Completely oblivious driver....

The car was in mid-to-light traffic on a four-lane divided highway. The speed limit was around 50mph.

Under a bridge the driver started waving to a pedestrian, honking. Then he stopped to let his friend in.

Grinning, he drove off, talking excitedly to his friend.

Curiously, the cars that had collected behind him didn't move.

That's because six of them had ploughed into each other. Dented fenders, one crushed front bumper, a mangled rear door, pieces scattered on the ground. The owners got out, cell phones in hand, to survey the damage. Behind them, the late afternoon traffic backed up because the pileup went right into the intersection.

The guy didn't even notice.

I'm the window washer outside your fandom.

I'm a window washer outside your fandom.

( Why I haven't been writing. )

( Well, I've written these. But let me tell you why they don't count. )

Other than Dragonlord, my fics have been "surface stories."

There are stories that you pull out of your gut, that are saying something even if you're not sure what, and then there are stories where you're just diddling on the surface. Moving the furniture around.

( If that were okay with me, that would be one thing. )

So I'm the window washer outside your fandoms, looking in, while I'm working, working, working.

( Part of it is the company I keep. And the fact that the sky is falling. )

I find that without writing and creative work ... I starve. I left this temple, which I always loved, fifteen years ago because I starved here.

So I took today off. Cancelled chauffeuring Ani Samla. Rescheduled practice to Saturday night. And I'm taking time to write.


* i.e. became a closed canon.

Star Trek: TOS and uncooperative characters.

I've taken time off to write fic. I find that Jim and Kirk will not get down to business. No, no, they want to talk about Vulcan, and the Vulcan perspective on humans:


"Checkmate," Spock said, placing his final piece.

"How is that Vulcans play a human game?" Jim asked.

"There are those on Vulcan who feel the existence and popularity of chess on Earth demonstrates that there's hope," Spock explained.

"Hope for?—ahh," understanding dawned on the captain's face before he even finished the question.

"Yes. Hope that, one day, humans may embrace pure logic."


Of course, Jim can't resist prodding at that, does Spock think it likely?--and really, guys, there's a plot that's supposed to happen. I realize it's not much of one, but interesting as you are, you're interrupting.

Life with a baby.

Huh.

I've been so busy lately, never home, that I didn't realize till now that I live with a baby.

I mean, technically I knew it.

But now that I'm actually here, I now know that:

1) Said baby shrieks. Frequently.

2) That my apartment is directly below the baby bouncer, and

C) Said baby bouncer sounds rather like a three-legged Pogo-stick

L) Directly overhead.

Sigh. Remember how happy I was that I never had kids?

Multiply that by ten.

Oh, now with the fussing and crying. And intermittent bouncing.

Make that twenty.

Amazon and fandom: a trip in a different direction.

In Kindle Worlds flourish hits every point where Amazon's new effort is different from Fanlib.

Except one.

Amazon agrees to compensate fanfic writers. Not Fanlib's vague "hey, we're connected to publishing companies that might, somehow, benefit you as a writer. We think. Use your imagination how!"

With Kindle Worlds there's actual cash money going to the fic writers.

Problems with it? Oh, heck yeah, I'm sure. I haven't researched it much yet (read: at all). But I'm willing to bet plenty of broke fic writers will be sniffing around this offer.

I'm tempted. Four years of working part time with no benefits? A temple where we're going to be doing practice outside with the cicadas? Yeah. Cautious. But interested. And I don't even write those fandoms.

I never expected anything like this, not in my wildest "the truth is we're out here" posts.

Personally, I credit The Organization of Transformative Works for the fast and recent shift in attitudes about fan writers, treating us as writers, wow.

Remember, it was only 2003 when Raincoast Books sent Cease & Desist orders to The Restricted Section for its NC-17 Harry Potter fic. In 2004, Yahoo Groups TOS'd one fanfic Yahoo Group after another, driving fans to Livejournal. In 2007 came Fanlib, which hoped to profit (from ads? it was never clear how) and exploit fanfic writers but viewed them as teenyboppers complete with their "Hey, Kids!" Disney layout. OTW got off the ground almost immediately afterward, and the archive went into beta testing in 2008.

By 2011, 50 Shades Of Gray was able to openly acknowledge its fanfic roots. That's a big change, very, very quickly. It's not all OTW. We have the aca-fen and new generation that's grown up on the internet coming of age. But I believe that the newly positive attitudes toward fanfic have a lot to do with the OTW.

I need to renew my membership.


ETA: Scalzi weighs in on the downsides for writers. His perspective is not the fanwriters, but the lowering of standards for prowriters. Right off the bat (I may change my mind), it seems to me that the prowriters need to stop sneering at the fanfic writers and include them in their union (how? I don't know how...) or risk watering down the protections that writers get in general. I'm pro-union and these are hard-won protections. We need to not have a lower class of writer called "fanfic writer" ripe for exploitation.

Here the work-for-hire authors who were contracted to participate ahead of the release weigh in. They consider it standard ghost writing and are pretty positive about their experience.