So I'm saving my old stuff from Geocities...

[zarahjoyce]

...geez, self. I'm getting a headache from the pile of crap I wrote years ago.

Dear Fic Writer from 10 Years Ago:

- Please stop writing song fics. Stories with the titles 'My Love' and 'From This Moment On' are annoying to see, let alone click and read.

- Stories should never be told in paragraph form. Spaces between dialogues are a very welcomed sight.

- Proper use of punctuations, tenses, contractions, and observance of subject-verb agreement please!

- Purple prose? Eew. No. Stay away from them!

- Drama? Eternal swearing of everlasting love? Yawn. Ugh.

On the other hand:

- Kudos to you writing because you have tons of ideas. Tons.

- More so for you're doing it because you love it and you like the hours you spend on writing and because you have no one to please but yourself. You write not to solicit reviews but because you find happiness in it. You steal minutes just to write! Your future self is quite envious of you because of this.

Comments

[vampirelissy14.livejournal.com]

*is amused* In all honesty, your ten-years-ago self sounds suspiciously familar. We all look back at our old stuff and cringe, it's quite normal. I mean, I wrote self-insert fic...I have a lot of demons in my writing closet XD

I still fall prey to the songfic thing, though. It's just that music inspires my writing so much...half the time it's a song in particular that inspires the fic (for instance "Dance, Dance" was indeed brought about thanks to the Fallout Boy song)

And writing for yourself is what has always drived me If *I* love my fics...then it's worth writing them. (and with my OTP I'm kind of alone in the Kamen Rider fandom so I'm pretty certain that, if all I wanted was praise...I wouldn't have written over 150 fics about ONE PAIRING to begin with)

[zarahjoyce.livejournal.com]

I think it was the introduction to ff.net that corrupted me. In all honesty I was really quite happy with writing and the putting it up in my website - which I'm sure no one visits anyway XD

[niav.livejournal.com]

I get embarrassed when I read old fic (by old I mean from like four or five years ago). D: It's so bad. It really freaks me out to think four years from now I'll look back on what I'm writing now and get embarrassed, too.

[zarahjoyce.livejournal.com]

Pshaw, I'm sure you won't! ♥

[slytherin-heart.livejournal.com]

Now I'm tempted to go back and read my old stuff that's posted on ff.n. Luckily, the really awful stuff was written before I even knew what fic was called, and has been lost for years and years (I'm talking, of course, about the obligatory American Transfer Student Sue in the HP fandom).

But really? Everyone cringes, worry not.

[zarahjoyce.livejournal.com]

Bwahahaha. Transfer Sue? In fairness I haven't written that. I did write the old Hermione-is-a-pureblood! fic. Ew XD

My earliest fics are still with me, written in old tattered notebooks. Also, in my native language! Hahaha.

[slytherin-heart.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever wrote fic about my crackpot theories (and oh yes, I had crackpot theories you wouldn't believe: Crookshanks is Lily and Hermione is Harry's half-sister are the two that come to mind first - but I did completely call the Snape ♥ Lily thing by GoF or so).

[zarahjoyce.livejournal.com]

O_o those are... mind-boggling. Dude. You're good!

I guess I was so wrapped up with D/Hr that I never really looked into the books that much? I dunno. I was reading the books for the sake of fandom and not the other way around XD XD

[zarahjoyce.livejournal.com]

Butbutbut it scored distinguished! Maybe your teacher thought it was good, at your age? XD

It's always fun to read old works.

[thegirlwriter.livejournal.com]

Header change?

More so for you're doing it because you love it and you like the hours you spend on writing and because you have no one to please but yourself. You write not to solicit reviews but because you find happiness in it.

*_* So true. That's how I got to the stage where I now have dozens of poems and five (still not finished!) novel-length stories on the go. Back in the day I used to be really in awe of this fanfic author until she told me she hated writing, she just enjoyed having finished something and getting reviews for it. Why would you write if you don't like writing?

[zarahjoyce.livejournal.com]

Can't resist. I needed to have something RF related XD Plus I thought that scene was adorable! Hehhehe.

Aww. So far I haven't gotten to the stage where I hate writing, but I find myself unmotivated to steal time and just do it... le sigh.

[purpletenshi.livejournal.com]

what's wrong with purple prose? hahaha.

[zarahjoyce.livejournal.com]

Lots of things! Bawal yun sa writing, masyadong maarte at masyadong maraming adjectives XD