This afternoon I went with a friend to see The Avengers…again. This is my fourth rewatch!

I’ll spare you my own squee about the movie, which is massive and high-pitched. What I want to talk about is the joy I get from participating in the excitement about the film, which is almost as much fun as the film itself.

People are writing fanfic, making gifs, drawing fanart, and drooling all over twitter about this movie. I have not seen this kind of excitement in my crowd since Lord of the Rings premiered. There is an energy flowing through the Internet that is fun to ride, as people talk about their favorite characters, break out into extensive meta about what happened or how people have reacted to it (I particularly recommend Obsidian Wings’ essay about how “mundane” reviews somehow completely missed the fact that Natasha/Black Widow was one of the main characters: Scarlett Johansson in a Gorilla Suit), and generally get really messy from all the virtual glitter and squee flying around the Webz.

This reminds me when I was a little girl and saw Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time. I loved that movie passionately, but what I loved even more was the love that people had for it. And more than participating in that love, I wanted to create the reason for it. I wanted to do what Lucas had done.

My dreams of being a movie director never materialized for 1000 reasons, but that drive has never left me. I want to create stories and characters that people dream about, write fanfic about, draw pictures about. If I had the money I’d be a media producer; but I don’t, so I’m a writer.

Being a writer isn’t easy, and is often frustrating, and every day I feel the squeeze of trying to work on my writing while being in graduate school and working full time. I get frustrated, no lie.

But seeing Avengers, and the reaction of fans to it, has reminded me of why I’m doing this. For me it is not just about writing my stories, it really is about sharing those stories and creating a new fandom or two for people to get excited about.

Not there yet; but working on it!

~