Pervy Slash Whore

icarusancalion wrote a very awesome, well thought out meta post about Challenges. Not only does she identify the problems writers run into with them BUT she also has SUGGESTIONS for how to avoid them! Amazing, huh?

Go read it here: How To Keep Your Challenge Commitments, or: Strategies For Challenge Success

Verily, it is both amusing and informative. icarusancalion has been both a long-time participant in challenges, a moderator/coordinator, and had successes and not-so-successful-moments. She's got some great (and seldom-heard) things to say about the self-discipline of writing, which apply whether you write for challenges or just for yourself.

Read, learn, and pass it along.

1) Anyone know what happened to smut_wednesday? I mean, I know they deleted themselves before LJ could do it, but did they migrate somewhere and change the name? (I think I looked at Insane and Greatest, but perhaps not.)

Anyone know? Help? I miss my Wednesday artsmut. :(

2) When did "strap-on sex" get turned into "pegging" and why? Does "pegging" mean something in particular?

3) You know that song "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance? The song changes POVs halfway through and causes my brain to get all twisted up on itself, trying to figure out who is addressing whom. The first half "they" are adults who suck, but in the second half, "they" are mean teenagers. Hence confusion. Consequently, the bloody song has been stuck in my head for fucking *months* now.

4) Second runner-up to Things That Suck in Fandom, following WIPs that are abandoned and never finished = WIPS that finally finish, but totally just peter out in the last chapters. It sucks when you've been reading something brilliant for months and months and get all excited to see that it's finally finished and you reread from the beginning... only to discover that the author either lost their muse or just phoned it in or something. *sigh* (And before you all get paranoid on me: NO, this isn't about your fic. The fic that I'm thinking of at the moment was bandslash, my new secret vice.)

5) Saw "Stardust" this weekend and I really loved it. Frankly, I expected it to be kind of visually pretty and otherwise suck, which is good because I was totally surprised that it had a decent fairy-tale plot and was funny and was *tremendously* pretty. (The key to happiness in life is setting your expectations low. Seriously.)

The best part, though, was the totally unexpected queer content, which was handled in a way where it just wasn't that big of deal that the character was gay. Sure, it was a stereotype and yes, they did do the transvestite=gay thing, but still. It was random and incidental and in a teen/children's movie and that ROCKS. :)

6) Also, in "Stardust", it took me forever to recognize Rupert Everett, whom I adore. Mostly because every time the abd prince came on-screen, I kept thinking he'd have made a fantastic Snape in the HP movies.

Because my biggest peeve (ok, maybe not *biggest*, but one of the top ten) in the Harry Potter movies is that although I desperately adore Alan Rickman's voice, he's just too old. Or they needed to do de-aging makeup on him or something. Snape/the Marauders are only 19-22 years older than Harry (depending on which of JKR's timelines you go by), which means that even at the end of Book 7 when Harry is 18, Remus/Sirius/Severus would only have been 40. For the movie HP:POA, released in 2004 (when they'd all have been ~36), David was 41, Gary was 46, and Alan was 58.

Why yes. Yes I am a big Harry Potter geek. And I recently spent way *way* too much time researching people's ages for a fic that I'm working on. Made a 6-column table and everything.

(And don't even get me started on Remus' pornstache or facial scarring in POA. HOw could they do that to such a gorgeously fuckable man, I ask you? Such a crime.)

7) Which segues nicely into the last item: my fic for ficrocksthe80s. It's Harry/Draco. It's (so far) totally canon compliant, even with DH, *even* with the revolting epilogue. (Although I'm reviving Fred. Twindeath is just wrong.) Furthermore... there might not be any sex in it.

That's right - I seem to be writing a really long, plot-heavy H/D fic that's entirely canon-compliant and only rated PG-13.

I know. I'm scared too.

The end of the world must be coming...

So I have these two bunnies and they're both het. And every time I try to write some of them, it's so very obviously just me wanting to fuck whatever character or actor the female in question is paired with.

Even when I write it from the male POV, it's still a Mary Sue.

(Of course, then I started freaking out that everything I write, I'm the protagonist for, and maybe Orli and Ewan and Harry and Remus are Marty Stus and I'm just a horrible hack writer and so I'm just going to dam that stream of thought because it's totally not helping.)

