Do you ever cry over your own old fic?

[rabidsamfan]

I mean, things you haven't looked at practically since you posted them, and you read them and all of a sudden you're having to blink back tears?

I've been moving some things to AO3 that I'd posted elsewhere, and I just caught myself feeling like I'd been punched in the gut. Funnily enough, my drabbles and things seldom do that to me, although my readers accuse me of that sort of thing fairly often.

It's like discovering you can tickle yourself or something. My brain came up with that?

Hmm.




[Poll #1775923]

Comments

[dreamflower]

I like re-reading my old fics. If it has been long enough since I first posted, they seem almost like re-reading someone else's stories instead of my own. A few of them will almost always make me tear up, and just take out the "No" in "No, but I giggle at it, sometimes." because if it was supposed to be funny I will still giggle. In fact, I have more stories I giggle at than get weepy over.

[shirebound]

I not embarrassed to admit that love re-reading my old fics. There are definitely parts of some of them (some endings in particular) that bring me to tears, which makes me very happy.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

I cry over my new fic, too -- some categories I write that way deliberately. If the completed draft of a story about consent issues doesn't make me cry that means I haven't written it truly enough and I need to start over

I recently reread my "Rosie's Year" and cried over it, which was very satisfying.

[goldvermilion87.livejournal.com]

I have laughed out loud at old humorous fic. It's embarrassing, but my justification is, if it doesn't make me laugh, how could it possibly make anyone else laugh?

I THINK I may have cried over my own fic once or twice, but I don't write much crying stuff...

[i-o-r-h-a-e-l.livejournal.com]

Not old fics because I think I cried twice when I wrote two of my fics. :)

[telperion1.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment and then my thoughts got long, so I turned it into a blog post:

http://telperion1.dreamwidth.org/3036.html

[tinx_r]

I love rereading my fic. If I ever find I don't, I guess I'll stop writing :)

And I regularly cry *while* writing my stories, and there's one or two that catch me if I come upon them after a break or all unexpected-like :)

[gaffer42.livejournal.com]

Perhaps cry that I seem to have lost the touch. Or perhaps because nothing has really compelled me to write the way some shows did once. Perhaps cry for lost youth...though I was almost as old as I am now when I wrote what I consider my best work. Monday mornings make me maudlin, sorry about that, but sometimes looking at what I was capable of makes me depressed at how what I've been working on is coming out. Probably why I haven't posted anything in forever.

On the plus side if I want a good fic I always look for your name, rabidsamfan. And a funny aside, my first car was a 76 yellow VW Bug that I named Sam. Faithful and funny. Seemed to fit.

[elaby.livejournal.com]

The only fic that I can recall having written that's sad enough would be "The Molesey Mystery," and I still remember writing every word of it, so I ticked the last one :) I hope someday to have the same experience as you, though!

[love-bug-54.livejournal.com]

Other: If I cry, it's because I wish I'd written it better!

But as a friend pointed out to me, "Don't re-write what you've done; just look at it as showing the evolution of your writing." That makes me feel better. A little. :-/

[only-po.livejournal.com]

I'll reread some of my stuff if it's been awhile. I don't recall getting weepy but I know exactly what you mean when you said, "My brain came up with that?" Sometimes I'll reread my own words and think, "wow, that's . . . that's actually GOOD!"

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Giggling is good. I generally do giggle at things I wanted to be funny, too, because I liked the joke the first time too.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Yay for those of us who write for ourselves! I like rereading my stories, I just don't expect them to surprise me!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

There have been a few things which had me crying as I typed. Not often, but sometimes. It's rare though. Usually a story just has an inevitability that I can't argue with. It's not a twist if you see it coming!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I think if you can't laugh at your own stuff you weren't writing it right. (At least if you wanted it to be funny.)

Although, to be honest, sometimes I laugh at my very old fics because they're so delightfully bad.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

*nod* Some fics demand an emotional response just to get typed!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Writing is like anything else. If you stop doing it, the muscles atrophy. Go for drabbles or short fics for a while, just setting scenes, or writing pure dialogue as writing exercises. That's what I do when I get in a rut!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I never cry at my old fics for being bad. I still love them, even when my fourteen year old self is shining through. (Yes, even the Mary Sues.) It's like reading a book I haven't read since grade school. Part of my brain still knows that it's hokey, but the rest of me is happy at seeing an old friend.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the way I feel. The day I stop liking what I write is the day I stop writing. But darn it all, how can it surprise me when I wrote it?

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Look forward to it! (Even if it is a bit disconcerting...)

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Aw *pats onna head*

We do get better. And half the fun of reading old fics for me is finding the gems of wordplay that are often there. They shine even brighter when surrounded by the fumbling bits.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Yes! Or "how on earth did I see that?" It's like looking in a mirror and seeing someone else!

[goldvermilion87.livejournal.com]

Haha! Yes, I have PLENTY of those. I wrote a lot of stories in High School... and well... I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. My sister and I found some of them (I keep everything) and she was reading them out loud and we were crying we were laughing so hard.

[arcsupport.livejournal.com]

I wrote a fic-start that makes me cry now because I can't remember where I was going with it. Also because it's... it seems too good to have been written by *me.* Which sounds braggish, and I don't mean that at all. I mean it's breaking my HEART because I try to append new words to make the ficlet grow and it just... lies there limply and... gurgles at me.

Inadequately hidden tickybox was quickly discovered.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

My stories never seem to plunge into the deep end of angst... at least not deep enough to bring me to tears. I do re-read some of them from time to time and can be surprised by a clever turn of phrase, or when I think I finally 'got it right'. (However, there is one piece that makes me giggle-snort whenever I read it.)

Mostly, my earlier work makes me wish my inspiration would come back. My blocks have now formed a wall. *sigh*