This Is Why I Vid...

[sisabet]

Cause fanfiction is hard, yo.

Maybe I have been inspired by all the great fics that are coming out lately or maybe I am doing everything humanly possible to avoid working on "Essence"- but this morning I had a very nice little snippet of S/A in my head. I liked it and it did not suck (well - not a lot)- it was quiet and fit in my Lethal Weaponverse and I decided I would come home tonight and write it. I mean, I can write, right? I'm not gifted and a natural, but I am fairly well-spoken and I can express myself. And this morning the story was so clear.

*bangs head on keyboard*

I'm sleepy. And hungry. And the boy just called and I forgot to pick him up. And download Angel. I'll be back later. Something must get done tonight. I need to produce, dammit.

Comments

[sparkledark.livejournal.com]

Eep! I would love to see you write some S/A. That would be way cool.

And, holy crap, vidding is so much harder! I can't even begin to grasp it.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I think I am much more of a "show-er" then a "tell-er." My prose? Seriously purple and then I forget where I was going with my train of thought and I just can't keep it linear. I think I'll just continue to vid and watch my own little shows in my head. I had this great scene though - it was very angsty - and maybe I can spill it out later. My ability to write at all may be compromised by a completely sapping day at work.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could start to carry a little tape recorder around with you so you could record your ideas as they come to you. I can just see you ducking into the supply closet at the office to dictate some Lethal Weaponverse angst to yourself.

Re:

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

And it speaks volumes about my reputation at work that no one would blink twice if I did this.

Tape Recorders: A Cautionary Tale

[luminosity]

I gild the purple lily when I try to write anything. My prose isn't even really purple--it's Ultraviolet. I thought I'd carry around a little recorder in my more hopeful days, but I always had the ideas in the doctor's office, or the grocery store, or in the movies. Believe me, chirping into a recorder about Duncan slurping his way up Methos' face while jerking him off? Not a good way to make points at the teller window.

No really.

Re: Tape Recorders: A Cautionary Tale

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Well, if I was your teller, I would understand.

Re: Tape Recorders: A Cautionary Tale

[luminosity]

But would you cash a check? That's the big question, right?

Re: Tape Recorders: A Cautionary Tale

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

If it ensured I got to hear the end of the Duncan/Methos story - hell yeah!

[circe-tigana.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see some fic out of you, lady! Get writing! ::cracks whip::

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Yeeoch! I'll try, I'll try... hehee. Later.

[drdawn.livejournal.com]

Crap. What time did you pick him up? Didn't y9u notice he wasn't home--I told you last night.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I thought he was playing outside. I picked him up at 6:35. He is fine. I fed him and he gets to watch "Wanda At Large" later so he is all good.

[xanphibian.livejournal.com]

You know, I used to think that vidding was easy. Now... not so much. Well, sticking a bunch of clips together and putting it to music is easy. Heh.. now I'm working. Lately, I'm finding writing fic to be the easiest of the two. Still not EASY but... ugh. Does the vidding ever get easier? I mean, like if you have more experience? Cause right now I'm so frickin' stressed over it, and it's driving me crazy. *sob*

But if I ever actually have a finished product, it is SO gonna rock. Or.. not. (what if I put all this work into it and it STILL sucks ass? *whimper*)

Um.. this seems like it's not so much a reply to your post and more... something else. Or it *is* a reply. I'm replying. Feel free to delete this.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Really vidding is hard - but I know what I am doing. It is something that I can do and even though I struggle with every vid, I can see noticible improvement. I feel inspired and zoned. I don't feel that way while writing. I can never get past the first few paragraphs.

And don't worry about your reply, I understand where you are right now (been there meself) and I have a strict "no delete" policy.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh...it's so sad that you forgot the boy. I used to hate it when my parents forgot to pick me up at that age. Especially when I didn't have a quarter to call home because I'd spent any pocket change I'd filched from the top of my parents' dresser on sour apple Now and Laters and watermelon Jolly Ranchers. My god, if he had to use a pay phone, the boy might have needed $0.50! (Remember when we were little and pay phones only cost a dime?)

I support your fic writing, especially in the Lethal Weaponverse, because you're a dear, lovely woman (and the Lethal Weapon stuff cracks me up). But you are obviously flummoxed because you should be working on "Essence." There's no avoiding it. The Spuffy will haunt you wherever you go until you purge it from your very soul. Vid! Vid! Purge! Purge! If you would like to take your frustration with the Spuffy out on me by bitching at me about the content of my comments, you should feel free to do so. I'm signing on to AIM specially from work this evening just in case. Because I'm all about you, babe. And, okay, really I'm just goofing off like hell because work is slow. La la la...back to reading LJ and/or thinking about Birds of Prey vid songs (because that's how vapid I feel)...

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

My mom always forgot me - I used to wait for hours to be picked up - I remember how horrible it was and I felt terrible - luckily we live about 4 minutes from the school so it wasn't totally bad. Plus I fed him immediately - hence distracting from the traumatic experience. Much like taking the dog to the park after leaving the Vet's office.

"Essence" needs to be spewed forth like so much Spuffy..um...spew. I will hunt you down tonight. As soon as I can bear to watch the thing again that is.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Fast food? Yeah, that would be a decent distraction for a kid. You're a good aunt.

