Ah artistic types ...

[blamebrampton]

Very quick poll, NB, the first word of the first answer should be care, but lj won't let me fix it. *Damn you, LJ!*:[Poll #1507051]For my own part, after RL attacks of the last option, I entered fandom determined to work solely for myself, and do sometimes achieve that happy state, but more often it's accompanied by occasional wobblies. Having chatted to several friends on the topic, the wobblies seem a common surprise guest.

What about you lot? And how do you combat the wobblies if you're someone they hit?

Comments

[silvershinigami.livejournal.com]

When I first started writing, I was 13 years old, I think. I wrote Mulder/Scully fanfiction because I loved it and thought they were awesome, and I was really proud of my stories. I didn't post any of them, I don't think, but I did ask my parents to read them. So that was just for me and it was fun and I was proud of them.

In high school I started to see fandom as more of a community as less of a fanfiction archive, and suddenly all my stories were geared at getting comments and building a fanbase (which I never accomplished), and it was all a popularity contest. And all my stories sucked. A lot.

Now I'm writing both original and fandom stuff, and I'm constantly forcing myself to concentrate on the work and not the readers' reactions. Of course I want people to like what I write and I'll never stop being that person, but I also have learned to see that writing itself is fun, so I'm trying to write without worrying about readers. I think it makes it easier to focus.