jedibuttercup

Challenge #10 - In your own space, talk About A Creator/Someone Who Inspired You. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Remembering what in particular may have inspired me to start doing my own creating - I just don't have those memories. As far as I know, wanting to create has always been as much a part of me as my fannishness itself. (I remember how baffled I was the first time some told me they could remember learning how to read and write - I can't remember ever not being able to.)

In terms of specific inspirations, though... it's a boring answer, but. Probably the earliest big one I could point to would be J.R.R. Tolkien. His works have been on my mind a lot since the news about his son's passing last week. My dad had had one of those boxed copies of LOTR and The Hobbit since the 70's, and loaned them to me when I was eight years old. I was already reading middle-grade SFF by that time, but Tolkien's work was in a league beyond that. I was utterly blown away by the depth of his worldbuilding, and as I was too young to look at it really critically, I just-- absorbed, in wonder.

I learned so many words from those books - in plain English, even, not just his created languages - that I pronounced wrong IRL for years because I'd never heard them said aloud. And the time and place, as far removed as it was from our world, seemed so vivid, and deep, and lived in. That's probably when I started constructing elaborate backstories - I suppose what we'd call headcanons these days - for every story or daydream I came up with. I still have binders full of maps and bloodline trees and special jewel definitions for one story in particular I was working on in junior high and high school that definitely owed a lot to Tolkien. I never did finish that one, but I suppose that's where I began the habits that follow me in my fanwriting to this day.

Since then, in general, I like to think I take a little something from everything I enjoy? Every person whose story or post I kudo or comment on or subscribe to; every fanvid I like; every photo I snap of something amazing or striking or interesting on my roadtrips; every time my mother comes up with a new hobby (she always has one, from shirt painting to ceramics to gardening, it varies); every time my dad sat down for an enthusiastic half-hour discussion on some particular plot twist in Harry Potter; every time my brother or maevebran introduces me to a new book series or show they're sure I'll love; it all compounds.

I guess you could say I give back because I've been given to. Because - if something I do brightens even one other person's day the way mine has so often been brightened, everything that went into it was worth it. :)