I’ve been thinking about this essay for a very long time. There have been little pieces floating around on my hard drive forever.
This is exactly when I have the LEAST time to take on anything else! But I’m finally writing and posting it, because this is something that needed to be written. And this is truly the time to do it.
So this winter is absolutely insane, I have zillions of things HEAPED up on my plate... and I'm still committed to running FIA and doing even more with it. The fic exchange is starting on December 1st. There are two videos up on the new YT channel, and the third is going up in a couple of days as of this writing. And then there’s the FB page, and I'm going to start doing podcasts, and so and on and on… At some point, I have to ask why. I mean, it COULD be because I'm nuts, but--
(looks outside)
(Dang! That windowless van is following me around again. The men in the white coats almost caught me last time, so I might have to make this quick... ;)
Anyway. :) You see, ONE of the things I've committed to do by January is to finish the next version of Sex and the Single Devil. So I MUST be completely crazy to ALSO take on everything connected with FIA, especially the fic exchange!! BUT... I’ve decided to do it. I’m committed to doing it. And I want to explain why.
I think we’re at a point where we all need to evaluate D/G fanfic and the fandom, and decide where we are and where we’re going. If we look back on the past 10 years or so, we can see that this decade was the Original Era of D/G ™. We’re on the point of entering another one, and I think that 2.0 can be even better than the original—but it’s going to be different. And I want to talk about why, and most importantly, how D/G still matters—and why in some ways, it has more to offer us than ever before. Some of the reasons may really surprise you.
First, we’re going to talk about what D/G means/meant both in canon and out. What is it about these two characters that continues to fascinate and challenge us? What makes that relationship an OTP? It was never a canon ship, but there are good reasons why it’s an iconic ship.
There will be new canon, without a doubt. (We already know about the FB scripts, but I think it’s going to be even more that, and there’s evidence to back that argument up. We’ll talk about why, complete with lots of past examples of artists who just could not stay away from the old work, such as Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Kevin Smith, and Peter Beagle.) I think there’s no question that it will stir things up again with the general HP fandom, but we can also benefit was thinking about how that opportunity for new canon might relate to D/G? (I do think that it will give us more background about the families to work with, if nothing else,and we’ll talk about that too.)
We’ll discuss exactly why our fandom needs to be revived to some degree—because I do think that D/G needs a kick in the butt-- and how I think it should, can, and WILL be. I can be kind of opinionated, in case ANYONE hasn’t figured that out yet… ;)
Then we’ll talk about a subject very dear to my heart, which is what D/G writing means for our original work, and the mind-blowing implications of this for fanfic writers moving into publishing (yes, that’s us!) Not only that, but we’ll see how important this issue is for D/G readers, not just writers. We’ll talk about why authors should never, ever, E-V-E-R take down their fanfic, and the surprising secret reasons why it’s such a staggeringly bad idea.
And finally, we’re going to have the thrilling story of how Anise ALMOST gave up D/G a year and a half ago… was TOTALLY sure that I’d never write one word of it again…. And then…
THEN…
It’s supposed to be a surprise ending!! I can’t give it away NOW. ;)
Some of these ideas might be really unexpected. Some of them you might like; some of them, not so much. Some might mean that I end up getting hate mail. :P But I hope that all of this will really make you think about the question of what D/G meant to you in the past, what it means to you now, and what it can and will mean in the future. Because the answers may be more important than you realize now.
Oh, and yes, there are reasons WHY this is rated EN. Because there's a fic at the end!! :) Actually, there are two if you count the really really short one at about Chapter 3... that one basically exists as an illustration of why I want the NEXT fic exchange to be on a new Wordpress blog. Because everyone seems to cracking down on smut content of any kind, aka deciding that we all need to be treated like nine-year-olds, both authors and readers-- and that includes LJ. Well, not that I was going to keep our blog on LJ in the long run anyway. But that's another story. Just wait for Chapter 3.
So come with now on this exciting journey! You know what they say… the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. :) (Or the fic of a zillion chapters begins with… um, thinking about that 128 chapter fic I had that never DID get done, let’s move on, shall we? ;)
It all starts in Chapter 2! Yay!
