To Fic or Not to Fic?
What has Star Trek fandom — and ficcing specifically — meant to you?
The Twelve Trials of Triskellion bring forth a number of prompts for our blogging purposes. The first prompt poses a straightforward question at the nub of so much of what we do here. Despite being a straightforward question, it isn’t so straightforward to answer really. It requires a little moment to ponder on the question and consider my answer. The Trek fandom in and of itself means little to me.
:gasp: 😯 :horror:
The little corner of the fandom that is Ad Astra, however, that now means an awful, awful lot to me. It means squillions and millions. Ad Astra is a little sanctuary. A little safe place. In terms of comradeship and friends and fellow writers with a shared interest in that yet produces so many different takes and opinions and approaches to that shared interest.
When the archive first started up, little perhaps did we understand just what kind of awesome corner we becoming a part of. From being the first submission on the site (A Question of Survival – challenge version) to later one of the first members (third actual I think) of the forum, I like to think I’ve been a part of this particular community. Mind, I never expected to get bumped up to a mod and then later Admin (I’m very good at shuffling paper – but sssh, I don’t know what the paper does!). All of that stemmed from Steff going off on holidays and wanting a caretaker. Thankfully, myself and Anna Amuse didn’t blow the place up in Steff’s absence and things went on from there.
I’m not one for going to Cons and getting dressed up in my Trek costume. Firstly, there’s little opportunity to do that here. Secondly, the interest in Trek was first and foremost the stories they told via the TV or through the movies. Thirdly, I think if I went to a Con I’d probably get hooked on, so opting not to is way cheaper in the long run! As I say though, my interest has always been the stories. Trek offered an immediate and easy step into science fiction adventure. With each incarnation of Trek, I checked it out to see how it would pan out and to check out the different take it would have on the Trek universe.
However, I’m not one to get caught up in the debate or fanwars. I like to read different debates and discussions, such as on TrekBBS, but I’m put off by people with views that simply do not take into account others equally valid opinions. Perhaps this is why I love and appreciate Ad Astra because it has much more of a community feel. I know such a community feels exists in other corners of the fandom but I’m just cosy in this particular corner. Here we can have discussions and debates and even if they should get passionate and strong we can bounce back from them and remain as friends and a community. It helps that we have that particular shared interest in the fandom, the want to write within it and to read the stories of others. That binds us together.
[pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”38%”]What it means is this: everyone – even Kirk – needs people around them. Together is better.[/pullquote]
The community of ficcing we have here is great. There’s always room for improvement of course. We all need to read and review more. We all need to write more. And as this week has demonstrated, we all need to blog more. Of course, being the people we are, we know more quantity does not mean more quality and the standards shared by folk on these boards are such that that is a primary concern.
Nevertheless, we have to strive to keep pushing our interactions because boys this place is awesome when we are sharing and collaborating with one another. Some of the most valuable feedback to be found is here among our members and many lessons to be learned as a writer. I’ve written before on fanficcing learning curves. And yes, as others have stated, here we have found friends, good friends. A lot of us have had some really rough years but this place and the people have been there for us in lots of different ways.
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