(no subject)

[shadowkat]

I don't know why this is but some inexplicable reason I can't write today. Had to do a free hand writing sample for an interview and my words just got stuck. They would not come.
Did it again tonight with an lj entry. Did not any sense when I read it again.

Does this happen to you? The words just get stuck somehow. They won't come out.
Perhaps I'm tired?

Oh...has anyone heard of Allyson Beatrice? Or Buffistas? (The board group she moderated and ran?)

She apparently wrote a book entitled, I kid you not, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby: Adventures in Cult Fandom

And yes, if you guessed it was about Buffy fans, you guessed right.

Sigh. She beat me to it. Although from reading the excerpts in Entertainment Weekly, she's had far more bizarre experiences and done far crazier things than I have. So, I doubt I'd have gotten published. Plus Tim Minear encouraged her to write it. Can't beat that.

I'm not a fan. I just flirted at being a fan. A fan is someone who stalks follows (and I mean literally not just watching them on tv or reading stuff on the net) actors, writers, creators of the series about. And writes them. Emails them. That is a fan.
Me? I just happened to be a little obsessed by the show.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if you are going to write a book about fans then it helps to have attended a lot of conventions so you've actually seen them up close and personal. Tom (Andrew on Buffy) Lenk did a wonderful one man (more or less, since he had 'guests' on stage w/him) play about his experiences as the semi famous/non-headliner.
But that is not to say that you couldn't write a brilliant book about your experiences of fandom online.... In fact I always thought you could just compile your essays into a book and they would sell at fan events!

Anyway Neil Gaiman was talking about 'writers' block' today, and he would be proud of you for saying you were stuck. Because he doesn't believe in the whole concept of being blocked (particularly when most who say that can write long letters or blogs about the whole being blocked experience). He recommends writing something else (he usually has at least two different novels/comic book treatments and/or screenplays going at once), but he does say that it doesn't hurt to take a walk or something when you are stuck. But for a writer it is good to be writing. So you getting this entry written is probably a good sign....

Interestingly at the DC comics talent search (just searching for artists, not writers) they said that artists should be drawing all the time, to keep the hand eye thing going, to improve, and because if one ever does get a job drawing one will have to draw ALL THE TIME, and it would be good to be used to it!

Fans

[hankat.livejournal.com]

Hey you could write something about the cult of Spike...;)

I loved the show as you know but did I want to meet any of the writers or actors...not really. I was always confounded over the ways fans found to abuse each other when they didn't agree on something to do with the show. I was lucky enough to find a small community of fans that didn't 'hit the looney button (a beasty phrase) when the show didn't go their way. I still remember back to an e-mail I wrote to David Fury about his issue with fans and Spike. I remember basically writing to say Spike and Angel weren't much different to each other (when it comes to suitability to be with a young girl)when it comes to backgrounds. I pointed out that if people were angry about what he was saying about the Spike character he had to remember that the writers did kinda send fans in one direction only to get cold feet and make serial killer comparisons. My contention was about the misuse of the word serial killer as a label for a supernatural being and that if Spike was a serial killer then hadn't they noticed they wrote a whole show around a 'serial killer' in the form of Angel. I noticed a change in attitude when the Spike character joined the Angel show. Those were the days I was so glad I wasn't a shipper type and suffer the negative feelings some did when their characters outcome wasn't to their liking.

I loved your essays and the fact you were willing to see the good and bad in each character. When a character becomes too perfect people no longer are interested in the overall character development.

Long live Miss Kitty and Groofus!!!!!!!!!!!!


Rufus

[minim_calibre]

::waves hand from that corner of fandom, which has some crossover with your corner::

(Herself used to post with the Buffistas back in S6, for example, and I met her first in person at Buffista event. We over there have all kinds of fans.)

To clarify, Allyson's a community member of long standing, but B.org has no mods. We're modless. Which is like beltless, in a way. Only more of a pain in the ass, in the way that any community-run co-op is a pain in the ass.