Fiction, meta, LJ, and beer

[prillalar]

A few people's comments on Sides made me start thinking -- or rather start thinking again -- about Harry's various nemeses. And I began planning out an essay about that to post in LJ.

But then I started wondering: would it be better to think it out and post it and maybe engage in convo about it OR to just let it simmer and maybe talk with a friend or two and eventually have it turn itself into fic?

I suppose I could do both, but I like to husband my ideas and keep them close until they're written out. And I fear both loss of impact on others and loss of interest for myself.

So then it got all meta in my brain. I'd been concerned that LJ would make me write less fic because of timesuck. But maybe it will make me write less because of ideasuck.

Does this at all match up with your own experience? Do you work out your ideas about shows/books/characters in essays now where you would have dealt with it in fiction? Or does it make it richer for you, more likely to become fic than it would have otherwise?

Certainly, other people's discussions have sparked ideas in my head. But I struggle with sharing my own thoughts because I fear that once they're out, they'll be gone and I won't be able to use them any more.

This had nothing whatsoever to do with beer, except that I am now going to go drink some.

Comments

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

I think I'm having the opposite experience as you are -- having a place to work out ideas about characters and themes and such makes me realize I actually *have* these ideas, and can therefore put them into my fic, whereas before there wasn't much intellectual structure to my stories (not like they're rife with it now *g*). I'm not sure it would have occurred to me to think in such an in-depth manner about characters (requiring foot-noted essays, etc) without blogs.

But then, that's me -- not so much with the original thought, I guess. *g*

.m

[prillalar]

Maybe I'm just being, well, I'm not sure paranoid is quite the right word, but something close to it. :)