This is a job for...FanFic!
Jun. 1st, 2008 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI'm frustrated.
Frustrated by a lack of participation in the games I play online. They're--with one exception, a classic HERO system superhero game--more like collaborative fiction writing. But not so much with the collaborative part these days.
This is especially frustrating when the GM and most of the other players in one game, which has languished for weeks or months--are busily and happily participating two or three other games (not all of them in the same ones) that are going like gangbusters. But it's just generally frustrating.
So perhaps it's time to turn more of my attention to writing solo stories again. Then I don't have to wait on other people. Fanfic, probably. I've spent a lot of time toying with the idea of writing original stories, especially given that friends have urged me to. The problems with that are:
1. I apparently still have a bit of the "get published" meme kicking around in my head. And getting published would involve short stories, most likely. The problem there is that I haven't picked up a fiction magazine (SF or mystery or any other kind) in years; I have no idea what sorts of stories the magazines are publishing--and one of the first rules getting published is "know the market" so that at the very least you aren't submitting things they've seen a zillion times before.
2. I haven't picked up a fiction magazine for so long because mostly I found them not worth the price. "Life is like a box of chocolates" sounds good--but I never liked sampler boxes of chocolates. As often as not, what I get is something I don't like. Maybe one or two stories in a whole magazine would be interesting to me. Most of them lost my attention before I finished them. (The editors aren't the only ones who are quick to dismiss stories that don't seize their attention and hold it in an iron grip the whole way through.)
3. Novels? Hah. It is to laugh. I've never written a whole novel. Which is not to say that I couldn't, but the odds of getting one written and published in anything less than years (and years) are infinitesimal. And, frankly, I don't know that I have anything I want to say at novel length anyhow.
So...fanfic. If I'm going to write mostly for my own entertainment, well--fanfic entertains me. There are some original story ideas percolating in the back of my mind too, but nothing I think would be salable. So, again, writing for my own amusement. Maybe I'm underestimating myself. Maybe people would like to read what I have to write. I dunno.
But in any case, I think more writing and less gamewriting may be in order.
Frustrated by a lack of participation in the games I play online. They're--with one exception, a classic HERO system superhero game--more like collaborative fiction writing. But not so much with the collaborative part these days.
This is especially frustrating when the GM and most of the other players in one game, which has languished for weeks or months--are busily and happily participating two or three other games (not all of them in the same ones) that are going like gangbusters. But it's just generally frustrating.
So perhaps it's time to turn more of my attention to writing solo stories again. Then I don't have to wait on other people. Fanfic, probably. I've spent a lot of time toying with the idea of writing original stories, especially given that friends have urged me to. The problems with that are:
1. I apparently still have a bit of the "get published" meme kicking around in my head. And getting published would involve short stories, most likely. The problem there is that I haven't picked up a fiction magazine (SF or mystery or any other kind) in years; I have no idea what sorts of stories the magazines are publishing--and one of the first rules getting published is "know the market" so that at the very least you aren't submitting things they've seen a zillion times before.
2. I haven't picked up a fiction magazine for so long because mostly I found them not worth the price. "Life is like a box of chocolates" sounds good--but I never liked sampler boxes of chocolates. As often as not, what I get is something I don't like. Maybe one or two stories in a whole magazine would be interesting to me. Most of them lost my attention before I finished them. (The editors aren't the only ones who are quick to dismiss stories that don't seize their attention and hold it in an iron grip the whole way through.)
3. Novels? Hah. It is to laugh. I've never written a whole novel. Which is not to say that I couldn't, but the odds of getting one written and published in anything less than years (and years) are infinitesimal. And, frankly, I don't know that I have anything I want to say at novel length anyhow.
So...fanfic. If I'm going to write mostly for my own entertainment, well--fanfic entertains me. There are some original story ideas percolating in the back of my mind too, but nothing I think would be salable. So, again, writing for my own amusement. Maybe I'm underestimating myself. Maybe people would like to read what I have to write. I dunno.
But in any case, I think more writing and less gamewriting may be in order.
