Brain? What's going on, up there, Dudette?

(message started at 8:22 am): Bah ... went to bed around 2 am (my usual time, these days), expecting to wake up around 9, as usual. Instead, I was awake at 5, with my mind racing. Been laying in bed trying to drift back to sleep ever since then, until about 20 minutes ago. This doesn't usually happen unless I've had late night coffee (Which I did not), or watched TV right before going to bed; I did watch the Johny Carson tribute that Leno did, but then I made a special point to play a quiet computer game in the dark for about an hour... so I don't know where this is coming from.

I have been buiding up a cache of thoughts to post here, on various subjects, but have kept putting it off into the vague "later," so maybe my brain has become super congested or something... so. I'll try posting all my thoughts here, throughout the day, and maybe those thoughts will stop running around up there like 4-year-olds on Jolt soda...

So -- I *think* I've finally finished that gift song...

So... been working on that New Year's/Yule "it really is all about the presents" song, trying to write a verse on the goodness and importance of receiving. The other day, I came up with three possible verses here, but wasn't really happy with any of them.

Yesterday, however, a lightbulb flashed in my brain: the whole song is basically an Thou and I song. I don't actually use the word "thou," because it just sounds wierd to modern ears, but the song is structured around an intimate, loving relationship between two people.

In the three previous attempts at that pesky verse, I switched from one-on-one to talking about people in the abstract, and I think that's why it sounded pedantic and preachy. So I went back and rewrote the verse as singly personal.

Here is the whole song, behind a cut, with the new verse in bold:

( Simple, Little, Things )

Fan fiction and me... or not ... as the case may be.

My F'list is heavy with fan fiction writers (fanfictioneers? may not be a real word, but I like the sound of it, so: nyah!:-P): Blake's 7, Sgwun, Nightwing, Buffy, Farscape, Reboot, and, of course, Doctor Who.

Personally, I never knew that fan fiction even existed until I stumbled across mention of it when I looked for other Doctor Who fans online several years ago -- or existed as a cultural phenomenon, and any rate. If I'd ever stopped to think about it, I probably would have found it reasonable that if someone was the fan of a particular show, she or he might doodle out her or his own stories for that universe... but I never stopped to think about it. That's not surprising, really, considering that, although I've been a fan of Doctor Who, and other things, I've never really knew about (or imagined) Fandom, as such, until I went searching the Internet for other people who just happened to like Doctor Who, about 6 or 7 years ago, and stumbled on RADW (not sure of the exact date, and I'm too tired to google for it now, though I may pinpoint the date in a later edit).

I love to write. I especially love to write stories. Some of my earliest memories are of dictating stories for one of my parents to write down. And I enjoy reading fan fiction.

But the few times that I've tried to write fan fiction, my brain has rebelled. I am much more comfortable with original characters.

When an original character comes into my head, it's almost as if a real person has knocked on my door, asked to come in, and tell me his or her story, and ask me to help getting that story out. Sometimes, the character isn't too awfully clear as to what that story is, and there is a lot of hemming and hawing, and repeating bits, and leaving other key bits out. But after we spend time together, chatting quietly, or having knock-down, drag-out fights, the story eventually comes clear and the character and I work out the telling of it together.

But when I try to write fan fiction, it feels like I'm engaging in remote mind control of another person -- like I'm trying to make the character do something he or she would never choose to do on his or her own. There's hostility on the character's part. There's a definite squick factor on my part, and it just doesn't work out...

( Now we get to the long angsty bit of this post, where I get particular about my relationship with DW fan fiction (aka the pro-fun hoedown bit) )