.  With original stories I have to build everything from the beginning, with fanfiction I can use established characters and, to an extent, established settings which makes it simpler.  There is, of course, a crossover to an extent - clearly the Ocelot etc are all original, and so some of my ficlets are really entirely original, and some of my recurring characters in various series e.g. DCI John Garrett in some of my Lewis fics, Inspector Stanley Hopkins of the Met River Police in my BBC Sherlock fics, are mine alone (Hopkins' name is borrowed from ACD).  Other than that, I can 'see' my characters and their locations whether they are of fandom origin or original.

3. What is your favorite British city/town? Why?
The one I return to most often would be London, and it has a lot to offer.  I'm not sure I would call it my favourite.  Over the past few years we've stayed in Oxford, York and Cambridge and I've enjoyed visiting them all, but I wouldn't call anywhere a favourite.

4. If you had 10 years of life to spare, to do anything you wanted, without consequences to this life of yours, what would you do?
Travel.  There are so many places I want to see.  I'd go on a grand tour of the world.

5. What annoys you and what do you enjoy most in online communication?
Apart from the distraction when I should be doing something else (which is my responsibility entirely), the fact that people believe they can say what they like without any consideration for anyone else.  I most enjoy the conversation and sharing with people from around the world who I would never get to meet otherwise and who share in my joys (like my granddaughter) and are supportive with my woes (as when my mother was ill), and not just that, but all the little things of everyday life - to sum up: new friends.

Comments

[scfrankles]

But... I mean... does it have to be fanfiction? In your experience, are fanfic writers more talented and imaginative than writers of original fiction?

Well, no - it doesn't have to be fanfiction I suppose ^__^ I write both original fiction and fanfiction myself, and I've come across talented and not-so-talented writers in both worlds.

When I initially came across the fanfiction world I suppose I did see those writers as more talented at first, and I saw them as less conservative - they were willing to take more risks. But at that point I simply hadn't met many talented original fic writers and now I know a great many of them. As I said above, now I don't really see any big dividing line between fanfiction and original fiction, or between the writers. Talent is talent, whatever the genre of writing.

I suppose I do find the fandom world more fun and outward-looking perhaps - the writers take their work seriously without taking themselves too seriously. But even that is rather a sweeping statement - it depends on the individual writers.

(Btw, sorry for taking so long to get back to you ^^")

[howsmyenglish]

Thanks for the reply! I find it extremely interesting - just talking about these things, I mean. It's like I've been alone all these years - I've been trying to write things for years, but I never met or talked to other writers - and now, it turns out there are many-many writers, who talk and exchange ideas and I can actually join in the conversation. Amazing :)

(Btw, sorry for taking so long to get back to you ^^")
No problem, as you see, I am not very punctual myself ;)