The Fanfiction Life

For my birthday, I put together a trivia game about my life. As soon as I invited my loved ones to play, things got crazy. First Viola declared a determination to win, then Little Sister. They both asked me for study guides. I was gratified by their interest, amused by their competitiveness, and a little taken aback by the whole thing.

Baby Brother and I had a conversation about it along these lines:

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (to Baby Brother) Viola and Little Sister asked me for study guides for the game.

BABY BROTHER::I need a study guide!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (now completely taken aback) You don't need a study guide! You know me.

BABY BROTHER: (practically in tears) No, I don't! I don't know you!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Yes, you do!

BABY BROTHER: I know you, but I don't know stuff about you! What's your favorite color? I think it's blue, but I don't know!

And so on and so forth.

One trivia question was loosely related to fanfiction.

Yes, that's right.

I was a fanfiction writer.

I published a few fanfictions on fanfiction.net. Fanfiction.net is like self-publishing. Anyone can post anything they want there. Viola and I published a joint Harry Potter fanfiction there. I also posted half a Tokka fanfiction there.

The real prestige, though, came from publishing fanfictions on sites like mugglenet. mugglenet.com's fanfiction site is heavily moderated. Nothing gets posted there without the okay of a mugglenet employee. I submitted several fanfictions but only ever published one. I still remember the comments from the moderator who okayed my humor fanfiction. She said that my writing was "bubbly and effervescent" and that my style reminded her of Lemony Snicket.

Please note that at mugglenet, you only had to be 13 to publish a fanfiction. The moderator had no idea how old I was. Nor did she have any clue of my educational background or lack thereof. My work was judged solely on my writing skills. It was a proud day that mugglenet finally published one of the five or six fanfictions I'd submitted to the site. I published seven of eight chapters of the fic on the site. Unfortunately, I got severe writer's block for chapter eight and didn't update the fic for about a year. Right around that time, the site made a rule that unfinished fanfictions that hadn't been updated for over a year would start getting deleted. All seven chapters of my fic, the 300+ reviews, and the many, many views all disappeared in the blink of an eye.

It was a sad day.

I'm not much for fanfiction anymore, although occasionally I will still read a good Harry Potter or Avatar the Last Airbender one. However, I do see a lot of value in fanfiction, especially for amateur writers. It's great to practice your writing skills using previously established worlds and characters.