You know, as I plan out my new plot bunny for a fic, I find myself horrified at the thoughts that come out of my mind. I mean, this is gonna be one fucked up and twisted fic.

But...that's not really new for me. I'm killing off characters left and right in Murphy's Law, despite the fact that I tend to avoid fics with character death. And in Influence of Demons, I made Buffy a prostitute! Seriously. If I were reading fics, just that concept alone would cause me to back out unless the fic seemed unbelievably compelling (and I don't think of my stuff as that compelling).

So I guess I don't write fics that I'd like to read. Which is very odd. I mean, my ideal fic is a long epic with low angst, a good plot, and a happy ending. If I can get some domestic Spuffy in there, I'm a happy chica.

But I end up writing stuff that is so completely and totally wrong and just not something I'd ordinarily read, and that makes me think I'm a very strange person.

Not only that, but I find myself oddly embarrassed by some of what I end up writing. Because that means showing people that I can think of some pretty bizarre stuff. Which shouldn't be too surprising for anybody, but still.



It's kinda like when I wrote my Spuffy smutfic (the real one, not the crack!fic). It made me a little nervous because I thought people might think I was using Buffy as a stand-in for myself and that the whole thing was just me fantasizing having sex with Spike. And while I'm happy to fess up to the fact that, yes, I have a sex life, I don't feel at all inclined to expound on the details of what I like/have done/would like to do with partners.

Which is dumb, and I doubt people actually think that. I mean, hell, I read lots of smutfics and I don't think that about the authors. But it's a little different when I'm actually writing it because...um...I do have to think about my own experiences just so I can write about how certain things feel and such. So, in a way, it is a bit of exposing myself, even if I'm not actually making the character into me.

And I didn't have this issue with the sex scenes in Influence, because those were so dark and unerotic (to me) that it seemed pretty damn obvious that that was all Buffy and Spike. But Loser Takes All was fluffy and happy and could have taken place between two humans so...

So when writing my smutfic, I felt like I was exposing myself and it made me uncomfortable (though...I got over it). And when writing the darkfics I tend to write, I also feel like I'm exposing myself. Just a different part of myself. You know, the kinda scary dark thoughts part of myself. And that still makes me raise an eyebrow as I'm going through my outlines and think, "Really, gabs? You're gonna write that?"

/insecure writer whining



Oh, sidenote, let me just say that I am totally psyched that my Spandrew drabble, Cardboard Memorial, got nommed at the Fang Fetish Awards. It's really one of my favorite popcorn fics I've written (popcorn fics = drabbles. my term). Thanks to whoever nominated it, and good luck to all the peeps up for awards there (kudagirl, angearia, deird1, stormwreath, snowpuppies, shapinglight, pfeifferpack, and everybody else that got nommed but I failed to mention)!