There's plenty of fanfic that creates original characters. Just ask Theo, who's practically a legend in X-Men fandom.There's plenty of fanfic that creates original characters. Just ask Theo, who's practically a legend in X-Men fandom.

I'm joking, for the most part. I've written a fair amount of it myself. And no, writing it has nothing to do with writing well or otherwise. Hell, Neil Gaiman's up for a Hugo for what amounts to the same thing. (Sherlock Holmes in the world of H.P. Lovecraft!)

That being said, I've never sat down to write one of these things without the full knowledge that I'm playing with other people's toys, and sometimes that takes a wee bit of pressure off. And adds different sorts of pleasure.

ETA: Huh. Meant to say "adds different sort of pressure," but pleasure works too.

I managed to make a Live Journal entry. (I'm gingerk. I have no imagination for pseudonyms.) Yay, me. I keep thinking that doing a LJ would be another way to keep me writing, although today it would be another way to keep me not writing about energy-efficient patio doors. Now on to this "friend" thing.

Place drabble #2:

They take the ropes down twice a year. Without them, the hands, touching, touching, might wear stone slabs to fragile columns, in a hundred, a thousand, years. Without them, scratched and inked names, dates, love forever, might whittle the supports until the lintels fell, startling the sheep. A touch, a name, might connect you. You might feel the sweat of tattooed men, straining to push the stone upright. Your love might last forever, captured on the rock. They take the ropes down twice a year. You step inside the circle and watch the sun flare between two stones and disappear.

Oooh -- Stonehenge? Very nice!

I friended you, Ginger. I'm arliss.

And I love the Stonehenge piece.

Okay, I just realized that always in forever in my head? It's Stone'enge, courtesy of Spinal Tap.

Yes, Stonehenge. I was there for the winter solstice once, when the ropes were down.

See, I was thinking "Most famous of all the henges," from Eddie Izzard.

Lovely drabble, Ginger.

You step inside the circle and watch the sun flare between two stones and disappear

I was at Newgrange seven (ack!) years ago, when they still allowed visitors inside the central chamber. When the lights went off I could feel the hair rise on the back of my neck.

Very good, Ginger! I'm Ro-Astarte on LJ.

victor, see d) -- which is about owning the characters and thus covers your point.

(Given the number of original fic authors who can't keep characterization and background straight between volumes of their own original series I'm not exactly sure it is 'easier' to write fanfic at all.)

My inaugeral piece

My father is here. I have a sister here, too. Grandparents, great-grandparents. On the hillside on the other side of the stream are dozens of cousins, great aunts and uncles.

Three hundred years ago they came to these dark, folded hills. Maybe they planted the aged trees they now rest under. Apparently this land looks like the one they left behind in England. Bob-whites and whipoorwills are the loudest sounds in the hollows between the hills; on the hot muggy nights of summer, the crickets drown out everything, and the fireflies glimmer among the leaves.

When I come back, I come back for the land.