Snowflake Challenge 5: What Has Improved
Jan. 9th, 2025 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithSnowflake Challenge 5
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Fandom can be a highly meaningful experience for many! We'd love to hear about how being part of a fandom has helped your life change for the better. Have you made any cherished memories or connections? Does fandom bring you joy? Tell us about the ways that fandom has helped you.
The first thing that improved was social connection: finding actual friends, events that I enjoyed, and a culture where I fit reasonably well. Before then I had friendly acquaintances, events that were tolerably okay, and places good for avoiding other people. It was odd and startling to discover that there were contexts where people would like me, with people I actually liked in return, that had really fun things to do, and that were much more relaxed than the mainstream. I still have some fannish friends, but no longer the facetime events or culture -- mundania has taken over, alas, so it's no longer worth going out of my way for. I do still have some online venues and events, though, so that's still an improvement.
Another has been my writing. I got better education from workshops at conventions where I could talk with working authors and get my writing critiqued, than I did in classes that repeated stuff I already knew. I had vast amounts of fanfic that I could mine for ideas to load into my original canons -- tons of information about what people loved so much that they would write their own. Torn World came along at exactly the right moment for me to learn shared world skills with friends, which is good, because once the Poetry Fishbowl got going on serial poetry then a bunch of my fans wanted to write in my settings. Sadly Torn World isn't open anymore, but it was glorious while it lasted. And I've amassed an audience of tremendously smart and skilled readers. One time somebody corrected the Google-translated modern Greek into the Classic Attic Greek that was appropriate to the context I'd written. <3
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Fandom can be a highly meaningful experience for many! We'd love to hear about how being part of a fandom has helped your life change for the better. Have you made any cherished memories or connections? Does fandom bring you joy? Tell us about the ways that fandom has helped you.
The first thing that improved was social connection: finding actual friends, events that I enjoyed, and a culture where I fit reasonably well. Before then I had friendly acquaintances, events that were tolerably okay, and places good for avoiding other people. It was odd and startling to discover that there were contexts where people would like me, with people I actually liked in return, that had really fun things to do, and that were much more relaxed than the mainstream. I still have some fannish friends, but no longer the facetime events or culture -- mundania has taken over, alas, so it's no longer worth going out of my way for. I do still have some online venues and events, though, so that's still an improvement.
Another has been my writing. I got better education from workshops at conventions where I could talk with working authors and get my writing critiqued, than I did in classes that repeated stuff I already knew. I had vast amounts of fanfic that I could mine for ideas to load into my original canons -- tons of information about what people loved so much that they would write their own. Torn World came along at exactly the right moment for me to learn shared world skills with friends, which is good, because once the Poetry Fishbowl got going on serial poetry then a bunch of my fans wanted to write in my settings. Sadly Torn World isn't open anymore, but it was glorious while it lasted. And I've amassed an audience of tremendously smart and skilled readers. One time somebody corrected the Google-translated modern Greek into the Classic Attic Greek that was appropriate to the context I'd written. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-09 08:39 pm (UTC)Go for it!
Date: 2025-01-09 08:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-09 10:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-09 10:38 pm (UTC)I wanted to be a science fiction writer when I grew up. But every time I tried to write a book, but I never made it past four pages. I just ran out of ideas. And then I discovered that where I'm living now was a mile or so from a big old mansion on the shore where a whole commune of SF writers lived back in the day. And as a radio engineer I worked on Long John Nebel's all-night talk show, and whenever Long John needed guests, he's phone the folks in that house and invite them to be on the air that night. And I got to chat with a couple of them. But that was twenty years ago.
So I was at least vaguely familiar with the fandom world.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-10 01:55 am (UTC)omg. i love that so much!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-10 04:50 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2025-01-10 05:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-10 06:52 am (UTC)