Discussion You Know You're a Fan Fiction Writer When...

YKYAFFWW:

* You'd rather spend the better part of a free afternoon at home working up spreadsheets to make a central "encyclopedia" for your various fanfic projects; while everyone else goes out to finish up the holiday shopping

* You use MP3 playlists to build "soundtracks" for your fics.

* Every time you come up with a new character name for a [original-fic] short-story you think "Hey, that's make a great name for a character in my fic!"

YKYAFFWW...

You spend an entire day organising all the files that contain downloaded fics, your own fics and stubs of story ideas.

You realise that this thread is nearly 7 years old, and you're still adding to it. (Even more so if you can remember the days when it was under 10 pages long)

...when you continue to start new stories every time a plot bunny strikes, even if you already have 10 stories going.

...when you think a day is wasted when you don't write any fanfic.

Oh Ubersue! You made my day!

.....you're cellphone's ringtone is The Imperial March.
.....you and your dad refer to cellphones as 'comlinks'
.....you carry around a flashdisk with all your stories on it, afraid to let the stories out of your sight.
.....you play a stupid make-believe game with your little brother, then pause and think, "Hey, this would make a funny story!"
.....you and your sister spend hours sitting at the computer, looking up Star Wars photos with funny captions.

...You see weird names in the phone book and have already pegged background characters for those names.

YKYAFFWW...

...you study Chinese and are delighted when you learn new words not because they are new words that might help you understand the language better but because you are ever coming closer to being able to write a fic in Chinese

...you search through the entire of youtube trying to find soundtracks that would give your fanfic a certain sort of musical background

...when you can (after searching youtube) combine your fanfiction and said soundtracks to a scarily-real movie in your head

Or see street names as your drive past and know instantly which planet your 'new' character is from. This generally happens before I realize that I've created a character with backstory and before I've driven more than a block away. And I haven't written fic in years.

you see names in the archives or get new colleagues and use those names in your fanfic

...when you name an OC after a favorite fic author from New Zealand whom you've never met but made you laugh uproariously on numerous occasions.

When you have an important paper due in two days, and instead of working on it, you are writing fanfic. And while writing said fanfic, you are listening to one song on repeat for almost two hours straight to get the pacing and mood just right.

When you go out and get a silly battle book for the purpose of updating Wookieepedia articles with character weights and realize, after a cursory read-through, that you have a book full of thirty fan fics just waiting to be written!

...you seriously consider trying to write a chapter of fanfic from your iPod touch because you forgot your netbook

...you only talk yourself out of this because you found paper and a pencil so you can draw fanart relating to your fanfic

...you wonder why your iPod wants to autocorrect fanart to canary

You're considering broaching the subject of moving in together with your significant other, and what makes you most nervous is that you're going to have to tell him about your fan fiction.

...you slice your finger open while cooking dinner, and your thoughts beyond "OW" are not "hope none of the blood is in the food" or "I really hope this isn't deep, I don't want to go get stitches" or "stupid knife, I hate you too"... instead, you go OH NO, I WAS GOING TO WRITE FANFIC TONIGHT!

You're sitting in the emergency room wishing you had the foresight to bring your notebook, as the wait time would be perfect to work on your fanfic.

...when you end up purusing the Uniform Code of Military Justice trying to make sense of something.

When you accidentally use SW swear words in the real world and you have to explain to someone what you meant.

When you realise you have nothing to eat because you were writing fanfiction instead of making lunch.

...When you viciously defend your idle and oftentimes silly hobby as being legitimate practice for any future foray into the literary field, even though you staunchly oppose ever doing so anyway.

...When, while reading writing books, you add notations in the margins that pertain to your fanfiction.

...When you wonder how you can transpose some occurrence in your everyday life into an exciting (or dramatic) scene in your fanfiction.

...When you keep a notebook by your bed for when your dreams give you great story material.

...When you play with action figures only to act out certain scenes which you later write in your next fanfiction.

...When you browse the toy aisles for action figures that resemble your OCs in some way.

You are truly a fan fiction writer! For some reason when I read this I thought of the movie Space Balls where Dark Helmet was playing with his dolls.

...When you keep a notebook by your bed for when your dreams give you great story material.


That is, if you actually make to sleep and don't end up typing at 3AM due to plot bunny attack...

...thinking with your stomach comes to its logical conclusion, and you end up figuring out the favourite foods of all your characters.

...and then you plan a menu around them.

...with cocktails/drinks to match.

...and then you have cravings for these foods.

...to the point where you have to get ice cream cake for your birthday because it's the favourite comfort food of one of your characters. (It was delicious, by the way. Thanks, Shepard!)

/for the record, Vader from Masquerade is spicy mushroom curry served with corn flatbread
//also a glass of strong, dry Shiraz wine
///and berry trifle for dessert

You start buying books with titles like: The Creative Writer's Phrase-Finder or Word Painting.

you see things like this in your newspaper and start thinking 'new nice bad guys

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