“There Is Nothing to Writing. All You Do Is Sit Down at a Typerwriter and Bleed.” -- EH

Two days ago, the only story I have on Mibba turned three.

It’s still woefully incomplete, in its death throes if I’m being honest - as it has been before, unsurprisingly. To make matters worse, the day after I put out the latest chapter (is it really “latest” if it was five months ago?), AA announced Danny Worsnop was leaving the band. That seemed like a good enough excuse to finally let the story go, and I was entering my final semester at uni, anyway, having been utterly battered by the semester before, and so I let it sit.

I haven’t always been able to justify that story to myself, or any fanfiction story I’ve ever written. I mean, those characters aren’t fully mine, or anyone’s for that matter - they’re people, real life people, and sometimes I get the nagging sense that I’m doing them dirty. Misrepresenting them. I dunno. It never helped, either, that Too Dead for Dreaming was (and is) relatively unknown, alone in the vast sea of really rad AU fanfics. It almost doesn’t fit in.

And yet, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. About the Danny in my story, the Ben, the Sam, those characters that are real and yet not, because I’ve written them in my own words (and borrowed words, too. I don’t know how many times I’ve read The Dirt and The Heroin Diaries, alongside the Irvine Welsh novels that originally sparked my ideas). I’ve thought about the other characters that are actually mine but happen to inhabit this strange world I didn’t exactly create. When I started writing Too Dead for Dreaming, I didn’t have a set plan, no plot graph that neatly told me where I was going. I was just writing because a friend wanted me to tell her a story and so I started. The title, even, was meant to be temporary, and I suppose it still is, but it’s stuck for now, like an insect in amber.

I don’t really have a plot graph now, though it’s been three years. It’s not how I write - and it’s not a part of a process, either, in that way where people can go, oh, I let my story flow, I let my characters direct me. My characters are a mess, they don’t know where the fuck they’re going either. I’m just incredibly disorganised and can never hold it together long enough to put things to paper or digital ink, sometimes.

I miss my characters, though. I miss my writing. It’s not the greatest, but it’s mine, and the people who seem to like it have always pepped me up to write more. It doesn’t matter that it’s unknown or that even this post is going to be unread. I’m screaming into the abyss and whether or not it screams back is not exactly my concern. I’m going to try to keep writing it. Let it bleed out of me a la Hemingway. I’m going to try to shed this weird worry I have over writing fanfic, as if fanfics didn’t get published as actual books (like, there’s published Shakespeare fanfic. I think we’re in good company, us fanfic writers).

And, honestly? I need to finish this goddamn story so I can get it out of me while I still can.

Here’s to future chapters of my baby.

B.