[heresluck]

...fanfiction is hard, yo.

No kidding. Last summer I tried, very briefly, to develop a couple of fic ideas out of sheer frustration at the lack of new Buffy eps. It was a terrible, terrible mistake that will not be repeated. Vidding is frequently difficult and often maddening, but at least I know what I'm doing.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I just want to add a resounding "Hell Yeah" to that.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

But your Willow and Giles interaction moved me. And your resentful Dawn rang true. I don't want anything to distract you from vidding, but I'm just sayin'...

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Oh, but yeah, fanfiction is hard. Yo to that. You won't see me going there.

[rliz.livejournal.com]

Oh! And I had thought the

> In addition to all of which, I sort of tend to trust the writers about this stuff. They know
> the characters better than I do. That's one of the reasons I don't write fanfic.

in this essay (http://webpages.charter.net/heresluck/musings/asyouwere.htm) was a snark at the expense of fic. Like, ficcers think they know better than Joss; I don't presume that, I just vid.

Huh. I was nursing this whole vague resentment. I wrote an essay, in my head, about the difference between fic and vidding as two different kinds of fan texts, with different ways of exerting a kind of unauthorized ownership over the original text; and how since vidding uses actual clips from the show it might seem like it's less of a willfully fan thing than fic is (and therefore more of a mainstream thing than fic is)-- but that's not true, vidding really still does its own large share of imposing fan-decided meaning onto the original text, in a way that's subtler, and possibly even more ownership-stealing (exactly because it uses *actual clips from the show*), than fic. But. Hm. Okay.

[heresluck]

The snark that you're picking up on wasn't aimed at fic; it was aimed at the people who, after "As You Were," were wringing their hands and wailing nonsense like "Character assassination!!! Doug Petrie has betrayed us!!! My darling Spikey-wikey would never DO such a terrible thing!!!" Many of whom, as far as I can tell, don't write fanfic at all (for which the rest of us should surely be grateful).

Some ficcers *do* seem to think they know better than Joss. (And, hey, that's not always bad; the best fic I read in TXF *did* know better than Chris Carter, which, admittedly, isn't difficult.) But the fic I most enjoyed, during my very brief fic-reading stint, was the stuff that made me feel like I was watching the show -- like the writer loved the characters and had paid careful attention to them and was trying to present them in a way that was true to the show.

You're quite right that vids "impose fan-decided meaning" on the show, but the range of ways in which they can do this are necessarily more limited than the ways in which fic can do it. Vids, for the most part, are readings or interpretations of the show; fic is also an extension of the show, or a way of filling in the blanks the show leaves. (I think an argument could be made that Sisabet's "Closer" falls more into the latter category than the former, but I think we can all agree that "Closer" is a very unusual vid.)

My point about why I don't write fic was, in fact, entirely unironic and not meant as snarky. The kind of fic that I like requires (among other things) an ability to plot, an ability to represent a wide range of character voices (whether dialogue or POV), and an ability to get inside characters enough to make their motivations and actions believable and compelling (i.e. knowing them from the inside, not just their surface features). I can't do any of those things in a sustained way (although I have a great deal of respect for the people who *can* do them). The fact that I can't write good fic myself certainly doesn't mean that other people can't, or shouldn't; I'm sorry to have made a comment that could be interpreted that way.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

was aimed at the people who, after "As You Were," were wringing their hands and wailing nonsense like "Character assassination!!! Doug Petrie has betrayed us!!! My darling Spikey-wikey would never DO such a terrible thing!!!" Many of whom, as far as I can tell, don't write fanfic at all (for which the rest of us should surely be grateful).

And now you are treading on one of my big issues of this show - not exactly the show, but this particular fandom. IMO, it goes beyond "I don't care for this particular storyline" because nearly all of the discontent expressed about the show on any level is by the rabid Spike fans - the ones that hate Xander on principal (cause he hit their sweet baby, that bastard!)consider Buffy a bitch and like Anya cause she fucked him. The same people who want to throw themselves off a bridge after a Spike-lite episode. Uh - I remember season 3 when I was all about Angel and the B/A romance was the backbone of the show, there would be whole episodes where he was in a tiny scene or not present at all. The show was still good - that storyline just didn't advance much that week.

Damn I am late for work - I think I will abandon this train of thought, but I might pick it up again soon. I feel a rant coming on. I also have a Xander rant stored up close to my heart and since Dawn is tired of hearing me rail on his behalf, I might just type it up and post it.

Oh wait - my point is - I can't read shit written by that kind of fan. I have to feel like it is the show - or there are a lot of original novels out there I still haven' touched. I read fanfiction for the characters - not to support someone's agenda. I have been preached at enough in my life, thank you very much.

[beamer242.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Sisabet and fic... where's the well fic? Hmmm?

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Oh God Beamer - you and Miss M. The Well fic is well... well you read it. You betaed it fer gawdsakes! I really don't think I can impose it upon the world and really - what would be the point? It isn't even redeemed by smut.

Re:

[beamer242.livejournal.com]

tsk tsk tsk.

But it was good... and I'm not just saying that because you're my fiancee.

Re:

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Awww... you are like Xander reading Spike's novel! This is so sweet. *Sniff* I need a collar.

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

I am jealous that Beamer and Miss M have read your well fic and I haven't. How is this fair?