Sounds like burning

[itsallovernow]

Hah. I wish. Although I've got this really cool foley effect in my timpanic membrane right now and everything sort of sounds like it's being recorded for a movie.

I'm also trying to scrounge up a history of Southeast Europe without having to do too much research since my estimate was for 10 hours of work, and we only need about 300 words of history. Oh how I wish I'd never agreed to this freelance gig. I suppose that just writing, "Greece rules, Everything else was just an afterthought" is neither accurate nore particularly nice. And those Balkan states sure have been problematic for a bunch of afterthoughts.

If you haven't already, go on over to hesychasm's LJ and read her "Fandom Is" soliloquoy. It's fabulous. I'm particularly struck by the part about fandom allowing one to call oneself a writer. I think, if I'd gotten nothing else out of fandom, leaving aside the friendships, the support, the incredible thoughts and minds and generosity that I see everyday, generosity that's exhibited towards other fans, being able to lay claim to the title of writer would have almost been enough.

Even when I was working fulltime as a writer, I was reluctant to embrace the title until I started writing fic. And in part, it's because my writing was anonymous for the most part. It was work and craft, but mostly work. It was the same skills I'd been exhibiting from practically the first time I picked up a pen and crafted a paragraph. And then, with fic, here was this universe that not only challenged me as a writer, but as a thinker, an observer, a participant in another culuture. Because if you don't think fandom is a culture with hierarchies and social mores and fannish currency, well then you clearly haven't been paying attention. And media is a culture, taking in and participating in a media experience is a cultural phenomenon. Writing it is an expression of my ability to participate, my fannish currency is fic. It's how I build my status, how I define my role, how I bargain for interaction with other fans. (Waves at cofax7, tosses her yams, shimmies in my grass skirt).

And truthfully? That's been an unbelievable gift for me in the past few years, which have been easier for me than for a lot of people, and harder in ways I never could have anticipated. Because it gave me back my own personal currency, my own ability to bargain with myself over what I could do, what I was capable of, what I could want. Because of fandom, I can want to be a writer, want to produce a novel, or a memoir, or pursue another degree centered around writing. If I fail, that's okay. It's the wanting that gets you through. It isn't just confidence, it's identity, the shaping and parsing of it. Because yeah, writing original characters is different than writing fic, but the skill of shaping stories with words is something inherent in both, and I will argue to the end of time that one skill is not less valuable. In terms of our wider cultural currency, fic writing doesn't get you far, doesn't gain you much status, certainly not the status that original fic does and that's a recognized system. However, the ability to really parse a character, a plot, a dynamic, to be able to explore different means of conveying things via fic writing is amazing. Until I started writing fic, I couldn't have articulated the way that sex can be used as communication in the written form, couldn't have discussed it as a storytelling device, would have been embarrassed at my interest in reading about it, writing about it.

That same idea flows outward - how is communication shaped, described? How is literary fiction different from plot based fiction is different from genre fiction? How can analysis of characters and visual media be used to analyze our own culture, our own subconsciousness, or wants and needs and fantasies and ideals? How can I use my words to play a role in these discussions?

I'd say that personally, fandom has given me an awful lot. Including the necessity of blinders and earplugs to keep the crazies at bay:) Even without the big philosophical questions, what I've gotten from fandom is the okay to fall into a type of writing that makes me happy and feeds my immediate need for story, for gratification. Yes, it's something for me to hide in, and behind, a way to process thoughts and reactions, and by God, I'm eternally grateful for that chance.

Comments

[hesychasm]

Yes! I agree with pretty much all of this, and it tracks a lot of my own experience as well (although I haven't tried RL workshops like you, but I would love to one day, whereas I think I'd be much more reluctant if I hadn't had the fannish experience).

Beautifully put, too.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you dear. I felt totally inspired by your manifesto:)

[sugargroupie.livejournal.com]

It's been really interesting to read fandom's influence and effect on different individuals, especially from a writing standpoint. I've only just skimmed the surface, I think? hopefully. *g* But to read of people still enjoying themselves in fandom after being exposed to all the ups and downs, makes me glad I decided to join in.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I also have been highly selective about my fannish participation - something LJ has allowed me. I rarely visit boards, and then only for fic. My brief perusal of discussion boards generally makes me nuts and I know how much isolation I want/need from the RL doings of the people involved in my fannish intake -i.e. actors, producers, etc.:) (I'll read interviews, and if I pick up details by osmosis so be it, but I refuse to search out details about any of the participants).

LJ has allowed me to tailor my experience, getting to know people on a semi-personal level as well as through their reactions and their work and that has been really wonderful for me.

[dagnylilytable.livejournal.com]

Hi. You might remember me from a Touching Evil fic or two we exchanged comments over. Anyway, I was surfing by, and I'm a history major, and I've done some work on SE Europe for classes.

So, I have two suggestions.

Mark Mazower's The Balkans is a concise and short history, focusing more on the development of Balkan nationalism contrasted with the Ottoman empire, with an agenda to prove that violence isn't endemic to the region.

Also, for a more chronologically focused history, there may be some stuff in Piotr S. Wandycz's The Price of Freedom: A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present , though he focuses more on Poland and the Czech lands.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the suggestions!! ( My real problem is that I literally want to cut, paste and credit). But both those resources sound interesting and incredibly helpful!!