stripytights

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts

I always find this one particularly difficult - much the same as with present lists and stuff in general. Talking about things you want is much harder than talking about the things you'd like to give. But after a lot of thought, it came down to this.

1. Is it a cliche to say art? Absolutely, but it doesn't make it less true. Then I remember that I tend towards very unvisual scenarios in my fic and I'm not really surprised. Description isn't my forte - maybe something else to work on in the coming year?
2. Fic talk. I appreciate people who beta for me more than I can say, but sometimes I'd like to thrash out a fic in an early stage and talk it through in a way that can be very self/fic-centred, and I find that hard to ask for.
3. Recs done by other people. I freely admit that I can be really lazy in catching up with all the things I know I'll love, and external reminders can be very handy.

4. And then after all that Victorian swooning over asking for three things, I'm going to include a fourth, because I'd like 2016 to be a year of change. I really want to improve as a writer, and fix all of the things I know are wrong with my work. I don't need much help figuring out what my problems are, but I do need help identifying how to fix them. So concrit and a friendly word of where I go wrong or what I can do to fix it - well that would mean more than I could say.

I did this one, commented on several things that I'd been meaning to. I'm not great at actively friending people though, mostly because I feel very shy about putting myself out there. It makes no sense because I love it when other people introduce themselves to me.

Day 5: In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm saving this one for a separate post and also because it'll take more time than the rest to marshal my thoughts and organise them into something coherent.

Day 6: In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I had a lot of options in mind for this one, some runners up included The Lord of the Rings (book), From the Other Riverbank by Dwimordene (fanfic), Supernatural (tv show) and Dog Day Afternoon (film.)

Eventually though I picked 'The Evil Cradling' by Brian Keenan for a lot of reasons (quick rundown: it's a memoir by one of the Beiruit hostages in the '80s). I first read it when I was pretty small, and I suspect it shaped a lot of the way I thought about the world in a way that still has an impact on me. It's a book that at its heart is about the good in people, not the bad, and while terrible things happened to the author, he overcame them all with a considerable amount of grace and humanity. It's about friendship and relying on someone else, and being there for someone else at the same time. It's also one of the only books that made me think twice about poetry as an art form, when it's not something I generally enjoy. Brian Keenan writes beautifully and I must have bought the book five or six times because I keep lending it to people and they keep being struck in exactly the same way, and never giving me the damn things back!