Satisfy my curiosity

[salinea]

So am I the only one who, when someone casually mentions deleting their old fics or making them unaccessible in any other way has this reaction in her mind :

OH MY GOD YOU EVIL BOOK-BURNING PERSON !!!


I mean, obviously, I doesn't make much sense : we're talking about the authors of those fics. If they're the intellectual owner of that work, they should be perfectly morally allowed to make it unaccessible.

However there's still that thing in the back of my brain that insists : IT'S LIKE BURNING BOOKS ! EVIL ! EVIL ! EVIL !

Am I the only one ?

Comments

[sakanagi.livejournal.com]

People deleting their old fanfiction makes me sad. It is also irritating, since I do go back to read old fanfics that I like every now and then, the way I do with books, and sometimes when I do they are gone. It's true that they've got every right to do that, but still...I don't really understand permanently deleting old fanfic, or any other sort of writing for that matter, and certainly not as a turning-a-new-leaf-in-life sort of thing. If a story is truly, truly sucky, then maybe it's not so bad if it goes from the net, but often a fanfic writer will, for some reason, be horribly embarrassed about a story that wasn't all that bad to start with. At worst, a story can at least be a reminder of how far a writer has improved since they wrote it.

Personally I'm hanging on to all the old diaries, stories and poems that I've ever had. Besides, I like my old poems better than most of the stuff I've written in the past decade. I want to be able to look back at all those things when I'm older.

[stoicstella.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you there. I have gone through periods where I gave up writing completely because I thought everything I wrote was garbage. I buried my journal in the bottom of a drawer and vowed to never waste the paper or ink again. But then several months or sometimes years went by, and I would come across the old book and read it through, and some of those old poems or stories were really interesting to read, and I couldn't believe how insightful. Sure they could use polishing, but I was glad I didn't trash them.

I think a writer who throws away their old work is giving up on an important resourse, which is time to reflect. Some of the most insightful stories just need new perspective to be told.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

^_^ yes it's exactly the same reason it annoys me.
I also try to keep everything of mine... but sometimes I lose them :(