Star Trek Convention

So-- I'm going to my first Trek con next month in Sacramento. I bought the 'Gold Package' so I'll be diggin' the scene wit a gangsta lean. I paid fat money for a photo op with Shatner and Nimoy and one with just Nimoy alone, cos he's the real reason I'm all up in there. I'll be writing about it.

Leonard Nimoy cured my writer's block.

My mother died suddenly last year. I'll tell you all about it later, but suffice it to say that nothing is worse than losing your mother. Nothing. I couldn't write. I couldn't think. I couldn't think to write. I watched a lot of TV.

One day, I was flipping thru channels and I caught the tail end of "Trekkies". Some of those people don't seem all that crazy to me. And I'm a mental health professional. What's wrong w/perpetuating the Star Trek Utopia? If you want me to call you 'Commander', hey whatever, man. Anyway--I remembered their discussion about fan fiction. I got curious and googled 'fan fic'.

Holy crap.

I started reading. Most of it's really, really bad. Some of it's excellent--I'll be linking to the good shit once I get permission from the writers.

Fan fiction is fascinating. The universe--characters, settings, events--is constructed for you. I thought creating a fiction within that fiction might be an interesting exercise. I knew a bit about Trek; I was kind of a fan. I wouldn't have to think too much. I dragged myself out of my huge, red leather, remote-controlled, heated, vibrating message recliner and started writing.

My first piece was 'Leg Man'. I put it up at ASCEML at yahoo groups and kicked back for a couple of days. It was well-received. Encouraged, I went out and bought the TOS DVD's and watched them over the weekend. That was it.

I surrendered myself to what Joan Didion calls a 'year of magical thinking' that all those who grieve are allowed. I revived my childhood love affair with Spock in all its aching longing and yearning fantasies--sublimated into my fan fiction writings of course, because you know, I'm cool like that.

It's been fun. I get to be 'T'Prahn of Vulcan'. It kick-started my 'real' writing. I've posted my fan fic and you can see me slowly emerging from my muddled thinking as the months went by.

Check it out. Tell me what you think.