100 Things #017: Creative Community and Trust

[myaru]

By 'creative community' I mean something like what we used to have here on LJ - a group of friends all writing about the same thing (Fire Emblem, Suikoden, whatever) and talking about the source material, inspiration, blah blah. Fandom was my writing community for twelve years. Without it, I find I write less often, with less devotion, and in general have a harder time finding motivation for anything.

I thought when I left that I didn't need fandom to drive my work. I've always written my originals alone, usually without showing them to anybody, so why would I need other people to egg me on? It's worth noting, at this point, that even when I was still involved in fandom, all it inspired me to write was fan fiction; original work didn't benefit by that sense of community at all. Measuring and I tried to jump start our original writing with the gauntlet challenge, but at the time I think we both pretty much ignored the orig-fic prompts (or at least didn't talk about what we were working on in response), and focused on the fanfic lists. It's what I wanted to write; it's what I felt inspired for. It's all I thought about.

Part of my motivation problem is obvious: I don't spend as much time thinking about my own stories as I did about the games I wrote fic for. The epic Summer Chronicle lasted as long as it did because the story was almost all I thought about. My pairing obsessions lasted as long as they did for the same reasons. When I walked to the bus stop, I thought about the Chronicle plot. When I stared out the train window, on the way to school, I thought about new ways to make a pairing work. When I sat around in the doctor's office waiting for my appointments (and there were a lot of those), I wondered what Tellius steampunk would look like and immediately tried to convert the game plot to the new universe.

I don't do that with original work, so it's no wonder I'm not burning to finish stories or write new scenes. No mystery here.

But: would I have thought so much about Fire Emblem and my related fics if I hadn't talked about them every night on AIM? Maybe for a while. Four years, though? Would I have pursued Summer Chronicle for years, tried to make it work even when I knew I had made a wrong turn at chapter fifteen-- all if I hadn't had someone to bounce ideas off of and encourage me? Considering the fate of my Elrond fic (not dead, but unlikely to move), I think the answer is 'no.'

Communication keeps me interested in my own stories. Or, at least, it helps me over the difficult areas of the process, where I might otherwise be tempted to abandon the project, or put it off. Talking to someone about what I'm working on keeps me thinking and moving. And you'd think this wouldn't be a big deal, that everybody knows this, that I should have known this... but it's difficult for me to trust people with my work, so for a long time I haven't bothered. This post isn't about "realizing" that I need a community; that has been clear to me for some time. Writing is a lonely process without one. You do need other eyes to examine your work and help you see what you missed. I even knew, without really thinking about it, that it was always easier to write with other people. The problem that needs solving isn't just finding that company; it's being able to trust them.

Yes, I do have that cliche fear that someone will rip off my work. I'm not the only one. I frankly don't care how realistic it is; fear isn't reasonable. But I have such a hard time trusting people at all. Take away the possibility of being ripped off and I still won't trust you! There are so many ways you can cause damage once you have the story: you can be the sort of reader/critic that tries to change everything based on what you like, instead of what the story needs; you might be the type to give only praise (which is no help, since I want so badly to believe you), or go the other way and cut everything down, under the erroneous assumption that the only useful feedback is the sort that finds problems without trying to solve them. You could be that poisonous friend who seems like she's rooting for you on the surface, but who actually harbors some negative feelings for you, and often only gives feedback that supplies unfavorable comparisons to herself; i.e. "Well, I made it, so you should be able to if you work hard! Do let me know if you need my advice, because I'm so far ahead of you I should know how to answer all of your beginner questions..." The only kind of praise I get from my family is backhanded, when I get it at all, so I'm pretty good at detecting that bullshit.

Don't even get me started on how people deliver their critiques. Or on the very important things people always seem to miss-- that stuff I actually need to know, since I think I've got the typos covered, thanks.

In short: I don't trust you. And if I don't trust you, how do I build - or find - a community?

My trust issues are epic, and in horrible need of therapy. Believe me, I know. But it's a chicken-and-egg problem, since, in order to get those taken care of, I need to start out with a bit of trust for the person who's going to do the fixing...

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I'm really sorry I've missed replying to so many comments. I always intend to, and then time passes, and it seems too late. :/

Comments

[samuraiter]

I wish I had insight to offer on this one, but I'm finding myself largely writing in a vacuum, too, though I've gradually been building up more originals in various challenges (... mostly porn, as per usual). There has been a serious breakdown of community (in multiple senses) over the past couple of years, it feels like.

[myaru]

Write what you love! Or at least what you feel like writing at the moment. :p That's what people love to tell us writers, anyway...

I think part of my isolation has to do with my refusal to move to Tumblr. It feels a bit like having to start over, and in addition, I guess I just don't like the reblogging thing. It keeps reminding me that in my head, Tumblr has always been "that place where people rip off Japanese artists," and it's hard to forget that first impression.

Joining would not, of course, help with the original fic problem, but.

[samuraiter]

You and I have Tumblrphobia in common. I still can't make sense of the stupid thing. And, yeah, it often looks like a bunch of people turned Pixiv (or one -booru or another) upside-down and shook it 'til all the fanart fell out.

Granted, different fandoms have different homes (e.g. some things are bigger on AO3 than they are on FFN, though FFN looks like it is starting to fossilize in terms of who writes there), but video game fandom just seems to be tapering off (and anime / manga fandom is more scatterbrained than ever).

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

I have found the same thing, that my interest in fic and other such things have flagged when I decided to drop off and pursue solo type fandoms. There was no fire or spark. I agree though, it's hard to build trust, it is also hard for unbiased opinions. (friends and family usually are biased) it's a fine fine fine line.