So I ask you, who have written het - how the bloody hell do you write het that's not Mary Sueish? Thoughts? Advice?

Help!

For some reason my f-list's posts this morning while I was drinking my tea made me think again about the big question of why I've never been a BFG or a well-known writer or even just a generically popular online persona.

I think it comes down to be being too mellow for fandoms.

I hate flame wars and avoid them. I don't read them out of prurient interest. I don't care who called whom a backstabbing bitch or who was accused of plagiarism and whether it's true or not. I maintain the policy that if fewer people would get involved, the flames would die down faster. I refuse to fan them myself.

I also don't worship BNFs. If I'm really awed by someone's writing, I do tend to gush a bit in email or LJ comments, but I don't tag along after them and gush about everything they write. I maintain that someone can write a story that really resonates with me and I think is brilliant, and also write some kind of crappy fics. I won't lie and say I thought the crappy fics were brilliant. I don't think anyone on the planet only produces brilliant work.

I also don't make Best Friends with people online very fast. Furthermore, once I am close friends with someone, I don't automatically hate everyone they get into a catfight with. If I'm BFFs with Doris and she and Mildred get into a brawl, I'm not going to automatically hate Mildred and tell everyone I know that they should hate her too. Besides, maybe Doris is wrong. I try to be supportive and loving to my friends, but that doesn't mean I can't see that occasionally they might be petty or judgmental or just plain wrong about something. That's ok - sometimes I'm petty and mean and make mistakes too. I still love my friends even when I think they're making asses out of themselves. I hope for the same patience from them, along with a subtle "You might consider that you're not right about this" once I can take hearing that without flying off the handle.

Also, sometimes I disagree with my friends. Maybe Gertrude thought "Troy" was the best movie ever. I thought it sucked. I will always think Colin Firth is unattractive. I don't like most scifi. I don't like babies or weddings/commitment ceremonies in my porn. I'm not into big muscly men. I like pale pretty boys, preferably in schoolboy uniforms. I think the straight women who are allergic to het have some issues about their own sexuality to work out. I have opinions, and when I disagree with someone about them, I try to be respectful and then redirect the conversation. We don't have to agree about everything. How could we broaden each others' horizons if we did?

When I stopped writing so much VigOrli and went back to writing HP, my ego took a huge blow. In HP, I don't have many readers and definitely no fans. I haven't put the effort into crossposting my fics all over the place or in commenting on every fic I read in hopes that the authors will come and check me out. I do fee a little sad to know that the majority of my recent work, whether it's 50kw or HP or whatever, isn't being read. I feel like I've matured as a writer and that I'm getting better, and it's a little sad to be mostly known for works that are 2+ years old and not for anything since.

But I've also realized that I just don't care enough about being a BNF to ever be one. I'm not a worshiper-of-BNFs or a best-friend-maker or a flame warrior. I'm ok with being obscure, even though I do feel under-appreciated some days. I'm not saying I'm "above it all" - I'd like to be popular again. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be liked, and I do want that.

But I'm so much more comfortable with who I am than pretending to be someone I'm not. Wanting to be a BNF and not being one doesn't frustrate me as much anymore. I know that my writing skills will continue to improve and that someday they will be appreciated. Maybe I'll become a novelist. Maybe writing will make me a more eloquent speaker.

Maybe it will teach me to let go of attachment to outcome and to focus on the joy of writing, just for myself.

I didn't mean for this to turn into such a long post. It was just kind of a where-I-am-right-now-in-my-head diary thing.

heartofslash tagged me, which is flattering but also *guh* - this was really difficult.

WRITER'S MEME: Sometimes it's ok to pimp yourself out. Post a list of the top five favorite fics you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same.

I agree with her assessment that this was difficult both from the self-pimping angle (which is difficult for me now that I'm not really in the VigOrli fandom and crossposting everything I write to a hundred lists/communities), but also because of the emotions attached. Where I was in my life and in my head when I wrote a piece is important to my perception of the piece. Also what I liked because it was fun versus what I liked because of the self-discovery that took place while writing... Well, they were difficult decisions. So of course I cheated. *g*

( my list and my babbling )