Who in your life knows that you write fanfiction? Why did you choose to "come out" to that person/people? And finally, is there anyone who "found you out" as a fanfiction writer that you wish hadn't--and how did they find out? Okay, since I started this horse, i figured I'd better ride it a bit. If I had my druthers, only me, my sister, and my fanfic writing friends would know that I wrote fic. Not even my SO knows that I write fanfic, and it doesn't matter, because he doesn't read novels anyway. I have to agree with ignazwisdom, who said ...just because I'm so over the whole "fanfiction 101" spiel (that is, the explanation of what fanfiction is and why we write it, complete with requisite defensiveness and awkwardness, that has to be repeated every few months for each and every friend who knows). More than that, though, the reason is that if they knew, friends, family, and acquaintances in my age range would immediately assume that I was one of "those" who had a blueprint of the Starship Enterprise in my room. Unfortunately, through a set of circumstances, a young friend who works for me (and whom I met through fanfic writing) outed me to the people on my job. Whom I am the boss of. Ouch. It wasn't done with any malice; she's just so innocently proud of what she writes (and she should be) that it didn't occur to her NOT to talk about me and my writing as well. Anyway, here's one reaction i got when she outed me yet again on a social occasion: "Oh, do you guys write that tentacle sex stuff?" (Head, meet desk :oops: )

Who in your life knows that you write fanfiction? Mainly my parents and a few artistic-type friends know about this hobby. I've gotten away from it a bit, as it is too time consuming now - it doesn't mix with college and two jobs. As for writers, I believe sydedalus is one - she (I think she) is an english professor somewhere. Also, I have heard of a few people on ff.net and people who have come here who have written fiction of their own. I too have about half of a novel finished, but haven't had time to work on it (but the first ten chapters are up on my blog). I had actually gotten into fanfic because I wanted to practice writing prose as opposed to music, which I had originally studied. I found that fanfic was a good medium to work with as the characters are already defined and it gives you a place to work with everything else - including fitting specific things to the characters.

Oh this is going to come as a surprise to some, but I started writing on forums as a way of taking the mickey out of things. My first story was the Adhoc and Boozy Round Robin Adventures of Doctor Who - which between all the posters I think ended up being several hundred thousand words long, involved every single doctor (including Richard E Can't and Withnail) and Tegan (the nice air hostess from Australia) became an evil dominatrix with a leather fetish. Quite a bit of it was set in a bar. I suspect quite a bit of it might have been written in a bar. So you can see I got into writing for the noblest of reasons.

Who in your life knows that you write fanfiction? As a relative newbie I hesitate to respond, but as I've hit reply now - the answer is nobody. My SO knows I'm obsessed by House, hang out on forums too much, even read ff, but not write it. I think if he knew that it would tip the balance from 'able-to-indulge' to 'Are you NUTS?' I wonder if anyone else followed a similar pattern to me to get to this point? For me it was - Discover House and watch all eps - Read recaps & ep reviews to see if I was alone in my opinions - Start reading forums - beginning with episode threads, then discussion, then 'outhouse' stuff - Start looking at creative stuff, beginning with vids on YouTube - Then moving onto reading ff - And finally (having by now developed my own vision of H/W which I wanted to read more of) writing it. The one RL friend I have who is au fait with fanfic has told me that people typically move onto ff when they exhaust canon.

This is such a cool discussion :D Maybe I can act as a control for all you creative writer types? My RL job involves writing and editing - both my own stuff and other people's - and, yet, I've never felt the urge to write fanfiction. Love reading it, though.

I've mentioned my fic writing to a few people, but for the most part, my friends and family aren't really aware of the fandom world, so they'd just get confused if I told them. I've got an adult niece and nephew and their families who are aware of it, but they're all geeks and into fandom of various sorts, so it's all cool. In my professional life, no one really knows. Which is good -- and one reason why I try not to connect my real name with fic -- because in the real world I write about some major businesses, and the last thing I need is to try and wrangle a CEO interview, and have some flunky of theirs with a negative aspect toward fanfic interfere. And, minor advertisement warning: As for writers, I believe sydedalus is one - she (I think she) is an english professor somewhere. I'll be posting a profile/Q&A on sy over on housefic_meta in the next day or so, if anyone is interested.

