(Or: Why I Didn’t Finish my Thesis This Year)
I was thinking a lot about how this all stared as I got all christmas-y and New-Year-y (This generally begins in late October and is suitably sat upon till late November). This has been a funny year, dominated by this new hobby that became a new life. If anyone had told me this time last year that I would be reading fanfiction, writing fanfiction and posting on boards about naked!Spike, I would have gone, “Huh? What’s fanfiction? What are boards? Who are you?” So yeah, quite a lot has changed.
In the Beginning there was Buffy….
But I was thinking far too much about the new season of Buffy. All through the holiday I was waiting for the ads to herald the proper, US TV that starts back after xmas. Mainly Buffy, which I had missed to a ridiculous extent since the end of season 5. Missed in the sense of ‘rewatch old episodes daily and sometimes have dreams about.’ Yep, quite disturbing. And then it came back, with the annoying ‘Bringing Buffy Back’ slogan, but a wonderful 2 hour special to make up for it. I curled up on my bed and broke my first diet of the new year, watching in delight. When it was over, I rewound the tape and watched it again. I was probably tired and sleep deprived the next day.
The following week, I watched Afterlife. I love Afterlife. Perfect combination of scary stuff and great lines and SMG was *amazing*. And then the scene with Spike at the end? and he’s all lit in golden light and……something was definitely beginning to click with me. So the next day in work, I found myself looking up ‘Buffy’ on the internet. Me and the internet had never been good friends, but boy, was that about to change. That cold Friday afternoon in January I discovered Buffyworld.com, and the transcripts of every episode up to Wreaked. Little work was done. By the time I went home, I had read up to the end of OMWF, and something had happened to me. I had read the last lines. I had burst into a spontaneous grin of delight. Spike and Buffy had kissed. Maybe if I’d read a little further, I would never have been drawn down this path, but for the whole evening I happy. I was hooked on this idea. Over that weekend I slowly read TR, Smashed and Wreaked. I concentrated on the Spike bits, but I loved it all. Somehow, those episodes were never the same when I watched them. In fact, although I watched religiously, I never got as excited watching a show (except for OMWF) as I had while reading scripts.
Obsession
So maybe that’s why fanfiction was a natural progression. My love for the program had developed into gentle obsession through reading, not watching. Some fatal day, I found BSDiaries. The first fanfic I read was Laure Alexander’s Sound of Silence. I thought, ‘Hmm, at least there are people more obsessed than me. This is good. I think.” I read some more. I read some Very Bad Writing along the way, and resolved not to waste my time with all of this. It was ridiculous. It was embarrassing. It was……strangely addictive. I only long afterwards realised that beginning with Laure Alexander was bound to cause later disappointment. And then I read NautiBitz. I think Enthralled was the first of hers that I read, giving me a strange feeling that I’d stumbled on a bit of a missing script. It was the first time I searched by author. No work was done that day. I read In Heat through twice, went home, read it again. Started to use those ‘search-engine’ thingies. Cool, huh? Started to read every little bit of Spike-y fic I could find. I discovered ff.net and my work went completely down the toilet. Discovered the term ‘Spuffy’. Aligned myself with these people, for surely they were right and the Spoilers (I had now discovered spoilers) were wrong.
Strange Writing Obsession
In February I wrote my first fic. I needed a stiff drink to begin, but I wrote it and I finished it and I was proud of it and then I read it. And it was crap. Not just crap. Total, a-dung-beetle-would-turn-up-its-nose-at-this, *crud*. I was a tad disappointed, especially as I had already sent it to BSDiaries in a fit of enormous pride. Huh. So I didn’t write any more for a while, and contented myself with admiring those who did. And then I started another story, which kind of wrote itself (except for the smut. As it turns out I can’t write smut). It gave itself a plot and a title and an ending and with this I was pleased. And Something True was done. And when it was posted (I successfully posted this at ff.net, only without formatting. Ineptness rules supreme.) people sent me emails and told me that they liked it. And now we were off to the races. Writing took over. I wrote on scraps of paper at work, I wrote as soon as I came home. I’ve been writing ever since.
I followed the season through to its disappointing end, along the way finally getting to see my beloved Wreaked and feeling only disappointment. I also had to watch Seeing Red. My emotional investment in the show dropped as my interest in the characters rose. We don’t have to do things their way. I had written 4 or 5 fics and it was taking over vast portions of my brain that might have been better spent, just maybe, writing my thesis. Which isn’t, by the way, on anything remotely related to Buffy.
The season ended and my time on the net only increased. Communities of people discussing these things. Did no one else do any work either? And I discovered Slash fic, and went a bit mad. Or madder. Days of Our Unlives was downloaded to hard drive and read repeatedly, in many positions. Any one who questions the legitimacy of fanfiction should be made to read it until their shoulders, spines and stomachs hurt like mine did. Most suitable punishment.
Even stranger web-site creating obsession
Then came catastrophe. FF.net (or foulfuckers.net as they came to be known in my head at least), celebrated American independence and democracy and freedom and so on, by banning all NC-17 fics. One of those things you have absolutely no control over. And that therefore make me want to tear my hair out by the roots and strangle random strangers with it. For about two weeks, I wrote nothing. Not a word. Most of the stuff I was messing around with was NC-17, I had nowhere to post, it all seemed very hopeless and pointless and generally miserable.
And then, somewhere in the back of my brain, a little idea made its voice heard – make your own site. At which, of course, I laughed. Because – well, that was just crazy talk. Two weeks later, I had my own site.
My site is small, and pretty crap, although I do have great plans to learn some HTML and make it a little less crappy in due course (After that whole thesis thing, ya know.) But it’s mine. I have something that must be similar to that thing others call ‘maternal pride’ about the damn thing, much as it has persecuted me. And I love it, because this time last year, if anyone had told me I would be running my own website, I would have bet my life saving that they were a ranting raving lunatic person. Which they might well have been. But they would also have been right.
Too Much Bloody Encouragement.
Joining the glorious BandofBuggered.com was definitely a mistake, committing me to hours of on-line time, hanging out with many of the coolest, funniest, most talented BtVS writers going. And for one who does not have that whole broadband-internet-thing, it turned out to be rather pricey, in good old-fashioned moolah as well as several hours an evening.
Let it be pointed out that I rarely require encouragement on my more off-the-wall obsessions. I usually need to be locked away in a small room until my tiny little brain has changed tack and ambled off on its merry way (Ooh, look, that dog has a puffy tail!)
But in this case, people have encouraged me quite a bit. Yes, you know who you are. Friendly emails of praise and advice. Requests for sequels. Nominations for awards. Yes, I’m looking at you! And, although he doesn’t know it and you don’t know him, my boss hates you with a vengeance.
Thanks, y’all.
And, to end this tale of escapism, on Christmas day, while sneaking away from family to read live journals (Ha!) I found that I’d won a Halo. Which for some reason, in my mind, entirely justifies the use of this year for the strange purposes it’s been put to. I can finish my thesis next year.