I'm a special case I guess.. It was in my early teens when I've realised I have a thing for guy on guy action - RL, fiction, as long as it has the gay I would come a-running (possibly pun intended). For some reason it just makes me so fucking happy, and I don't question what makes me happy (my therapist has some theories though, as well as some of my friends :P). Anyway, pretty quickly it turned into an obsessing, and everyone knew, and know. Friends, family, teachers and now uni professors and people at work. People know I love m/m before they meet me. And yup, it has many perks - many gay friends, gay friendly boyfriends and friends who fondle guys at social gatherings, to make me happy (though I like to think I'm just an excuse - gah!), and I got to meet a lot of wonderful people in gay rights activism (which I would partake in regardless). I've been reading m/m ff since I was 18. About a year ago my RL friend (who's in HP fandom) told me about this show, House, that's really good and supposedly slashy. I rented the first season DVD, saw the deleted cane grabbing scene, my jaw hit the floor and I was heaving through H/W!porn by nightfall. My point is - if you feel ashamed about it, people pick up on it and will treat it as something shameful. I say, be proud of it! FF is a wonderful, creative thing, and I would be very proud to have FF writers as my friends. Unless of course you want to keep it private for other reasons, and that's cool :)

RNwannabe wrote: Honey! Guess what new hobby I have, now? You know that show I like to watch, you know, that doctor show that is the first prime-time show I have regularly watched in the past twenty years? Well, not only do I make sure I am home to watch it every Tuesday (and when have I made a point of watching anything on TV?), but I also spend time at online boards talking with other people about this show. Oh, and I really enjoy spending hours reading fiction based on the characters in this show. I'm late to the conversation, but I think RNwannabe is writing the script for my own explanation to my family. The only people in real-life who know I write fanfiction are people I first met on-line in the House fandom. (It turned out that three of us lived reasonably close to each other, and we've gone out to dinner or events together and have become friends.) I'm not sure why I don't tell members of my family except that they might regard it as a foolish waste of time. They believed I would eventually become a published fiction author, but I'm shy and not very ambitious. I've known a few people who were published, and the pressure to produce is tremendous. That kind of writing is a business, but this is fun. I get to participate in a community of writers and I don't have to write on deadline unless I want to. Plus, it's incredibly intellectually stimulating. Who could ask for more?

I started out writing Quantum Leap fiction back when fan fiction was actually sent through the mail in publications called 'zines'. It was a lot of fun, and great practice working with a variety of editors. The feedback wasn't as immediate as it is now on the Internet but it was certainly there. We had an appreciative audience. I went on to write one of the pro QL novels, which was an amazing experience. But working on deadlines with a pro editor was not a huge leap (no pun intended) from writing for the zines. The end result was just more wide reaching. I never thought I'd be inspired enough to write fan-fic again. And then House came along...

I went on to write one of the pro QL novels, which was an amazing experience OT for the topic of House but on topic for the discussion of fan fics. Fawlty, which book. I jist finished boxing up my collection of Ql books for my move.

Apologies for the OT nature of the post. The book was Song and Dance.

The book was Song and Dance. Got it :) I wonder what percentage of House writers came from QL? My first ff was a QL fanfic for a class assignment. I didn't know there was a whole world of fic writers out there being this was before I knew about zines and in the days when a 4800 baud speed was a good day. I still write QL fic and one thing I have noticed in the QL fandom, the readers are more likely to call you on a break of canon, where House readers are more likely to call a writer out for making the characters to OOC.

More generally, to add to TC's question, how many folks only write Housefic & nothing else, versus coming from (or branching into) other fandoms?

I've only ever written QL and House (although my latest fic is a House/Medium crossover).

Outside of House, I've written two Stargate: Atlantis fics.

I come from a long line of fandoms--I'm serially monogamous, with a few one-night stands now and then. X-Files, Buffy, SGA, and now House are my biggies, but I've written in nearly thirty fandoms over the last eight years or so.

I started with House, and then picked up Doctor Who as well. Now, I'm working on a story for both (House is a post-House/Cam one where they are in couple's counseling per Wilson's and Cuddy's requests). It really helps to be able to analyze the characters in depth in a forum such as this one. If it weren't for this, I don't think I would have even attempted anything to begin with.

Mmm. I've written the following: House, X-Files, Lone Gunmen, Green Wing, West Wing, Sports Night, Harry Potter, Good Omens, Firefly, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and a couple of miscellaneous ficlets that involved Bollywood characters and once Hugh Grant. Yes. I am a fandom whore. In a couple of days I'll have probably written a piece for Veronica Mars as well.

I started writing fic forBuffy, later West Wing and a little bit of Harry Potter; but for the last year I've mainly been writing House, definitely my major fandom, and nearly half of those fics have been crossovers (with Firefly, Friends, X-Men, West Wing, Sports Night, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, and I'm currently working on a few more). I generally find it easier to ease my way into a fandom through a crossover.