When Fanfic Writers Go Bad
Part One
By Cimerene
cimerene@gci.net

Tentative titles for the fic:
"...Exactly That and $3.50 Will Get You a Double Mocha Espresso (and We Need the Caffeine)"
"Writer's Block: A Brain Circuit Blown"
"Please Don't Commit Us, We Have Dogs to Take Care Of"
"When Fanfic Writers Go Bad"
"ERFFCC, Please Don't Discontinue Our Membership For This"
"We Ruined Our Reputations For This?"

Co-Written By: Cymereane and JayArre (wink wink)
Archive: If anyone actually reads this and understands it and likes it,sure. Doubtful, but sure.

Email: Pretty Please? jrae@crosswinds.net or cimerene@gci.net or both!

Disclaimer: If someone actually sues us over this story it will just underline the theory that people in Hollywood have too much time on their hands. But, for the sake of sanity, (or what little we are grasping on to,) they ain't ours, we're not making money, blah blah blah copyrightcakes. If we ripped you off we apologize, but you know what they say, reference is the sincerest form of flattery. So, if we used your title, phrase, slang, sentence, or joke, it's either because we know its yours and like it and are very grateful, or one of those weird parallel brain-wave thingys where we happened to come up with something similar to what you did. So, we just disclaim it all.

Category: Umm, this isn't a conventional fic...let's just say "Cast."

Spoilers: It would help if you have seen the show. Rating: Language is as bad as it gets, for now...PG-13 (well duh!) NC-17 (you wish...)

Summary: Dude, just read the story. Thanks: Thanx Jim, we always needed a "personal" slasher (wink wink). We extend our eternal gratitude towards the beverages that made this fanfiction possible. Oh, and we might as well be grateful for the writer's block after all, because we never would have become so desperate to write this in the first place; so we thank our own subconsciouses. In addition, we would like to thank cows, especially Star, for thesauruses.

Warning: The first chapter is kind of dense, but it'll get going later on…This is extremely ridiculous (partly taking into consideration how long the disclaimer is) and you'll just have to take us on our word that it's funny. Maybe not to you, but to us…

Notes: All grammatical and spelling errors are intentional. We apologize to all non-American readers for any references that you may not know about, care about, or apply to you. We are not slamming anyone, if anything, we are just making fun of ourselves, so don't get insulted. The story is entirely satirical, nothing is intended to be serious, and much was blown out of proportion. We are not really caffeine and alcohol dependent lunatics, despite what we already said. Honest.

Dedication: This is dedicated to every writer that hasn't gotten severely stuck in the middle of a fic. Your time will come, believe you us. Onward!

We approach our respective heroines (snort) on a brisk, summer Thursday night. For once, the beckoning glow of the television screen appeared not in their homes, they sat not on the comfortable couches, remote in hand. ER was on hiatus, damn it, damn it to hell. No need for reruns, what with imbecilic sporting events and election conventions promoting the prospect future leaders of the country. That alone was horror enough to warrant pulling the plug. That, plus they already had every episode of the season on tape, labeled and categorized in their video libraries.

The two occupied themselves in other manners; tonight, that other evil machine. In reality, they were separated by life and a time zone, but connected by thousands of miles of telephone wiring and a chat program. Since no new installment of their favorite obsession had been broadcast in quite some time, they resolved to do what many other desperate fans had done. Fans in need of understanding the psychological aftereffects of the war that caused Luka Kovac to forget what shampoo was. Fans desperate to know the logistics of Dave Malucci's tattoos. Fans desiring to fulfill the hinted relationships, to take on where the mysterious and devil-controlled Powers-That-Be had left off, leaving them dangling in the midst. Fans wishing to find the perfect inanimate object to use as a metaphor that would fully encompass all that is Cleo. Fans that needed to see John Carter, man of Mars, stabbed, shot, impaled, beaten, attacked, assaulted, and kidnapped, again and again. They would join the others.

Cymereane and JayArre sat, staring blankly at their respective computers. Staring was the wrong word. Glaring would have been a more appropriate description; glaring with such an intensity that their eyes had begun to glaze over and their fields of vision were narrowing. Both writers had been stumbling along at a snail's pace for what seemed like ages, alternating grumbling with cursing; intense hatred building towards the tiny screens where they were attempting to compose bits of brilliance. You see, both writers had what we in the business call "writer's block." It can be, and often is, the ultimate, dreaded death of a story. Many a fic have heartlessly perished from such; silently swept away into the vast recesses of Drive C: on a deserted Pentium processor. One would not wish such a fate on their worst enemy. (Okay, one might, but one would feel guilty later. Maybe.)

