The Writer

Sentinel Fanfiction
Title:	The Writer
Author(s):	Southy
Date(s):	7/16/06
Length:
Genre:
Fandom:	The Sentinel
External Links:	online here
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The Writer is a Sentinel story by Southy.

The author's notes: "The freedom of the Southy byline was that the stories were written without the restriction of "slash or gen" designations."

Author's Comments

This felt like a swan song of sorts. For a long time, I’ve wanted to do a story based on my experiences as a fanfic writer, primarily the feelings of isolation, and the extreme frustration of having others think they know what you’ve thought, felt, or experienced, when they’ve never had any interaction with you at all. But they’ve made up their mind about you, and they are so often wrong. (I call it “the Alice Cooper” syndrome, but that’s for a discussion on my S&H stories..) Struggling to be understood (and understanding oneself) is the universal story of humanity.

What I found out, very quickly after getting into the story, was that a famous fiction writer doesn’t parallel very well with a lowly fanfic author. I felt I had to have Blair be famous to make the story at all interesting. So, I left out a lot of anecdotes that I’d originally intended to include, because they wouldn’t translate to somebody famous. Plus, too many personal anecdotes would have interfered with the developing relationship between Jim and Blair.

But I was able, I think, to get a across the level of isolation. One reader did comment privately that she thought Jim’s and Blair’s difficulty with relating to each other’s occupation came across well. Another reader expressed her enjoyment of the story. For the most part, though, it’s rather obvious that “The Writer” was a dismal failure, even as an AU. (But then, in a previous fandom, I have had literally seven years pass before finding out quite a few people liked a previously thoroughly ignored story.) Part of that failure might be because the Southy named is now doomed for being linked to the C Frost name, but it’s hard to know if that had anything to do with it.

I know I like the earlier sections more than the later ones. Maybe the story just didn’t have enough happening to keep it going.

There was a grand irony that took place when I was close to finishing this novella. I got an email from someone I'd never heard from before, and she gave me feedback on a couple of my stories. We had a few emails back and forth and, turns out, she was a successful author of non-fiction books for children; in fact, some of her books had won awards. So, I was astounded that I was coming in contact with this person at this particular point in time. I confessed to her that I had an AU in progress about Blair being a writer of children's books, and that she was sure to find all sorts of flaws with it. When the story was posted a short time later, she was indeed honest that she wasn't too impressed, but we still had a nice discussion about it. Gotta love how the universe works like that, to have brought us in contact with each other at that particular point in time.