#7th draft

is like going somewhere, but you don't know your destination, you don't know how you will get there, you don't know where you currently are, you don't know your name, your age, or if you are even human. You might be the only sentient creature in existence, but you just don't know. You have no memories and no idea what the world around you looks like, smells like, feels like, tastes like or how it works--what its rules are. But you have to figure it all out, while also showing what's going on, but only the interesting bits and using an appropriate tone and narrative voice, except you don't even know what the narrative voice is yet, or the journey.

I have to write a novel, usually more than once from scratch, before I know what the hell it's really about. Once I know I can go back and write it again properly. At least that's how the process works for me. I know it's very different for other writers. We talked a lot about that in grad school.

In fanfic you have a lot of that information as given. It's a different kind of playground and it's one that I love. I fucking adore fanfic and I do not think one sort of writing is better than the other, or that one is real writing and the other is not. Writing is writing. Story telling is story telling.