Why I stopped writing TNG Fanfic, and why I've returned.
In 2018 during NaNoWriMo, I decided I wanted to write an epic TNG fic in celebration of my 40th birthday in 2019. And I did. I published the story over the 40 weeks before my birthday in 2019 and it was a success along with the other long and short stories I wrote. 2019 was pretty much the peak of my TNG writing, with over 250 TNG fics under my belt in 2 years. I was gearing up to get myself an agent to make a pitch to the folks at Shuster & Shuster to write my own TNG tie-in novel. It was amazing. It was incredible...and then the walls crashed down.
The announcement of Star Trek Picard had everyone excited. We wrote speculative fic based off the tiny snippets and 30 second trailers, we wrote tags for existing TNG novels, we continued to speculate about the direction Picard would take....and then the bombshell was dropped that actually, the TNG post-series novels we enjoyed and the world those authors had created (the world that I often played in!) was not going to be considered canon. No Beverly/Jean-Luc marriage. No child. None of it. It all went POOF and was ending in an epic three-parter written by some of my favourite authors/friends to then make way for Picard tie-in novels instead. My idea(s) for any TNG novels were now completely up the spout. (And no, I still haven't read the 3 books. I own them, but I don't want the series to be over)
The first Picard tie-in novel I didn't even finish reading and I haven't read any of them since. It abruptly ended the friendship between Beverly and Jean-Luc, let alone any possible romance between the two of them. IMHO, the situation should have been dealt with better.
I was lucky enough to attend the premier of Picard with my friend John in London. I liked it, and I even had a few ideas for adding Beverly onto episode tags. (the series is unfinished)
Then, the pandemic hit and with it, my ENTIRE love for Star Trek TNG. What was once a comfort watch for me didn't appeal. I would stare at the curser, looking at my unfinished works and just trying, barely, to keep it together, to hold on and to keep writing in my world.
It didn't work. I'll get into the other reasons in a minute. Instead, I found myself falling into the Snupin fandom for Harry Potter and writing small bits here and there. I wasn't as prolific as I had been writing TNG. but I was still writing something.
Another reason I became a bit distant with the franchise has to do with the fandom at large. Or rather, a few individuals in the fandom.
The first was a man who I became friends with through my fanfic. He enjoyed my writing and wanted to help me and while I DON'T DO COLLABS, I found myself pushed into collabs with him. He would add bits to my stories (which I've mostly edited out), ask me to write bits for his (which I have and am working on editing to republish as my own), and at one point became so influential over my writing that I was writing a character I didn't even want to write anymore to appease him. The relationship on my end was nothing more than friendship, and I assumed it was on his too. I'll never know if he expected more (even though he knew I was quite happily married) because I finally gained enough of a backbone to cut him out of my life, and to remove anything he and I had co-written. (this is where I've lost about 5 stories because I apparently didn't have them saved anywhere)
The second reason has to do with one of the semi-local clubs. I hadn't attended one of their meetings in several years (and of course, the pandemic cancelled I think 2 of theirs), but because I had made ONE comment in my other local club regarding organizing a get together (for our club!), it got blown out of proportion by the organizers of the other club who then accused me of trying to...I don't know...take over? It was weird and I didn't really understand any of it, but the long and short of it was that I lost a few friends through it and our localish club has pretty much broken up.
The UK has also struggled in recent years (since about 2018) to actually hold a UK trek convention. Without seeing my trek friends all in once place, it felt like I was out here on my own trying to keep my nose in the fandom.
And so, as I said above, I stopped writing.
But why am I back?
Honestly...I don't know. I was clearing through and trying to organise my files when I came across a 68-page document containing an unpublished colab with the above man. I want to edit it and make it my own. I also found bits and pieces I had written for him for HIS works that he has since removed that I think I can make work. Then I found the recent tid-bit, or rather, piece of a story idea. And through looking in my files, I found i had vague outlines for 3 stories within one of my series, and I found my TNG fic notebooks that still have loads of unwritten ideas.
So I'm back. Ish. Will I be as prolific as I once was? Time will tell. But I'm older and I have other responsibilities. I also want to try to pull a EJ whatever her name is and try to edit one of my fics into a publishable story (though I haven't decided which one yet!)
Thanks for all your support.
