I wrote short stories when I first started writing. Short stories were the way you started your writing career, back in the days when manuscripts were printed in Courier New, on paper, and mailed with an International Reply Coupon so you had a reason to haunt your mailbox.

I did that for six years. I didn't produce a lot of them. I would write a story and work on it for months. I would flense the narrative right off the structure and rebuild, trying to get it right.

the pressure I put on myself to produce only worthy stories made me sick.

I couldn't just be good. I had to be perfect. the mildest critique was proof that I was an incompetent and I had written a bad story. I was so ashamed of myself for failing, again, to write a story that would be bought in five subs or less at an SFWA qualifying market.

yeah.

It was pretty bad. I don't know how many people who knew me at the time knew how bad. But six years in I finally faced the truth--I was never going to be any good at this, and trying to be good at it was really, really bad for my health.

So I quit.

cue the interlude where I finally got into therapy and this time it stuck. I did a little bit of writing with some friends on a group project, but honestly it was pretty stressful still and I wasn't ready. It took eight years before I was.

And when I began again, it was fic.

Fic was fun. All the pressure was off. There were no awards to win; no critics to impress. No one gave a crap about anything but enjoying their time as a reader or a writer.

So I was free to do two things:

write about whatever I enjoyed

and tell as long a story as I felt like.

fanfic is the reason why I'm a writer now. light and fluffy AU contemporary romance fics with beloved TV ships are the reason why I am a novelist now. It wasn't the junior league training wheels sandbox on my way to real literature.

Fic taught me the value of joy.

Self-torment wasn't the path to art. Writing what made me mad, what I thought was cool, what I just plain out loved-that was the path to art. It's not the social or moral value that makes the book sing for me. it's the ability to confront and escape simultaneously.

fic did that.