Summertime Countdown

[in_the_blue]

I swear I'm almost as eager as Hannah for school to be over. I keep doing the countdown and it sounds like a nursery rhyme:

No school Monday,
Half-day Tuesday,
Full-day Wednesday,
Field day Thursday,
Sleep in FRIDAY!

Mitch, Hannah, mme_publisher, her son, and I are going to see Howl's Moving Castle today. It should be fun! And I think we might go out to dinner afterward; seeing as how our family time is so limited with all this corporate travel, we might as well take advantage.

My cat Hector (the one my sister brought last October to great consternation, remember him?) has a new bed. He's been sleeping on the top of a soft-sided suitcase. I just finished getting all the cat hair off it so that Mitch could actually use it for his trip this week. Hector adores him. He's fine when it's just me and Hannah here, but he really blossoms when Mitch gets back. Must be a guy thing.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a little R&R, a little more sleep, a little less driving. That two hours a day back and forth to Hannah's school is really starting to drain me by this time of year. Can we stay local, pretty please with a cherry on top, for the summer months?

Random appreciation department: virtual hugs and real heart-felt affection to shellebelle93, sff_corgi, lostinapapercup, jiminyc, h311ybean, and bucketgirl. Oh, look, reverse alphabetical order. Heh.

And... for what it's worth, I can't see myself writing any HP fanfic for the next while. I'm kind of numbed by what happened to my board (it took away Sirius's playground) and in just waiting to see what happens in the next book. Do you think fandoms dry up? Well, they do for me. I love the HP world, still, but I haven't even preordered book 6 yet. What's the matter with me? I'm not even excited about it. I haven't been reading any HBP spoilers or even been thinking about it a whole lot.

Maybe I'm just bored with it. Even though there was a whole extra year between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix to keep us wondering... I don't know. I'm just blah about it. Just not as excited about it. After OotP, I was just kind of... destroyed, I guess, because I had so much invested in those characters. Now I think I've just sort of stepped back and really, she can kill whoever she wants and I don't think I'll ever have that strong a reaction again.

There will always be new generations of fans, I'm sure, and there will always be people to talk about Harry Potter and the intricacies of the world JKR created. I just don't know how much longer it will be me. Of course, I could be entirely surprised, delighted, upset, angered, amazed, and amused on 16 July.

What do you HP fans think?

Edited to add: Thanks to mincot and pelirroja, my Sirius 7th-Year Fic (still untitled, dang it) has a home, AU though it is. I've just uploaded the first chapter to Godric's Hat and more will be uploaded as quickly as I can.

Comments

[shellebelle93.livejournal.com]

*hugsback* Honestly, I'm feeling about the same way you are about the fandom.

and to be even more honest, beta-reading hasn't helped me one bit, and I'm thinking of stopping that.

I'm looking forward to the next book, but I'm also not terribly emotional about it. Ships are dead for me, my fanfics have dried up. I want to finish them, but...fandom has eaten my brain and made me forget that it's supposed to be fun.

I don't know. My fanfictions are so far out of canon now, I wonder if it's worth it to keep going. I'd like to finish for the sake of finishing, but they're both going to be very long.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Beta-reading hasn't been helping at all. That's a giant understatement! Neither have the shipping wars and honestly, people: this is a fictional universe. Who cares who loves who? Please, let's don't start a battle over that one. Fortunately I'm not enough of a big-name fan (oh, thank Heaven for 7-11) so that this will end up in anyone's wank journal.

And for what it's worth, I'm still Sirius at heart. But he's demanding, and draining, and sometimes a break is in order.

And I think a break from the RP board is definitely in order. I'll wait out the next 7-10 days and see if any data comes back. If it does, we can resume. If we doesn't... well... I'm not going to put in the effort to fix things and catch everybody up. If the data's not there, people can't read it and I'm not going to take the time to summarize everything that's been happening. I just don't have the heart to do it.

I might, however, reformat my Sirius 7th-year-fic and put up what I have of it on Godric's Hat. I have permission to do that, even though it's AU because they don't care. Maybe that will spur me on to do something HP-centered and creative.

Although I can't say that writing scifi hasn't been a liberatingly creative thing for me. It's really nice to get into a different head space and make up all sorts of things without boundaries.

[luu-alita.livejournal.com]

If you want, I can summarize everything, I'll do my best to get it all. I have a good memory for stuff like that. I should be able to remember a good chunk.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Like I said to you privately, let's wait the next week to 10 days and see what, if anything, ezboard can restore for us.

Tired, tired, tired. Tired of going there and seeing all those empty forums. At least I know it's not just our board, but hey... what happened there was a giant oops! and it should never have come to that.

[h311ybean]

Yes, I think fandoms dry up. People change, and with that change can come a shift in interests and priorities. Bad experiences in the fandom are also s contributing factor.

I don't think I've "outgrown" HP yet. (Clarification: this is not to say that HP is childish or whatever - it refers to the changes I mentioned earlier.) I'm still enjoying writing, although I don't care about being in canon as much as I used to.

(If there are any typos in this post, please excuse them as the sun is shining on my monitor! @_@)

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Heh! I'm more of a Potter fan than my daughter! And that's saying something. I don't find the stories or the universe JKR created childish at all. I admire it.

I'm just probably preempting myself from having another nervous breakdown like I did after she killed Sirius. That was too hard.

[vivien]

I think since we have invested so much of our own creative energy into HP characters, we haven't really had a break. And I know for me personally, I know I might be a little disappointed now that I've been playing Tom so long! "What do you mean there's no back story for Tom in this one??? DAMN you, JKR" :P

I am excited, but I haven't pre-ordered either. I'll still get the book and gobble it down that day, though.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

We're all so AU at M'ways, though, it's almost like we're playing with an entirely different set of characters. :)

[siriusstar.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Besides two strong outlines for future events, I have not written anything directly in the Potterverse since January. I try, but I just can't do it. I had to throw virtually everything away and start over after OotP came out. I know I couldn't do that again.

I preordered in January, but I'm not very excited. I miss the enthusiasm I had last time. That certainty I was going to like it, and the gleeful anticipation of getting the book. Now I just hope nothing irreparably screws up my AU in some way, as I'm a lot more attached to that than I am to canon. It would be hard to manage, but after last time I wouldn't be surprised! I know I do not want to know anything else about the Marauders. I learned my lesson for that very well.

No one in my HP group is as excited this time. All have drifted off to other things and other fandoms. None of them are even big Sirius fans. I'm well out of the fandom aspect. I haven't seen a 'shipping discussion of any kind in months. I hope it is many more before I see another.

A similar thing happened in the Moody Blues fandom. The boards and lists drifted over to a new crop of fans since Ray Thomas left. (Ironically the same year as OotP came out.) I suppose this 'drift' is a natural occurrence in all fandoms at one time or another.

I hope your RP board comes back soon! I couldn't imagine losing all that effort. You'd think they'd have to have some sort of back-up system in place.

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

Same here. Me and siriusstar, we have had big angst fests about remembering the ootp-drama and absoluel yhopign it wouldn't repeat again. I'll read the book of course. and maybe write stuff when I feel like it. Well, much of the rest has been said already. The one thign I won't neglect is he dogstar project. which is I'll read al lthe unread Sirius links I have., no matter if I decide otrow te rest of my toread lsit out, ill keep that flder .and the stuff from my friends here. Just doesn't feel like reading all the semi-unknown stuff any more. ntoeven the auld noels and the so-lclassics' everyoe nelse has read.
Still replayign scenes, stil lbeign provoked by music. But I should finall yet started on my own fantasy story. DOnt' know what kept me fro mit.