As with Leslie, the first fan fiction I read was "Ennis". I literally stumbled on it and didn't even know the genre existed. I must confess, I had very mixed feelings about the genre and initially, the story. I thought I was hardcore "you don't screw around with perfection" kind of guy, but then after joining this forum, I saw how fan fiction itself did more than entertain. It seemed to allow people to express the deep feelings that Brokeback caused.
The next story I read was "Somebody New". This was really an odd experience for me. I didn't really care for it, but it is important to me because it was while reading this, that I began to think that I could (and maybe even wanted to) explore the possibility of writing one of my own. Having never written any fiction, my natural apprehension, not to mention my low estimation of whatever talent I might possess, kept me from doing this.
Ok, so next up was "A Love Born From Steel". I was really apprehensive about this story for two reasons: The first one was that I realized I didn't really care for the AU (alternate universe) type of story (for the reason I stated above), and I was so disappointed in the writing style of "Somebody New", that I feared it would be similar. Since I didn't really know Leslie at the time, I was approaching it with an unfettered view. I was pleasantly surprised, and literally devoured the story. It was around this time that I became more active here at Bettermost and discoverred chat. Funny story...one day, the chatters in the FanFiciton room were doing their thing, and as I was new, I was not talking a lot, and also having a hard time understanding what the hell they were talking about. It seemed they were disusing what they did and didn't like about other fics that were popular at the time, and what about them they didn't like. Well, there was this reference to Ennis getting a pierced nipple. In my still parochial view of what should and should not be done to Annie Proulx's characters, I said something like: "What fool would do that to Ennis?" Well Leslie...I still cringe when I think of that. I guess I still owe you a drink for that one.
At this point I was sort of fan fiction-ed out. I started reading "Lead Me To Your Door", and never finished it. Since everyone here seemed focused on "The Laramie Saga" at the time, I thought I needed to read this thing. I tried,,I really did. But everyone was so far ahead of me, and I had read so much before that, as with "LMTYD", I just couldn't get into it enough to catch myself up. I have the entire story now, and plan to start again at a more liesurely pace.
So...that's where I was when I decided to write my own. If you have never done it yourself, you can't know how thrilling, and anxiety-causing it can be. I don't think I'll ever write another large work...but with the addition of Leslie's "Drabblefest" thread, I have found a perfect outlet for the thing I still want to say.
That's it...story over...or at least this chapter.
