I've been into fan fiction for well over ten years -- take of that what you will. As a teen, I read a lot of Star Wars fics (oh Luke and Han, just get it over with and kiss already!) Then I moved on to anime (GW and FMA, in particular). Something about the Gundam Wing Internet fandom in the early 2000's caught my fancy.
Was I obsessed? A little. I don't care. I was also in love.
Now, I wrote before I tried my hand at fan fic. I wrote really terrible wannabe literature that sucked donkey balls. I was young, and it was bad. Really, really bad. We shall never speak of it again.
But Gundam Wing opened up my imagination and made me want to tell a story about these wonderful, complex characters. So I did. I wrote a romance (2/4, if you must know. I'm not going to explain the number jargon), and people liked my story. I got several reviews. Cool. I could do that.
So I wrote some more -- built up a fan base and won some awards.
200,000 words later I had two full length novel fan fics. Several novellas and several more shorts. That's a lot of words.
The thing about fan fiction that's different from most other kinds of writing is the instant feedback from your fans. If they liked something, they reviewed it or emailed me for more. I learned how to build a story, write myself into (and out of) corners and how to write believable dialogue -- all by using someone else's characters and world. But most of all it gave me the confidence I needed to pursue my own non-fan fic writing.
If I could write a 60,000 word novel about GW characters, why not my own characters? I realized I could.
Not only that, but fan fic introduced me to genre writing, romance and gay fiction. Funny how things come full circle, huh?
Without the boost I got from fan fiction, I wouldn't be where I am today -- you know, an awesome full-time writer.
So, thank you G-boys for all your wonderful help.
And I suppose Ed and Roy helped a little too. (It was way too hard to find a pic of these two not kissing!)
