The Snowflake Challenge, Day 13
Jan. 13th, 2017 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scripsi
Day 13
In your own space, write about a moment in fandom that meant a lot to you. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
If we have been friends for a while, you have probably already heard this.
I had a very intense period of fanfic writing around 2004 and 2005. It meant a lot for me as it helped me through a depression and also teached me a lot about myself. But then it largely petered out and for several years I wrote very little and very sporadically. I thought this was a closed chapter of my life, especially as those people I had known before had largely left LJ and I had few friends left.
I have a sister I’m very close to, and she and her husband had tried for several years to have children. In 2014 they were finally expecting and in December I went with them to the hospital to be present when my niece was born. And the baby died during delivery. No one’s fault, just one of those terrible things that sometimes happen. Everyone was devastated. We all went around in a mind-numbing grief and it felt like nothing could ever be right again. I didn’t know what to do- all those feelings inside me which hurt and hurt.
And then I got an impulse to write. Perhaps I should have understood it would help as it had helped before, but it wasn’t until I suddenly had a story in my head which wanted to get out I thought of it. All through 2015 I wrote fanfic in a frenzy in a new fandom. And I found new friends on LJ and a new sense of community. Wonderful and supportive people, who, along with writing, helped a lot. Many stories were about loss and grief, and then I found I could write more light-hearted things as times passed. Writing fanfic wasn’t the only things which helped me through a very dark period, but it was a big help.
There is a happy postscript to this. Last year they had a little boy who is healthy and thriving. And while I don’t write in a frenzy anymore, I have got back into writing most days and I love that.
