Merlin meta-fanfic, and the desire to write something with someone else.

[juushika]

Pairing Pendragon/Merlin (the anon meta-Merlin fic that's been making the multifandom rounds) has made me want to create something cooperatively. The fic is about the romance between a fanfic writer and his beta, and it's entirely adorable and idealized—the creative writer, the insightful beta, and the spark, both creative and personal, born in the discussions between them. Of course it makes me want to make that spark with someone else (if not in a romantic sense). Of course that spark is hard to find. And people are people, and a two-person project requires two people's free time, two people's work ethics. And the create process is hard, it's messy and high-stress and projects go unfinished at the best of times. And even if that spark is there, it may not lead to fire—to stretch the metaphor.

But that doesn't kill the desire to write back and forth with someone. As two writers, I think, rather than as writer and beta. Probably original material rather than fanfic (but ideally something that still felt like fanfic—a spinoff of our established characters, perhaps—so that writing was more a guilty pleasure than a piece of work), because my fandoms are weird and I'm not feeling the pull of fanfic right now. But a cooperative piece, compiled in a single documents, where the line annotations, the ideas and critiques and personal notes from one person to the other, are as important as the writing contributed by each.

I've been at a bit of a creative standstill. Part of that is it seems that for years and years, I had concepts but no characters, and so my work was lifeless; these days my head is full of characters and more specifically of character interactions, they're what I'm drawn to in all media, I literally collect lists of my favorite dynamics, but I have no setting or plot to put them in and without plot, the story lacks motivation. Part of it is that I feel a bit cowed by the creative processes of others, the stories they have to tell, the fact that they feel lost if they don't do so—and I don't have that: failing to tell a story makes me feel unproductive and frustrated, but there aren't stories in me screaming to be let out, and if they don't need to be told ... are they really worth telling? Part of it is the simple lack of time, effort, and perseverance put into storytelling.

I've been trying to come out of that standstill. I may be succeeding a bit, I don't know. I wonder if I even need to—if I even need to be a storyteller. But I do know that writing like that—as an interaction, as well as a creative process—is one hell of a seductive fantasy.

It may be an idea to raise to century_eyes, when she's not busy driving to Portland every weekend. Does it appeal to anyone else? Call this a tentative offer, if you will. I still think it's more fantasy than possibility, especially while riding high on the idealized version of the concept in Pairing. And I am hardly the most reliable person for a joint project. But it is, at least, a nice idea.

In the meantime, the fic's not a bad read. It's pure fluff driven by strong characters, a good balance of cute and heartwarming without veering into the dangerous world of sap. And, yes, it's accessible even if you don't watch Merlin (I don't).