The advent of the Con got me thinking, as it usually does, about recently (comparatively recently) abandoned stories. So, I took a trip through memory lane, via my hard drive.

My first "active" fandom was Highlander. Back in the day when much of the world was on AOL and "groups" were all Listserve.

Poking around on AOL one day, I found a "group" discussing Highlander, a show I'd just recently reconverted to. (Methos!)

Largely gen, but there was a small slash contingency.

And I had this, "wow, slash!" moment.

Slash. I hadn't thought about slash for ten years or more. I'd almost forgotten that it existed.

I joined. I chatted. I read stories. I "met" people. Eventually...I wrote. (And, yes, I abandoned.)

Phantom - My first-ever fanfic story, from late in 1996! And gen! I only got about halfway through the planned plot before I moved on to slash.

The Seduction of Duncan MacLeod - Duncan and Cory. It was mostly about the sex, so no big loss.

Penalty Box - Speaking of sex.... Heehee. I can't believe I still have a copy of that on my hard drive!

Jack - I should finish that one some day. I still think the premise has some appeal and I really enjoyed the melodramatic approach. Plus, I have a passion for the Victorian age, so I very much enjoyed writing a story set in it.

Tomorrow - One page, but that's all it was meant to be. Sometimes, you just have a scene in your head and you have to write it down. But it's not really a story, you know?

Several of those are gen. HL was the only fandom where I really ever wanted to write gen.

I had some other story ideas, from back in the days when I spent a lot of time drafting stories on paper. I actually ran across a pile of them last weekend, in the Great Bookcase Clear-out. Some of it was good for a few laughs and sighs of remembrance before I tossed it.

I didn't write as much in Highlander as I hoped to before I was seduced away by more contemporary men, aliens, and secret government conspiracies. Circa 1998 or thereabouts.

Fantasies - That was a Krycek thing and dumb enough that I'm glad I left it unfinished. It was a sequel to something, I think. Can't remember.

Hunt - I'm always getting these wild urges to write something really atmospheric. This one served no useful purpose at all. I just thought I should practice writing atmosphere and physical setting, instead of doing a dialogue dump with every story. So...almost no dialogue, but plenty of "atmosphere." And...not a good story.

Left...dreaming - A Walter-introspection piece that never went anywhere.

20 Months Later - A sequel to my unloved AU.

Defense - A case-file story. I started this one in '97 and have chunks of it written, along with a fairly comprehensive outline of the rest of it. I always wanted to write case file stories in The X-Files, but I was never successful.

There were others, but those are the ones I actually got around to starting before the love died (in 1999, to be exact) and I moved on. I had flirtations with Due South and Sentinel but I didn't produce much in either of them.

And then...a Canadian SGI (Secret Government Installation) took possession of my brain. Once a Thief.

In 1999, I wrote one half-decent story and one PWP.

From 2000 through 2004, I wrote and wrote. And then I rewrote and rewrote and tore my hair out, beating my head against the walls and breaking my heart.

School Days - 40 pages of dreck.

Trade Winds - 49 pages of garbage.

Hocus Pocus - Eight pages of outline but no story. I couldn't figure out the point, until I realized that I was, once again, struggling desperately to produce "atomosphere."

I was...discouraged. I wrote all of those in 2000 and it was 2004 before I tried again.

Shadowplay - I spent close to a year on this one. 160 pages of pure, unadulterated crap. I have five versions of this one, each worse than the last.

It took me a long time to admit that no matter how much I loved OAT, it hated me.

I think at this point I'm just grateful that I had the sense to stop posting stuff when it became clear that the magic was gone. At least most of my humiliation was private. When I die, the password that unlocks those files dies with me.

Then I had a new idea. I decided to write LESS (or, rather, L.E.S.S.). It began as a joke, but I actually started four stories at Escapade and finished two of them later in the year. They weren't good but they could have been worse. Just short bits of fluff, so no stress.

(I have Kat Allison to thank for that. She spent a lot of time with me one day at Escapade last year, talking me down off the ledge and convincing me that I didn't have to eat the entire watermelon in one bite.)

Anyhow. I'm taking the other two stories (both DS) back with me this year. Maybe I'll get some more written. There's just something about the atmosphere at Escapade. It's conducive.

Which, by the way, is how this entire boring entry started. I really just sat down to print the story files since I'm not taking the computer with me.

(The R.C. just called to say this "abandoned stories" thing was a meme on LJ recently. I'm timely! I'm thematic! And I didn't even know it! I wonder if anyone else's list was as self-indulgent as mine turned out to be?)

(Also, she wants to quit her job. I told her I'm employed now, she can quit if she wants to. She thinks she should hold off until I've actually gotten a paycheck. I guess that's reasonable.)

Tomorrow I leave for Escapade! Hooray!