This is exactly when I have the LEAST time to take on anything else! But I’m finally writing and posting it, because this is something that needed to be written. And this is truly the time to do it.
So this winter is absolutely insane, I have zillions of things HEAPED up on my plate... and I'm still committed to running FIA and doing even more with it. The fic exchange is starting on December 1st. There are two videos up on the new YT channel, and the third is going up in a couple of days as of this writing. And then there’s the FB page, and I'm going to start doing podcasts, and so and on and on… At some point, I have to ask why. I mean, it COULD be because I'm nuts, but--
(looks outside)
(Dang! That windowless van is following me around again. The men in the white coats almost caught me last time, so I might have to make this quick... ;)
Anyway. :) You see, ONE of the things I've committed to do by January is to finish the next version of Sex and the Single Devil. So I MUST be completely crazy to ALSO take on everything connected with FIA, especially the fic exchange!! BUT... I’ve decided to do it. I’m committed to doing it. And I want to explain why.
I think we’re at a point where we all need to evaluate D/G fanfic and the fandom, and decide where we are and where we’re going. If we look back on the past 10 years or so, we can see that this decade was the Original Era of D/G ™. We’re on the point of entering another one, and I think that 2.0 can be even better than the original—but it’s going to be different. And I want to talk about why, and most importantly, how D/G still matters—and why in some ways, it has more to offer us than ever before. Some of the reasons may really surprise you.
First, we’re going to talk about what D/G means/meant both in canon and out. What is it about these two characters that continues to fascinate and challenge us? What makes that relationship an OTP? It was never a canon ship, but there are good reasons why it’s an iconic ship.
There will be new canon, without a doubt. (We already know about the FB scripts, but I think it’s going to be even more that, and there’s evidence to back that argument up. We’ll talk about why, complete with lots of past examples of artists who just could not stay away from the old work, such as Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Kevin Smith, and Peter Beagle.) I think there’s no question that it will stir things up again with the general HP fandom, but we can also benefit was thinking about how that opportunity for new canon might relate to D/G? (I do think that it will give us more background about the families to work with, if nothing else,and we’ll talk about that too.)
We’ll discuss exactly why our fandom needs to be revived to some degree—because I do think that D/G needs a kick in the butt-- and how I think it should, can, and WILL be. I can be kind of opinionated, in case ANYONE hasn’t figured that out yet… ;)
Then we’ll talk about a subject very dear to my heart, which is what D/G writing means for our original work, and the mind-blowing implications of this for fanfic writers moving into publishing (yes, that’s us!) Not only that, but we’ll see how important this issue is for D/G readers, not just writers. We’ll talk about why authors should never, ever, E-V-E-R take down their fanfic, and the surprising secret reasons why it’s such a staggeringly bad idea.
And finally, we’re going to have the thrilling story of how Anise ALMOST gave up D/G a year and a half ago… was TOTALLY sure that I’d never write one word of it again…. And then…
THEN…
It’s supposed to be a surprise ending!! I can’t give it away NOW. ;)
Some of these ideas might be really unexpected. Some of them you might like; some of them, not so much. Some might mean that I end up getting hate mail. :P But I hope that all of this will really make you think about the question of what D/G meant to you in the past, what it means to you now, and what it can and will mean in the future. Because the answers may be more important than you realize now.
Oh, and yes, there are reasons WHY this is rated EN. Because there's a fic at the end!! :) Actually, there are two if you count the really really short one at about Chapter 3... that one basically exists as an illustration of why I want the NEXT fic exchange to be on a new Wordpress blog. Because everyone seems to cracking down on smut content of any kind, aka deciding that we all need to be treated like nine-year-olds, both authors and readers-- and that includes LJ. Well, not that I was going to keep our blog on LJ in the long run anyway. But that's another story. Just wait for Chapter 3.
So come with now on this exciting journey! You know what they say… the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. :) (Or the fic of a zillion chapters begins with… um, thinking about that 128 chapter fic I had that never DID get done, let’s move on, shall we? ;)
It all starts in Chapter 2! Yay!
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