They had tried everything, from nice long walks through nature-filled woods, to watching paint dry. When those strategies didn't appease, they surrounded themselves with reminders of what they were supposed to be writing about: "May Day" playing for the seventeenth time on the nearby television set; six and eight inch butcher knives scattered on the computer desks; containers of Rogaine, crimson and platinum Miss Clairol hair dye, and Herbal Essences littering the floor. Positive inspiration would strike at any moment now. They were sure it would. They might literally go insane if it didn't.

Unfortunately for both of them, nothing was helping. Their characters were still stuck in the dreaded netherlands, not moving, not breathing, lying motionless and completely unresponsive despite repeated attempts at revival.

Fingertips itched to type quality work, to compose, to enter into the wonderful world of creative writing. Frustration built in their minds. They were inching towards insanity; straight jackets, little white pills, and the like. They refused to join the group of former authors that had succumbed to their own ineptness. Fanfic, a dangerous genre; it alone had committed hundreds and left many among the borderline. Cymereane and JayArre were nearing that dreaded line, edging closer with each idea not formed, each word not typed. Finally, in desperation, they turned to the only thing they could think of. There was no other choice. The Last Resort, only to be used when inspiration secedes and desperation ravages.

So help them, they would write a blasted fanfic. Putting down their butcher knives, as one, they broke open their stashes. For JayArre, it was a nice cold refreshment. She took the first sip at 10:59, late in the evening to be doing so, but she honestly didn't care. It was cool, thirst quenching, and invigorating; so what if she would be up until 4 a.m. as penance? For creative writing, she would make the ultimate sacrifice. For her fans and the fans to come, she would drink her Mountain Dew.

The energy boost did not come quickly enough to suffice so she drank another, gulping the syrupy carbonated liquid. She dared not think about the chemicals required to create this beverage, merely satisfying herself with the knowledge that her intestinal track must be turning lime green. Caffeine. Most people were addicted without realizing it; the morning cup of coffee that made the colors of the world shine brighter, the double tall latte at lunch that carried you over the mid-afternoon slump, the Columbian-bean espresso in the evening that kept you bright-eyed until near-dawn. JayArre had reserved herself, though, and refrained from such liquid unless absolutely necessary. The days where eyelids were glued shut an hour after the alarm went off, the days her family referred to her as a walking zombie, teasing that she appeared to belong as an extra from Night of the Living Dead. Those were desperate days, but so was this. Within seconds, the caffeine coursed through her bloodstream, inciting a term she often referred to as "wired." On most wired days, JayArre would scrub kitchen floors with a toothbrush, wash and wax the car five times, and run eight miles before the caffeine subsided. Tonight, she would write.

Cymereane decided to go the easy route; she quickly raced into the kitchen, nearly tripping over the dog, and opened the refrigerator. She grabbed the only bottle of wine she owned, silently thanking herself for keeping a bottle around just in case of an emergency. If this wasn't an emergency, she didn't know what was.

She hurriedly logged into her computer and booted up the ICQ, that glorious instant messaging system. She would take a break from writing, or in all accuracy, staring at the keyboard, and get help elsewhere. She sat impatiently, ready and waiting for her online companion to appear. Cym drummed her fingers on the desk, the William Tell Overture taking on the musical form of finger-tapping. She sipped prudently from her glass of el cheapo wineo and checked her watch. Damn, that girl was slow. Finally, she was rewarded with the sound of knocking, coming from the ICQ program. JayArre was online. Immediately a dozen potential messages whirled in Cym's brain; she quickly typed a plea for help.

"JayArre, help!" she wrote passionately. "I currently have poor John peacefully slumbering, oblivious to the fact that his true love, Kerry, is in dire need of medical attention…whatever shall I do?"

"Er, which story is this again?" JayArre questioned. Cymereane went through ideas and plotlines faster than an Alaskan husky through Kibbles and Bits; she never knew which story Cym was needing guidance on.

Cym was immediately insulted, it wasn't like her friend actually had a life, the least she could do was remember what her stories were about. "Daylight. I'm stuck, I can't decide where to take this next chapter."

"I'm stuck." JayArre read and re-read those words. Seems like she wasn't the only one, then. She took comfort in knowing there was someone else agonizing over a similar situation, the inability to do jack shit with a story. At least Cym managed to actually make progress with her stories eventually, her own managed to indefinitely collect virtual dust in her hard drive. She secretly envied Cym's ability to continuously write an obscene number of pages on a fic, whether she was really "in the zone" or not. "Hmm," she wrote, "A fellow stuckee, I gather? I have half a dozen stories started and no clue where to go with any one of them. Could I send you excerpts from a couple of mine?"

