Hello and welcome to Don't Look Back... Again. Ya know, it's funny to actually think about the things you used to do and the difference in how you handled then and how you deal with them now.
Lately I have been trying to deal with my writer's block; a block I have had on and off for at least two years now. Years ago, when I wrote Gundam Wing fan fiction and even when I used to work on the Ultimate Senshi; I used to be able sit and just write. The story never had to be fully thought out, I could just go off on a half thought of a scene or even just a line. It didn't matter; I would just sit down with my notebook and pencil or in front of my computer and go. But as time went on I have become less capable of doing that.
As I said back in the entry regarding the Ultimate Senshi; none of the stories actually got completed and for me at the time it was okay because I had fun just thinking of stuff. When I started to get into GW; I found myself pondering on what ifs as the show progressed and I wrote my first fan fiction for it. Little did I know at the time that would turn into something much much more.
I wrote GW fan fiction for about 4-5 years and with each year I saw my writing improve and I genuinely enjoyed the hobby. Now I know not all of my stories were gems, but I enjoyed working on them. When my best friend and I began to make our GW fan fiction archive site; I started to actually get feedback and even requests for stories. This one in particular was rather shocking really; one of the stories I had written was a "non-con" story, which means one of the characters got raped. Now the reason for writing this was because my ex seemed to have had the intention of doing just that to me. I had subconsciously went out and grabbed some non-con stories to see how the characters dealt with it and have their resolve. In order for me to move passed this event I decided to let my writing speak for me. I had then received an email from someone who had read the story and enjoyed it and requested that I write another one with the following guidelines; "Write a non-con fic, where Heero is the victim. Make it yaoi, but don't make Relena the rapist."
I originally was going to decline the request, but then I saw it as a challenge. The story that had come out of these guidelines was an angsty first person point of view story, bouncing between characters and how they reacted and came to terms of the situation. It was one of the most well received stories I have written; save for when my best friend's mother freaked out about it, going as far to say; "I wonder what her mother would do if she knew she wrote something like this". To which by the way, when I did tell my mother all she said to me was; "If you can write something that believable, write a damn book".
After years of writing GW fics I decided to try my hand at something more original; yet keeping a shounen-ai theme since it was what I was good at. My original story wasn't so bad, a couple of my real life friends really enjoyed it as did a few followers on the net. But when I was originally working on it, I only made it to chapter 13 (episode 11 technically as I wrote them as if they were episodes of a TV series) before I had stopped. Using some of the same characters as this story I tried to write a fantasy one. It got to be about 73ish pages before I ended up stopping the story all together.
When I stated working, my friends and I were playing an epic level D&D game, but in order for the game to continue I had to bow out of it so the GM could keep running it for the others (we have the same job more or less), so he suggested that I write a story to what was happening with my character in the time I would be away. I started that story 3, almost 4 years ago and it is still unfinished even though I know what happens to her.
And recently, I have started at least 4 stories and only 1 of which has been completed. Mainly it has been due to the massive writer's block I had mentioned, which has turned into an unmotivated state of mind. I love writing and I am constantly finding myself saying that I should work on something, but when I go to do it I can't get anything out and it's incredibly frustrating.
Earlier this week I had spoken to a friend of mine and mentioned this block as I often do to her and she is very supportive in the fact that she agrees that I need to write something. The more I thought about my situation, the more I realized that for some reason I care too much about what people think of my work. I become too caught up in it that I second guess everything I do and it makes it more difficult to even get a sentence written. Over thinking is truly my worst enemy.
Lately I have found myself reading a lot of Kuroshitsuji fan fiction and I recently noticed something; back when I wrote fan fiction I never cared what others really thought. The more stories I read, the more I see these authors doing the same things I did back then; not caring what others think and just wanting to tell the story, making little skit like things for the disclaimer with the characters of the series, and even using Japanese terms for either dialog or description. And the more stories I read the more my mind wandered into a story idea of my own.
The idea floated in my head for a bit, mainly because I almost felt ashamed for thinking of writing a fan fic again; but why should I feel ashamed? My skills as a writer have improved since my days in writing GW fics and I know (to me) what looks silly and could avoid doing them. I know how to make original characters too; so as an exercise I decided to write a Kuroshitsuji fic. It's not very long, so far it's only 4 pages; but I don't want to push or force anything. I am enjoying myself in writing this and I can only hope that it gets me to where I want to be again so I can finish at least one of the other stories I had started.
See you all next time. ^^/
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