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capri0mniLast week, sometime, there was a poll on Tumblr asking if folks: "if you were put in charge of Doctor Who, would you make your [Original Character] canon?"
And at first, I thought of Eloise, the Pro-fun Troll, which I created for the Usenet Doctor Who Groups, and my answer to that poll, for her, was "No," because over the three years I was active in those fora, she'd grown an entire backstory and culture and worldbuilding that was only connected to Doctor Who by a thread thinner that a single strand of spider silk, and she* was, in actuality, always an Independent Character.
And That reminded me of the original novel(la) I'd started to write for her, some [*counts on fingers*] 18-something years ago (I'd gotten as far as Chapter Five out of many [unknown] more).
I'd lost the draft chapters of that work from the hard drive of my personal computer, but I remembered posting them to my LiveJournal, which I then imported over here to Dreamwidth. And I felt the need to hunt them down and retrieve them.
In so doing, I was reminded of conversations I've had here. And how much I wanted to get back to them.
In the meantime, I've given myself other prose fiction projects to work on, which I've been struggling with over the last year and three quarters:
*Along with "Co-Hosts" I created to help her out during the parties.
And at first, I thought of Eloise, the Pro-fun Troll, which I created for the Usenet Doctor Who Groups, and my answer to that poll, for her, was "No," because over the three years I was active in those fora, she'd grown an entire backstory and culture and worldbuilding that was only connected to Doctor Who by a thread thinner that a single strand of spider silk, and she* was, in actuality, always an Independent Character.
And That reminded me of the original novel(la) I'd started to write for her, some [*counts on fingers*] 18-something years ago (I'd gotten as far as Chapter Five out of many [unknown] more).
I'd lost the draft chapters of that work from the hard drive of my personal computer, but I remembered posting them to my LiveJournal, which I then imported over here to Dreamwidth. And I felt the need to hunt them down and retrieve them.
In so doing, I was reminded of conversations I've had here. And how much I wanted to get back to them.
In the meantime, I've given myself other prose fiction projects to work on, which I've been struggling with over the last year and three quarters:
- An original fairy tale, with fairy tale logic and magic, whose protagonist has recognizably real-world Cerebral Palsy (though not named as such, in the story), and
- Expanding/polishing/refining/tightening my short story retelling of The Frog King by the Brothers Grimm, and maybe self-publishing it in physical form, so I can have it on my bookshelf, and/or loan and give to others.
*Along with "Co-Hosts" I created to help her out during the parties.
Waves hello!
Date: 2024-08-29 11:45 pm (UTC)Glad to see you’re interested in writing, since you always have something useful to say in digestible fashion.
(I’m grinding through a disability studies book called Metagnosis, which is about how/what to feel when you learn about an impairment you’ve had for a long time—in this case a visual field defect. I wish you’d written it so I could follow it.)
Re: Waves hello!
Date: 2024-08-30 12:24 am (UTC)Ah, yes. Academia-Speak, I presume?
Who's the author?
Re: Waves hello!
Date: 2024-08-30 02:29 am (UTC)Such academic-speak, many footnotes. One reason I haven’t yet abandoned it is that when she’s clear, she is insightful.
https://www.daniellespencer.com/metagnosis
And before she dove into narrative medicine, she did marketing for David Byrne!
I hope to finish it this year.
Re: "Narratology," huh?
Date: 2024-08-30 12:37 pm (UTC)How disappointing; at first glance, the book promises to be whimsical.
In some ways, I think Academia-speak is a lot like fan fiction: the authors are writing for an audience that they assume already know the major characters and primary story arcs.
That's one of my frustrations with Disability Rhetoric, by Jay Timothy Dolmage. On the one hand, it's written for those mostly familiar with the philosophy of rhetoric (It reads like it's aimed at university-level Philosophy students), and those just being introduced to issues of Disability Culture. So some of it is a struggle for me to parse, and some of it is "I know this already." At the same time, it's well written, and I enjoy it when his flashes of humor come out.
Re: "Narratology," huh?
Date: 2024-08-30 04:16 pm (UTC)I copy-edited some academic writing and the author kept reminding me that personality and humor had to be excised.
Your fan fiction analogy is right on. The best authors confine that ritualized dancing to the intro, demonstrating that they’ve read all the canon.
She did remind me of how much I enjoyed Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree by quoting him:
I own Dolmage’s book but I keep forgetting to read it. I remember buying it because I enjoyed his clarity on the DS-HUM listserv.
Re: "Narratology," huh?
Date: 2024-08-30 05:32 pm (UTC)I've had Disability Rhetoric on my shelves for many years, now. I haven't finished it. But I do keep going back to reread certain chapters, because the ideas are so deliciously chewy.