thisbluespirit: (Default)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit
21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

A good question, because I'm not entirely sure. I think it probably must be the long Six, Peri and Mary Sue fic, but I can't swear to it that I didn't actually post something else first. It is still up on the net, via the Internet Archive and alt.drwho.creative, because I started in newsgroup days and alt.drwho.creative stuff dies only slowly and you can't take it down, but it's pretty bad and under my real name, so I'm not providing a link.


I poked alt.drwho.creative to check, and it's a bit hard to be certain - it seems a bit of an odd way to start fic-writing - but it looks as if that might not have been the first thing:

I had this cunning idea that I could begin a story and other people could continue it and so on. (A round robin, but I'd never heard of a round robin until after I posted it.) The thing is, newsnet groups weren't like the modern internet and messages appeared at different times to different people, and sometimes not at all to other people, so the continuation got rather sprawling, but it was entertaining as it imploded down different trouser legs of a newsnet octopus, anyway.

After that, Becky Dowgiert started the first moderated Round Robin of what became the Internet Adventures, so sometimes as a result, I like to claim that I started the whole thing. (It's important to note that nobody else ever agreed with my claim, and these days barely anybody even remembers the Internet Adventures, but, hey, they were good days. Most of the time.)

Date: 13 Mar 2018 07:35 pm (UTC)
arcanetrivia: a light purple swirl on a darker purple background (Default)
From: [personal profile] arcanetrivia
different trouser legs of a newsnet octopus

XD

I'd take Usenet over Facebook any day.

Date: 13 Mar 2018 09:45 pm (UTC)
jhall1: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jhall1
I agree. Facebook seems to be set up for social networking, and you can't really have a proper discussion there. Though Dreamwidth and Livejournal are pretty good for that.

I've been on the Net since 1994, and it's true that in the early days there could be problems with newsgroup messages not propagating in a timely fashion. But that was pretty much sorted by the late 1990s as Net connectivity improved, and that was several years before Web forums came to dominate.

I still follow a few newsgroups that remain active. It's convenient to be able to download messages for all the groups that I'm interested in in one go, whereas I have to visit individually each Web forum that I follow.

Date: 14 Mar 2018 02:43 pm (UTC)
liadt: by <user name=semyaza> (Book eyeballs)
From: [personal profile] liadt
The stuff you want preserved on the net tends to be the pages that disappear! All my fics are on AO3: there are some benefits to being a late starter.

Date: 15 Mar 2018 03:08 pm (UTC)
liadt: Samurai Sanjuro smiling (Sci-fi artwork)
From: [personal profile] liadt
I often think of AO3 going down too - the joy of technology!

Date: 15 Mar 2018 06:59 am (UTC)
scripsi: (Default)
From: [personal profile] scripsi
Oh, now when I think of it, my first fanfic was actually a round robin! But we never called it fanfic. We write Harriet vane's detective novel Death Twixt Wind and Water which she writes in Sayer's Gaudy Night. I had totally forgotten that- it must have been in 2000, or so. And I checked- it's still online!

Date: 15 Mar 2018 08:56 am (UTC)
scripsi: (Default)
From: [personal profile] scripsi
It was great fun! I don't know if I dare re-read my chapter, though. It was the first time I wrote prose in English! And someone also made an amazing cover in a 30's style, but that one doesn't seem to be online anymore.

Date: 19 Mar 2018 12:11 am (UTC)
swordznsorcery: (tardis)
From: [personal profile] swordznsorcery
Are you counting fanfic just as online stuff, or did you not write anything fannish in the pre-internet days? Writing seems so much a part of you, it seems a little odd that you might not have been writing long before.

Date: 19 Mar 2018 03:05 pm (UTC)
swordznsorcery: (methos)
From: [personal profile] swordznsorcery
Cool! Did you keep any of them? Not that I would be asking you to put them online, but sometimes such things can be interesting to look back on. Or mortifying. Or possibly both!

Date: 20 Mar 2018 12:41 am (UTC)
swordznsorcery: (Default)
From: [personal profile] swordznsorcery
I meant all of it really. It's great that you have some record, possibly even of the stories you used to tell your sister (although yes, teenage diaries. Ouch!) It can be useful to see how you've developed as a writer.

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