I wonder if anyone else followed a similar pattern to me to get to this point? For me it was - Discover House and watch all eps - Read recaps & ep reviews to see if I was alone in my opinions - Start reading forums - beginning with episode threads, then discussion, then 'outhouse' stuff - Start looking at creative stuff, beginning with vids on YouTube - Then moving onto reading ff - And finally (having by now developed my own vision of H/W which I wanted to read more of) writing it. For me, it was an almost complete opposite! I'd been reading all these amazing Harry Potter epics by copperbadge, and couldn't get enough of his stuff. At the time, he was writing plenty of House fics, and I trusted his writing enough to look up who the characters were, and try one story out. The story was great, and the characters were intriguing. As it happened, The Mistake was on that night, so I actually got a feel for the characters on TV, and then I googled "House fanfic recs" and looked up my favorite authors from other fandoms to see if they'd written any House fics, and thus, a brand new obsession was born. It took me a good couple of months to catch up on all the episodes I hadn't seen, during which time I read a lot of fics. Only when I'd watched nearly all the episodes did I feel comfortable enough to try writing fanfic, and know that my characterizations were based on canon rather than fanon. At least, at first... :-)

I was trying to explain Doctor Scruffy to someone today and they were looking at me like I was mad. But personally I don't think there is much difference between fictional cartoon characters and politics anyway. However someone once said they actually got into House fandom through reading one ff story. I'm not saying which one - there are too many good ones. But talk about the Internet and word of mouth - one rec in someone's LJ, one story and bing a bam boom a new House fan - and Hugh Laurie becomes even more rich. Hence this is why I am trying to convince my client to get rid of those little wiggling sparkly squares and fix his website up before I stangle him with his Internet cable.

My first Housefic was written pretty soon after I got back from India, when I'd just gotten into House and was watching my friend's DVDs, so I was watching S1 and the middle of S2 simultaneously. It's funny because it was a House/Cuddy story when I thought I only shipped House/Wilson. But the first fanfic I wrote was for Star Wars, and that was back in 1999. I just couldn't get enough! The gaps between the movies (I'm talking Original Trilogy - Han and Luke and Leia) were significant enough that I just had to know what filled in the spaces in the story. Oh, man, I spent hours copying out dialogue so that I'd have it right later. I actually got into the X-Files fandom by reading fanfic and then watching the show. A friend had written some pieces and I was intrigued. Behold, the power of love (because we're sure not doing it for the money. :shock: )

I was trying to explain Doctor Scruffy to someone today and they were looking at me like I was mad. Sheep, you are mad, and that's why we love you! ;) I want to say that I discovered the House fandom the same way, but it was different. I fell in love with the theme song and wanted to transcribe/arrange it. Then, I found the other site and started reading the forum there. Soon, I was looking for transcripts and pre-ordering the S1 DVDs. Then, the fanfic, and then the writing of it. (For Doctor Who, it was the opposite - the board, the fic, the show, and now the classic.)

That's not me - that's Doctor Scruffy! Total nutter. But for me House literally sucked me in. I was writing an article one night and the Tied Up By String TV was going and I found I gradually started moving over towards it until I was a drooling/laughing mess (never seen Hugh with an American accent). But why I decided this was a good thing to write about... I don't know. I have a friend and they sit down and go: I'M GOING TO WRITE. I don't think it works like that. I reckon that sometimes you just have to write - kinky things about House and Wilson or whatever...

Y'know Nursie, that's something I hadn't thought about. I'm not very social, and I've no relationship experience. So other's feelings about the implications of my fondness for hawt mansex aren't an issue. As Cartman would say: "Whateva! I do what I want!" Most men probably do not want to find out their wives are fantasizing about other men during the sexing process. Might make them feel kind of downtrodden. Or they might really dig it and discover a new hobby and that might not be good. It's probably best to keep these interests to yourself.