Am I going senile already?

[ldhenson]

Huh.

One of the things I'll always remember about my time in Starsky & Hutch fandom was that it marked the start of a long period of no story-writing for me. I stopped doing fanfic prose altogether and published/posted only fan poetry, something that would continue for the next seven years through several other fandoms (until LOTR came along). At most, I only attempted one SH story, which never got past page 3 or 4 and which I never showed anyone.

Or so I thought.

Now I'm clearing out files from my old computer and I'm finding drafts and story notes for several other SH fics that I don't really remember. Now, at the time I did help edit a zine plus I was beta-ing for some friends, so it's possible they're someone else's fics...but the drafts/notes are structured very much in my style, down to abbreviations and placeholders and whatnot. Even the writing style--sentence structure, pacing, descriptions, etc.--sounds like, for the most part, the sort of thing I'd write.

But I don't remember writing it.

This is weird...

Comments

[aprilvalentine.livejournal.com]

You know, I've had the same thing happen. I once found an old notebook from my longhand writing days in Trek fandom. In it was a short story and I had no recollection of writing at all. I knew it was mine because it was in my handwriting, but I couldn't remember starting the story or anything about it. Usually, I would remember something that I'd started but never finished, but with this... not a clue. I read the whole thing and it was interesting and suspenseful and I kept hoping I'd remember it, but I came to the end of what was written and *I didn't know how it ended*! Still didn't ring a bell at all, not the plot or the premise or the ending. Couldn't even finish it because it was like reading something by someone else where I had no clue what would happen next. So I can commiserate with you on finding stuff you didn't know you wrote but must have.

[grace-poppy.livejournal.com]

Wow! *stares at you both strangely*

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

::points to my reply to aprilvalentine for more laughs::

I'm totally baffled by it myself. Repressing traumatic events I can understand, but forgetting entire stories? I mean, they weren't that bad :-)

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Haha, at least yours was hand-written so you had positive ID. I had to really think about mine for a while before I realized the writing/notes/drafting style was just too much like my own to be denied. And it's pretty cool you got to read your own fic truly from the reader's point of view--and like it!

I did a little more digging and found that I had attempted not just the sole SH story I believed I'd done all these years, but roughly 8 of them (mostly just a few pages long). There's even one Due South fic in that folder that I did several pages of, and which it appears I later modified into an unfinished SH story (or perhaps the other way around; I forgot to check the dates). And that one story which I did I remember? I thought I'd done 3-4 pages at most, but it turned out to be 15, with several more pages of extensive story notes.

What else did I do in the mid-90's that I don't know about?

P.S. Sending you "get well" wishes for your elbow!

[aprilvalentine.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's just strange not to remember someting as personal as a story, isn't it? Although I read mine and enjoyed it, the problem was I had no clue how it would have ended so I couldn't do anything with it once it was found!

But I think it's interesting that you wrote more fiction than you were aware of writing. I think you should do more of it!

Thanks for the good wishes for my poor fractured elbow. Still hurts a lot and my arm is really weak. Really more of a problem than when my ribs were broken over the holidays.