9 questions with beekeepercain
This week: beekeepercain (who’s @waxdolljared for October) talks exploring characters; serious writer’s block and the benefits of NaNoWriMo.
ASS: What do you most enjoy about writing fanfiction?
beekeepercain: Character exploration. I’m curious about different scenarios, mostly in a psychological sense; if I put these people into this situation, what will happen? How will they react to the situation, and how will it affect their relationships to each other? When I write, I feel more like an observer than someone in charge of the situation. I mostly just let the story take whatever course it will and avoid planning altogether. I like to give the story its start and then let the rest develop spontaneously.
I get so immersed in the story that it really feels like I’m watching it happen in real time, and that’s what I love the best about writing. Just being there for the magic.
What aspects of writing do you find difficult when you write fanfiction?
I’m not very good with the big picture. My writing centers on the characters and it’s very subjective, so whenever I try to attach the story to a plot of some kind that happens outside the relationship, I start stumbling a lot. I also have a fairly limited life experience myself, so writing anything about jobs or school or things that involve the government, the law, the... anything, really. If it has anything to do with everyday life, I probably don’t know how to handle it.
I feel like this sums me up as a person. Unicorns, wendigos, mermaids? Handling psychological damage, wound care, getting lost in the woods? No worries. But give me a situation where I need to understand what IDs or credentials you need for a job, how money/taxes work, how hospitals operate or what insurance even means, or how the police work, and I’ve got nothing for you. Sorry.
Have you ever received hateful comments on your fic and how do you deal with it?
No. Never. But unfortunately, I’m highly vulnerable to all negative feedback - yep, especially concrit. Ironically I think I’d handle “your fic is shit, please kill yourself” better than a piece of well-meaning critique. As a content creator, my perfectionism has me locked in a choke hold; any further confirmation that everyone can see my failures as clearly as I can feels like I’ve completely failed as a human being.
Fun times.
Luckily, mostly people are very accepting of the fact that I’m not perfect - my work isn’t very popular, but I’ve got this core gang who seems to consistently enjoy what I put out, and I feel safe sharing my work with them knowing they’re happy with it and familiar with my shortcomings. I know they accept and love my work the way it is, which is a big morale booster and encourages me to keep trying my best.
I’d feel much more comfortable with critique if I was paid to work to someone else’s standards, but this is something I do out of passion, and my work is very personal for me - and so is my journey as a writer. It feels invasive to have someone else insert themselves in that process, especially without invitation.
Conversely: what’s been some of your favorite feedback on your fanfic?
Sometimes, I get these comments that are honestly longer than the fic that inspired them. I’m always amazed by these - and I mean, who wouldn’t be? But a great comment isn’t really about the length. What really warms my heart as a writer is hearing what in my work resonated with the reader. Sometimes I hear that my fic was in some ways cathartic or comforting for the reader, that I put into words something they couldn’t, a feeling or an experience, and made them feel less alone - that’s the highest compliment I could imagine. Generally, just hearing what touched the reader or if my fic made them think is what I really love in a comment.
How do you handle writer’s block?
I once had a two years long writer’s block. I couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t get anything written. After that, I got really scared it’d happen again, that I’d suddenly lose my most important tool in understanding and processing the world around me, but it’s slowly gone away with time and I don’t think it’ll happen again. These days, if I don’t feel like writing, I simply won’t write and I refuse to worry about it. The stories will come. They always come. There’s a right time and place for every fic and if it never happens, then it wasn’t meant to be. I use the time I don’t feel like writing to gently cultivate the ideas that I have - I never have a period of time when I don’t have an idea to cultivate. Some of them eventually blossom into inspiration, and when that happens, I often push through in a single sitting... that can last up to a month - trust me, I’ve known months when I wake up to write and go to bed to plan my tomorrow’s 12 hours long writing session. Been there, done that.
Part of it is also the fear of a situational writer’s block: often, if I don’t hammer the fic through while it’s still hot, it simply withers away.
Which Supernatural fanfic of yours are you most proud of and why?
I’m currently in love with my newest child, Sea Story. It was a very unique write for me, being a horror story, but I enjoyed it and I’m very happy with the way it turned out. It got me well creeped out while I was writing it despite the fact that I was always in control of it : I was writing it one night when something in my room made a sudden noise, and it quite honestly gave me the scare of my life. I jumped up and my heart raced like mad for a long time afterwards.
Another story I’m honestly proud of is my Mockumentary!verse. I've managed to dig really deep into the thinnest layer of source material with that one, and really created a world within it. I love both Jensen, my insecure main character, and Jared, his deeply disturbed tormentor, for the damaged people they are, and every chapter written into that world has made them more real and dear to me.
What/who has had the biggest influence on your writing?
I’d be lying if I didn’t say fandom. While I started writing as a literal toddler - my mom used to make me these small blank books that I then filled with a story I drew in, since I still couldn’t write for a long time - I really got into it with fanfiction. I began by writing self-inserts in the Harry Potter fandom on a tween book club forum around the age of 9-10; it was trendy to open a thread where everyone could come and create a character for your story, whom you then would insert into the world and write as one of the main characters. After that, I got into bandom at 11 and... yep, found the NC-17 gay porn. And started writing it. I failed a school writing assignment at the age of 12 because I wrote about two men having coffees together after a one night stand; apparently that was an inappropriate subject for our age group. From that bandom I moved into my weeaboo bandom phase, and kept writing heavily through my teens for seven years. So yep, as a writer (and a person, honestly), fandom raised me.
My biggest writing influence has definitely been J. K. Rowling, given that Harry Potters are probably the only book I’ve ever read. No, honestly; I can’t remember more than maybe six other books that I’ve read, out of hundreds, but I’ve read Potters through for tens of times each. I feel like more than I follow other authors for influence, I draw from visual experiences such as movies, or from real life. I’m definitely more of a writer than I am a reader.
What are you currently working on?
Nothing. I have around five open projects, but no driving force pushing me for any of them. This means that I tend to produce a lot of spur of the moment oneshots that I drop on my blogs on Tumblr, and sometimes upload on AO3 if they “earn their place” amongst my “real” fics. The qualifications for a “real” fic are a little vague.
I should be working on a minibang, but I don’t know if I’ll manage to push through for the deadline. I just can’t seem to figure out a story I want to tell for it.
If you could give one piece of advice to a new and/or struggling writer, what would it be?
For a new writer: concentrate on writing what you feel, what inspires you, regardless of what other people say or what you feel like they want you to write. There’s nothing more important than passion when it comes to creation. You have the tools to be a god: this is your world. You’re in control. Have fun with it. Go crazy. Create solely because you can. There’s nothing more therapeutic than that.
For a struggling one, I have no other words than NaNoWriMo*. Do it. Just. Do it. NaNo is what got me out of my two years long writer’s block and taught me to write long stories. Before I started participating and torturing myself with it, my longest story was 20 000 words and I felt like that was a marathon achievement that I’d never be able to repeat. It took me multiple years to achieve, too. I failed my first NaNo miserably, but it sparked some specific madness inside me that never died since: next year, I blasted through with blood and sweat, hating every moment, but I finished. Just barely, but I finished. And then I went on to write a 60 000 story in a single week afterwards, and felt for years that I’m unble to write anything shorter than, say, 19 000 words. I’ve never published or showed anyone a single one of my NaNo stories because they are truly dreadful, but there’s no better bootcamp to really improve yourself as a writer than doing NaNoWriMo.
You learn to love the pain.
*dreamsfromthebunker: NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, it’s open to people from around the world, and it’s running in November.
Here be awesome:
Tumblr: beekepercain or @waxdolljared (for October) AO3: Chakatai
