I knew the phenomemon of fanfiction existed before
Brokeback Mountain, though I had never read any, slash or otherwise, because I was never really interested in anything that inspired fanfiction.
The first piece of
Brokeback fanfic that I ever read was actually posted in a couple of pieces on the board at IMDb--the poor writer caught some hell from other posters for posting it there. It was a story about Junior and Kurt scattering Ennis and Jack's mingled ashes up on Brokeback, and it was quite moving. I think I still have it lying around somewhere in hard copy.
Somewhere, it may well have been still back at IMDb, I found a link to
Ennis. I skimmed through it, but it didn't do much for me. No offense intended, anyone, but right from the start of my Brokeback Fever I've never found the premise of Ennis del Mar finding another boyfriend to be plausible. Just my understanding of his character, and who he is, that's all.
Meanwhile, over my Christmas 2005 visit to my dad, I was already working in my head on what eventually became
Some Sweet Life. It took a while, and a lot of encouragment from stevehtx and a few other folks, before I found fanfiction.net and got up the courage to post the story. Writing it had been my therapy, my way of giving myself some peace of mind by imagining a resolution of what was left unresolved at the end of the film and the story (forgive me, Annie Proulx. ...).
A Brokeback Mountain Ghost Story, which I didn't "publish" until this past fall, was the next story I wrote because I wanted to write about Ennis and Jack together having that sweet life, but I hadn't yet been able to bring myself to move into writing AU. Before that happened I posed myself the challenge of writing a sex scene the way Annie wrote about Ennis and Jack having sex, and the result was
The Cabin. Then
The Grieving Plain just demanded to be written.
Since I read Fernly's
The Wind Rivers I've felt no need even to attempt any more canon/fill-in stories, like
The Cabin; as far as I'm concerned,
The Wind Rivers is definitive.
Oh, and somewhere along the line I've done a little proofreading and offered a few pointers to a couple of other writers.
It sure felt goofy last spring to be writing a Christmas story, but the Muse had to be obeyed, and she was demanding that I overcome my hesitancy with regard to AU stories and write something that both made Ennis and Jack heroes and also showed them having a life together.
No Hero was the result.
Then, similarly to when I wrote
The Cabin, I posed myself another challenge: What might it be like to take what we know of Alma, Jr.'s, marriage from the film and let it play out in my AU? The result was
Sayin' "I do." In that story I alluded to some AU back-story, a fight between Ennis and Jack with four roughnecks, and I was asked to write a story about that fight. The result, slowly, was
All I Got and All I Want. I have to admit that I'm not much reading anyone else's fanfiction now, just some canon pieces now and then, not out of any conceit about my own work, but simply because, since I've created my own AU, where I go to be with Ennis and Jack, I honestly have to say that other writers' AUs just don't interest me.
I think my fanfiction writing days may be over, but it's never wise to say "never again." I have a few fragments of AU stuff hanging around the hard drive, though whether those fragments will ever come together as a story is not something I'd put money on, if I were a bettin' man.
I've received some very kind comments on my stand-alone stories, and I'm very grateful for them all, happy that I seem to have helped some people with their own process. I think, though, that the nicest compliment I received concerned my AU stories, where one writer told me that Ennis and Jack in my AU stories were "recognizably themselves," even though I had taken them into an AU. That made me very happy.
