015. Smoking


"What are you on....?" I leaned forward closer to the screen. "Seriously, what are you smoking...VaderIsMyDensity96?"

"Honey, what are you doing?"

I jumped. I'd been so involved in the website, I'd forgotten that Lorrie was at home. In fact she was standing in the doorway.

"Oh...just...webpages," I answered vaguely, it seemed silly to admit I was looking for fiction to do with my own books, not to mention conceited as Hell. "The internet's really something," I added rather lamely.

"Hmmm," Lorraine murmured distractedly and headed off down the hallway again.

I decided I was safe for now, so I went back to the website, aptly named Fanfiction.net.

Hard as it was to believe there was actually a whole section devoted to my work. It was completely crazy...

Most of it was on A Match Made in Space, which wasn't such a surprise, it was my favourite one, I’d worked on that for almost half my life.

I couldn't quite decide though, whether to be flattered other people had loved it so much they wanted to continue the tale, or horrified by some of the places they took it.

VaderIsMyDensity96 was a good example, what possessed him or her to have Douglas dump Julie for Vader? That missed the entire point! Not to mention how crappy the writing was.

But some of them were pretty good, going places I never would have thought to take the story, but keeping it all believable. Which was strange in itself, I mean I'd created these characters, sort of (I had some real life inspiration), and now it was like they had a life of their own.

Sometimes I thought about actually posting a review to the good ones, but immediately thought better of it. As if they’d believe I was the actual author! Plus I think there was some unwritten rule about creators not looking at fan works in case they ended up stealing an idea or something.

I did wonder sometimes, what these people thought of me, and who they even were. It was weird, I'd never really thought about creators of the works I'd write about (although it wasn’t called fan fiction in those days, I think it was called stealing, which I thought was pretty unfair). Of course back then it wasn’t like they were ever going to read what I wrote and wonder “What the Hell?”

The most I’d ever been able to find out about what these writer’s thought of me was one disclaimer about how if I’d written it I would have made sure to have a better author’s photo on the book jacket.

Yeah, well, I’ll admit the jacket photo wasn’t going to win any awards, but the publisher had insisted on it (why, is still a mystery).

I wondered if any of these people had ever shown up at a book signing, but I suppose even if the head they wouldn’t say anything about it, I know if I ever met Ivan Tors or Ray Bradbury I hardly would have come right out and said. "Guys! I love your work! I love it so much I’ve written about it myself!" No, that would be embarrassing.

Especially if my stuff was equivalent to VaderIsMyDensity96. Really, whatever they were smoking, they really should stop…


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