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I ran across a sad post on tumblr today bemoaning how much harder it is to be a fanfic writer than a fanartist, because fanfic writers get so much less feedback and respect - everyone reblogs fanart, hardly anyone reblogs fic ...
/cries because I am OLD
Speaking of being old, it's absolutely fascinating to me to be drawing enough lately to become aware how much my drawing skills have atrophied over the last few years. It's not that I can't draw at all, it's just that it's a lot harder than it ought to be. There's a much bigger gulf between what I see in my head and what comes out of the pencil. Anatomy is hard in particular; the graceful drawings in my head, with their sense of chunkiness and mass, come out stilted, awkward and flat. I think that the drawing I did the other day of the Avengers characters + sunbeam is the closest that I've come in ages to getting my head-picture to match up with what my hands were capable of, and even there, the perspective is off ...
But I guess it makes sense when I think about how much I used to draw. From my teenage years up to late 20s, I was always drawing. I filled up sketchbooks while I was in college; I drew on scraps of paper, post-it notes at work, the edges of envelopes. I copied other people's art, drew my own characters, did fanart, basically just drew and drew and drew.
I don't remember when that obsessive level of drawing stopped, or why. I think it had something to do with moving back to Alaska in 2004 and not really being around other (comic) artists much -- not in the way I had been, where I was going to conventions regularly and sketching with other people on a semi-regular basis. I think that was also about the time I started writing A LOT, and while I've always done both, it seems that activating my prose-brain to that extent went partway toward shutting off my drawing-brain.
.... anyway, it's been probably 7 or 8 years since I've drawn a lot, and probably 4 or 5 years since I've drawn more than every once in a while. For a long time, I really didn't WANT to draw. Being back into comics seems to have gotten me drawing on a more regular basis, and I'm trying to keep a sketchbook -- I've never really done sketchbooks since college (and mostly then, it was only because I had to for a lot of my art classes, so I got in the habit and/or ended up with class sketchbooks that were half full, so I needed to fill them). I am DROWNING in sketchbooks because of people either giving them to me, or buying them and putting 3 drawings in them and then not filling it. (Is this something that other people do? Do most artists have dozens of blank or partly-used sketchbooks hanging around on their shelves?)
I want to try to start drawing every day again, even if it's only something small. It feels like reconnecting with a part of myself that I've been out of touch with for a while. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to really enjoy making art for its own sake, not just as a means to an end.
/cries because I am OLD
Speaking of being old, it's absolutely fascinating to me to be drawing enough lately to become aware how much my drawing skills have atrophied over the last few years. It's not that I can't draw at all, it's just that it's a lot harder than it ought to be. There's a much bigger gulf between what I see in my head and what comes out of the pencil. Anatomy is hard in particular; the graceful drawings in my head, with their sense of chunkiness and mass, come out stilted, awkward and flat. I think that the drawing I did the other day of the Avengers characters + sunbeam is the closest that I've come in ages to getting my head-picture to match up with what my hands were capable of, and even there, the perspective is off ...
But I guess it makes sense when I think about how much I used to draw. From my teenage years up to late 20s, I was always drawing. I filled up sketchbooks while I was in college; I drew on scraps of paper, post-it notes at work, the edges of envelopes. I copied other people's art, drew my own characters, did fanart, basically just drew and drew and drew.
I don't remember when that obsessive level of drawing stopped, or why. I think it had something to do with moving back to Alaska in 2004 and not really being around other (comic) artists much -- not in the way I had been, where I was going to conventions regularly and sketching with other people on a semi-regular basis. I think that was also about the time I started writing A LOT, and while I've always done both, it seems that activating my prose-brain to that extent went partway toward shutting off my drawing-brain.
.... anyway, it's been probably 7 or 8 years since I've drawn a lot, and probably 4 or 5 years since I've drawn more than every once in a while. For a long time, I really didn't WANT to draw. Being back into comics seems to have gotten me drawing on a more regular basis, and I'm trying to keep a sketchbook -- I've never really done sketchbooks since college (and mostly then, it was only because I had to for a lot of my art classes, so I got in the habit and/or ended up with class sketchbooks that were half full, so I needed to fill them). I am DROWNING in sketchbooks because of people either giving them to me, or buying them and putting 3 drawings in them and then not filling it. (Is this something that other people do? Do most artists have dozens of blank or partly-used sketchbooks hanging around on their shelves?)
I want to try to start drawing every day again, even if it's only something small. It feels like reconnecting with a part of myself that I've been out of touch with for a while. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to really enjoy making art for its own sake, not just as a means to an end.
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But that Tumblr had built momentum through daily content posting for months. The key to Tumblr popularity (outside of managing to do one thing that really goes viral) is to be prolific with something for a significant time, so you slowly get into the multiplying effects of really spreading through reblogs. That goes for bits of fic as for art as far as I see it. If you just post something every now and then it just doesn't work.
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My advice for fanwriters (or any fancreators) who want to get a Tumblr audience would be to post whatever they are writing as a WIP, make sure to add the tags people browse by (like character names, pairing names, fandom name etc) and if their output is not enough to be present every day or at least every other day (or if they prefer to post long chapter or only finished works) to post outtakes and snippets along with pictures of the characters and actors that inspire them as you do on Tumblr, even photos of places they imagine as backgrounds. Whatever, the content is actually secondary, as long as you are there to be found with something often enough that people come across you and will click "follow this tumblr" because they became intrigued and want to see the next thing, and then you have them hooked until they unfollow, for which you have to put them off actively (like by being extremely spammy or posting character hate) providing your interests still overlap. If you post rarely the chances are bad to gather an audience, because you won't come across peoples dashes when they look to expand their reading by browsing tags, because nobody will click back three weeks on a general tag.
Posting something awesome once or twice a year might be enough to keep a reputation as good writer and get you feedback if you already have an audience that can step in as multiplier, but it's no good way to gain an audience, because you have to promote. Which in fandom is fairly easy, but won't happen through complaining that others get more feedback.
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(Also the idea of posting fic only to Tumblr. The AO3 spoilt me.)
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I think the real challenge for writing fanfic is that there are so many other writers out there that it is harder to stand out unless you write a lot and are a good writer.
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There's also a certain amount of just plain lucky accident to the popularity thing. But yeah, I think consistently turning out work of high quality is really the only way to get "known".
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I hope you find your groove again too!