as long as we're going down

I've thought about dabbling in original fiction for a while now.  Something like a couple years, though the idea has since gained steamed in the past few months.  Only problem was, I had no idea where to start.  Like, with original fiction, you basically have a completely blank slate to work with.  Some people (most pro writers, I imagine) love that and obviously thrive on it, but it always kind of freaked me out.  I had the same problem back in college--some art instructors would simply say, "Draw!" with no set parameters, and I'd be there, stumped, going, "Well, shit," for more than a while before I finally managed to scrape something together.  I was always much more successful when told, "You have to draw this," or, "You have to use this technique," etc.

(Which I imagine is why I'm so fond of fanfiction, and have carved out a little niche for myself in it.  I like the confines of canon.  I like having to make something fit.  It's challenging, and makes me feel accomplished in knowing that I didn't make a character OOC or the like.)

Well, anyway, long story short, an idea for an original piece finally struck.  Who knows how good it'll be or if I'll ever try to, like, get published or something, but it's exciting, in its own way.  Kind of like when I realized my fanfiction writing had moved from "stuff I'm utterly embarrassed about and wouldn't dream of putting online" to "stuff that doesn't contain Mary-Sue self-inserts and might actually be enjoyed by other people."  XD

( Rambly, possibly boring exposition about how I'm trying to find a good romance novel, failing, and learning something about myself in the process. So if you're curious, you can click on this cut, otherwise onto the question! )

So, maybe all that wasn't as cohesive or concise as it could have been, but I've wasted enough time on this already today.  ^^'  My question is, do you have a preference for third- or first-person point-of-view?  If so (or not), why is that?  Just what exactly about them do you prefer?  And does this preference vary depending on whether you're reading or writing?  I'm sure there are other reasons beyond my personal ones (and no doubt my personal reasons at this moment are tainted by amateur-ish romance novels), so I'm curious.

...and I realize I've been writing fanfiction (and posting it online) long enough for me to cringe at my older pieces.  Which makes me wonder if I even, you know, want to bother cross-posting some of my old stuff.

It also makes me want to write more FFVII stuff, if only because I like my current writing style so much more than what it used to be back in my FFVII hey-day, as it may be.  Not that all my old FFVII stuff is crap, because there's a fair amount of it I still like and am quite proud of, but...you know.  I'd like to see what I could do with it nowadays.  History in the context of Hetalia needs to stop eating my brain.

(I feel like everything I've posted today ends up, like, next-door of where I wanted it to be.  Not real far off, but...not quite on target, either.  I think I'm just in a funk from the sick.)

Austria is my Tifa of Hetalia.  Meaning I kind of throw him around everywhere and in just about everything, because I often like the way characters interact with him, and the way he interacts with others.  I even make him (surreptitiously) angst about his relationship with Hungary.

OH MY GOD I'M WRITING THE SAME STORY OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Well, not quite.  But there's a bit of a trend, at the very least.

This kind of makes me want to write a crack crossover where they interact with each other.  They can both pretend they're not angsting, and maybe they'll make out at the end.  (Better yet, sex.  'Cause if I'm doing a crack-fic ("doing" in the theoretical sense--I severely doubt I will ever write this scenario), I might as well go all the way cracky.  Already I'll be having a world-saving chick talking to a country that doesn't even exist in her universe.  What better way to end it than sex?  It makes perfect sense!)

Finished Hetalia fic gets posted tomorrow.  At the moment, it's too late; I'm too tired.

I think...I may be writing my first slash pairing.  Huh.  (Though, as is usually the case with me, I'm sure nothing even close to explicit will make its way in, but still.)

This should be fun.  Providing I ever finish it.

XD

So I still had some stuff over in my old bedroom at my parents' place, like under the bed and whatnot, so I finally went over there and took a gander, and found like ALL the notebooks I started writing (mostly fanfiction) in.

Oh.  Em.  Gee.  It was terrible and hilarious and nostalgic and terrible.

The (w)angst!  The self-insert Mary-Sues!  The rushed romances!  The clear lack of understanding of how sex actually works!  The painful anachronisms in historical fics!  The even more painful usage of late '90s pop songs!  And did I mention the (w)angst?  I just want to travel back in time and tell my 12-13 year-old self, "DON'T DO IT.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T DO IT."

I wish I had a bonfire pit because I would so burn those notebooks to destroy the horrid, horrid evidence they provide.  As it is, I'm utilizing a paper shredder because these poor things must be destroyed, and I'm too embarrassed to simply put the very whole, very readable papers into the recycling.  There are a couple of the "better" ones I think I'll hold onto for nostalgic purposes, but ZOMG the rest have got to go.

Obviously I know that if it weren't for all those badfics, I wouldn't be where I am now, but that still doesn't make up for the fact that they are badfics.  I recall having the same reaction when I looked through my high-school art portfolio.  Though there wasn't nearly so much disgust and embarrassment.

Still, I take comfort in the fact that, technically, I was a pretty damn kick-ass writer for a tween.  Proper dialogue tags, good paragraph breaks, correct spelling (I think I remember using a pocket dictionary and thesaurus, to be honest...).  I even knew how to use a semi-colon, though they still made me a little nervous--kind of like driver's ed, when they let you off the parking lot and onto the actual road.

I kind of have to wonder, though...  Pretty much ALL of those stories from way back when were romances.  And once I started writing...well, I can't say "professionally," but once I started writing seriously, romance pretty much got thrown out the window.  I can't help but wonder if that was a subconscious reaction against all those romances.

It's an interesting thought.  And now I have a lot of shredding to do.