[myaru]

Aside from unbiased opinions, it's difficult to go to friends for critique when they're thinking more like readers than writers. That DOES have value, of course - a lot of value - but when I'm stuck on what to do with a scene, what I need is another writer to talk to.

Despite having people interested in my current project, I still don't feel that driving need to work on it that I did in fandom.

[helicoprion]

I hadn't really thought about the community aspect of writing, but looking back at both fan and original stuff, there's a definite correlation between "things I talk to people about" and "things I actually finish." (Though that could be because I just don't care enough to talk about some projects, and then end up fizzling out on them because I really really don't care.) So much for the myth of being a mysterious reclusive writing machine, eh? I was really attached to that one...

And yet even knowing that it's useful... There's this inconvenient intersection of perfectionism and a generally suspicious nature that makes it difficult to discuss original writing with people. Simultaneously "I don't trust you with this information" and "this isn't good enough for anyone to know about it yet anyway." I do not have any solutions.

[myaru]

I was attached to that myth too, dammit. My goal was to be a hermit writer.

Looking at it from this angle, I've already succeeded.

[windy_castle]

You're right about how a sense of communication with other people about your work can help the writing process as lot - I think, for me, especially with original stories. A few years back I had this little circle of friends, and we were all writing our own original stories together and just sort of all bounced off each other and exchanged writing snippets and stuff - it made the whole process a lot of fun, because you have people getting just as excited about your stories as you are, and there's an extra burst of enthusiasm on your part because, unlike fanfic, other people are getting excited about your characters (and you get excited about theirs).

But yeah, I agree that it's incredibly hard to first be able to trust people to that extent in the first place. And with livejournal petering out so much these days, it's even harder to find people to even talk to about this stuff, much less form that kind of creative bond and trust. Tumblr seems to be where all the fandom/writerly people who used to hang around here a lot have gone, aaaaaand while Tumblr actually seems to be a good community-breeding place for fanfic writers (despite its awful formatting in this regard), it's probably the least secure and trustworthy place you could imagine for this kind of back-and-forth on original work.

[myaru]

I used to have a friend I wrote with back in high school and early college; we did the same thing. Worked on those stories for years, too, even though they never got anywhere in the professional sense. It was nice to be able to talk to someone about what I was writing at any given time (especially in math class).

So, how does Tumblr provide community? Because I know how LJ made me feel connected (by friends lists and long comment threads like this), but it doesn't seem like Tumblr does that-- not the second one, the way I'm used to. But I also haven't spent too much time there.

I would definitely not post any original work there, haha. I still think of it as fanart rip-off territory, even though I know it has become much more. (And that was just a first impression. Which, y'know, lasts forever.)

[windy_castle]

Oh, trust me, fanart rip-off territory is just as bad as ever, especially among the Fire Emblem community. I will say that people are generally good about sourcing, at least. But source or not, the images are still reposted from Pixiv without permission. And it's not a matter of people just being unaware that it's a problem - they KNOW many Japanese fanartists have major issue with it; they just don't care, or they make weak excuses for themselves. It's really annoying. At this point though, only one or two people I follow there still do this, and rarely, so thankfully it's not something I have to see too often. Then again I've isolated myself from fandom for the most part by now, so there's that too. But yeah, being careful about who you follow, and being willing to unfollow people who are flat out inconsiderate in this and other regards, goes a long way in minimizing the obnoxiousness factor of your dashboard, haha.

Tumblr is good at fostering community in the sense that it makes it easy to get attention for your posts, and to have them spread around over a wide audience fairly quickly. Having upwards of hundreds or thousands of followers on your blog is pretty easy to do, and out of those hundreds or thousands, at least a few of those will want to talk to you, or respond when you talk to them.

As an example, I don't know if you know Manna, but within a couple of months she's amassed thousands of followers just by writing and posting Shingeki no Kyojin fanfiction. She's really heavily involved in the fandom now, and has met a lot of cool people through it. She hit gold with that the particular segment of that fandom she's been immersing herself in is particularly laid-back and good-natured, so she definitely has a strong, supportive community there now that all bandies around art and writing together. She could probably give you a better sense of how Tumblr creative communities work, haha.

I have a really tight and good circle of friends there and I like Tumblr for that reason, but I wouldn't call it a community since most of them don't know or talk to each other, and the people I'm close with there are people I know from real life, very old internet buddies from deviantART or Livejournal, or just scattered people I arbitrarily struck up conversations with. For me that's Tumblr's strong point; I feel like it's a lot easier there to have nice friendships with a lot of different kinds of people, without feeling as clique-ish as LJ sometimes can or did. Although, like I said earlier, it's not hard to have a close-knit friend-group, too! Fandoms make this a LOT easier, though, if that's what you're gunning for.

[queenlua]

whenever one of y'all talk about what LJ was like back in the day i get nostalgic for a thing i was never actually a part of, what's up with that :P

[myaru]

If it helps, the community I remember may bear no resemblance to what actually existed. :P

[mark_asphodel]

"Yes, I do have that cliche fear that someone will rip off my work. I'm not the only one."

Reason #1 I have only discussed original work in the vaguest of vague terms beyond a teaser posted to NaNo back in the day. And yeah, I don't care if it's a reasonable fear or not.

[myaru]

I've been told again and again that it's silly, because what I write is not, in fact, so good that someone will rip it off. But we have to believe in the quality of our work, or else we won't feel motivated to keep trying, right?

Besides, it happens to people once in a while. Often enough to keep me paranoid.