In response to the (gasp)
Great Discovery of Transformative Fiction by a Published Author (as published in The Guardian), the truly talented and inspiring
Rthstewart has instigated a challenge of self-promotion and self-recognition as a counterbalance to all that literary weight being thrown around.
As for That Guy, well hey. I too once thought I could write and publish a tie-in novel... just because I was a good writer and liked the series, so why wouldn’t The Powers That Be let me? I too even wrote the author asking permission (got a very kind, enlightening and encouraging letter back in response, btw). Granted, I was a freshman in high school at the time. I guess some of us just take longer to pick up on these things.
On to the main event! (Gosh, self-promotion is hard... little Midwestern me had a hard time with this exercise, lol.)
* * *
Syrena is a writer with a deadline.
By day, she writes copy for her clients — part ghostwriter, part chameleon, donning corporate voices like masks in a Greek play (whether comedy or tragedy, she is not prepared to say). She juggles dozens of projects and tells stories about dozens of industries, almost always with a deadline looming.
By night, she does much the same: juggling dozens of stories about dozens of worlds. Creating new content from behind another’s mask. Telling her own stories in another’s voice. And, yes, beating deadlines. The difference: this is for pleasure, not for pay. And it isn’t listed on her resume.
Syrena writes fanfiction. “I write stories about stories,” she explains. “It’s like building new stories on the scaffold of other stories. I take the worlds I love and live in them a while longer. So many of us grow up with this desire — who hasn’t wanted to play the hero in their favorite story? Who hasn’t vanquished villains in the basement or built kingdoms on the playground? But then we put those stories and imaginary friends away as we grow older, in response to societal pressure to act more grown up.” She shrugs, as if suddenly uncomfortable. “But I never liked putting my toys away. I always wanted to keep my Lego sets intact, so I could return the next day and pick up where today’s story left off.”
She has been writing fic (a term of affection for the phenomenon in online communities) since middle school, although she didn’t know it as such. “I fell in love with Star Wars, I read all the books, and I wanted to write my own. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t or shouldn’t.”
It also didn’t occur to her that anyone else would have the same hobby. “I discovered fanfic in high school. Read some, wrote a little — longhand — on the sly.” Syrena laughs. “I’m sure if I ever found those old notebooks, I’d be embarrassed by the prose and the tropes. But I was learning. By the time I came back to fanfic, years after college, I’d grown a lot as a writer.”
Syrena started posting in “baby steps,” as part of a 3-sentence ficathon hosted by her friend Ruth Stewart — and things snowballed from there. “Ruth is an instigator,” Syrena says with a grin. “She’s the one who gave me the push to start posting my fic, instead of leaving it moulder on my hard drive. In fact, she’s also the one who got me to do this interview.”
(In light of that statement, this reporter decided to omit several questions that were no longer relevant — hence a rather embarrassingly abrupt transition. Syrena appeared not to notice; she has been known to compare her thought process to a pinball machine, so perhaps it seemed logical to her.)
Does Syrena write original fiction also?
“Of course I do,” Syrena answers pleasantly enough, but there’s a warning look in her eye. “And thank you for not calling it
realwriting. It’s all
real writing. My WWII historical fiction mystery novel starring a character I invented is no more or less valid than my WWII historical fiction espionage novella starring Susan Pevensie of Narnia. I think the latter is, quite frankly, the best thing I’ve ever written. Fanfiction isn’t just practice writing. It is an art all its own.”
Syrena quickly warms to her theme. Brevity, as she had once warned, was not her strong point.
“Why is my Star Wars story any
less than any of the dozens of tie-in novels or comics or anthologies? Because I published it online instead of in print? For free instead of $7.99? Because I go by a screen-name instead of a pen-name?” (Syrena of the Lake, her full handle, may evoke the serenity of quiet shores, but it has its roots in the eldritch sirens of Greek mythology. This reporter takes the apparent contradiction under advisement.)
So... what about those deadlines?
“I don’t actually
like working under time pressure,” Syrena admits sheepishly. “Actually, it drives me nuts.”
This reporter is, by this point, a little confused. Why write more deadline-driven projects as a hobby?
“I like the exchanges,” Syrena explains. “I like the challenge of writing to a prompt, I like giving someone a gift that I can be pretty confident they’ll like, and I like the excitement of unwrapping my own gift in return.” Her eyes twinkle, unless that’s just the lamp reflecting off her glasses again. “And I like trying to guess who wrote my gift. Ruth Stewart and I gave traded treats back and forth. I’ve drawn her for a couple exchanges now — sheer luck — and she’s guessed right about me every time.” Syrena grins. “Apparently I have a tell.”
And the deadlines?
“Well, I get sidetracked... much like I have in this conversation. I have dozens of works in progress at all times. But however stressful it gets, I always meet my deadlines. It says something about me, I’m sure, that I have completed 23 stories as exchange gifts over the past 4 years... and not a single WIP on my own.”
Just how many stories does Syrena have waiting in the wings?
She blushes. (In a murmured aside, she tries blaming it on the rosacea, but her blatant avoidance of the question gives her away.)
“Lots,” she finally answers, a little defensively. “This year I hope to finish some of them, or at least make a little progress. And I’m stepping back from the exchanges for a while. I just have too many balls in the air, personally and professionally.” Heedless of what that will do to this article’s symmetric structure, she then reaffirms her resolve. “I don’t need any more deadlines, self-imposed or otherwise.”
Despite writing and publishing stories for free public consumption, on no one’s timeline but her own, Syrena seems to feel the need to justify her decision to slow down a little. “After all, there’s a reason I write fanfic in my free time instead of countless query letters or academic prose.
Publish or perish was never a motto I wanted to live by. I may not post frequently, or even regularly, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop writing fic.”
Why not?
Syrena smiles. “I may not be the most organized person, but even I’ve heard of Marie Kondo.” The connection isn’t obvious to this reporter, so Syrena draws the parallel to a deft close.
“It’s simple: I will never stop writing fic because it brings me joy.”
And there’s no time limit on that.
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