"Yup, yup, haven't been able to get very far with this one. Go ahead, send it over." The least Cym could do was reciprocate the gesture of editing.

Meanwhile, JayArre wrote back advising, "You need to add more action, why not have Dr. Chen play a practical joke on John while he's sleeping, maybe a little humor would help? How about this?"

{Dr. Deb/Jing-Mei/Whateverthehellhernameis Chen calmly glanced both ways down the hallway; pleased to see that no one was looking. She quietly entered the on-call room where Carter was sleeping; there he was, peaceful on the gurney. Tiptoeing further into the room, she stared at John for a moment. Now was the time to get him good. She took out the bottle of shaving cream and poured a small amount onto her gloved hands, and calmly wiped it on his nose and chin. 'HA, take that!' she though. She raced out of the room, stripping off the gloves but forgetting the telltale sign of the shaving cream bottle that was still sticking obtrusively out of her lab coat.}

Cymereane quickly reviewed the paragraph. 'The hell?' she wondered. What type of fic did JayArre think Cymereane was writing, anyway? This was Serious, Deep DRAMA she was attempting to create. She wanted her fic to blast the weekly episodes out of the water; maybe the producers would be lurking on Usenet, see her story, and promptly hire her as a screenwriter. What JayArre wrote didn't even make sense. There was no competent explanation for Chen to do this in the first place. It had nothing to do with her story. The block must be affecting the brain flow to JayArre's brain. Sighing, she reached over her computer monitor to the shelves behind it, and put her favorite deep drama mood music on the stereo. She always played it when writing, it helped her emit the painful angst and compose the depressing scenes in an eloquent manner.

Ignoring the previous suggestion, she typed hurriedly to JayArre, singing along with the music. "Can you check this for grammar? I skipped to where the death scene was."

{"Pleiase don't leave me! I can't live without you, I know youu were impaled by a butcher knife of length which is currently undecided, John, but I"ve always loved you!}

Cym hummed softly to the music while awaiting JayArre's reply. "Don't worry, be happy," the man crooned over the four speaker stereo. 'Now that,' she thought satisfactorily, 'is music.'

Hyped up on too much soda, JayArre had desperately been trying to find a food substance to counteract the sugar. Rooting into the deep, dark recessives of her cupboards, she finally found a bag of chocolate covered raisins. "Screw the anti-sugar search," she muttered. "Raisinettes will do just fine. They were fruit, once." JayArre thought she heard the chiming of the chat program, informing her that she had a new message. She stumbled back into the living room, predictably catching her leg on the glass coffee table and swearing in pain. Sure enough, the chimes were a-wailing.

Rubbing her throbbing shin, she read, "But really, I think that he needs a brain-washing, or something. I mean, I can see Romano wearing the dress, but what reason do I have for Benton to wear one?"

"Ooooo-kay…" she started. After a moment's confusion and consideration, JayArre decided her friend must have forgotten what the paragraph she was supposed to be reviewing was about, possibly confusing it with one of her other unfinished works. However, being a true friend, she decided to play along, as not to embarrass Cymereane. She played the situation over in her head, trying to imagine such an even, then typed her response. "Benton will wear a dress because his supervisor is wearing one, if he wants a promotion he will feel obligated to wear it!"

Cymereane watched the screen, edgily waiting for an answer. A feeling of disquiet rushed over her, and suddenly she knew what was wrong with her. It was an unpreventable, undeniable, unignorable ICE-CREAM ATTACK! She galloped to her fridge; butter-pecan ice cream was calling her name. Incidentally, her wine glass was refilled along the way. She heard the ICQ button chime, once, twice, three times; damn that was getting annoying, before she got back.

"…Yes, but will it be enough to get Benton the job over Elizabeth? They are both talented surgeons, I mean c'mon, let's be reasonable here!"

Cymereane considered this briefly before responding. "Maybe if you suggest that Romano will give the job to Benton because of the style of his dress? After all, if he looks that good in a formal, Elizabeth would naturally be outclassed. He would win the job based on those merits alone."

'Hmm,' JayArre considered, 'Plausible ideas, maybe Cym getting her stories mixed up would work after all.' She copied and pasted the entire chat into her plausible idea file. Maybe, just maybe she could squeeze it in and make it sound, well, plausible after all!

Cym relaxed in her comfortable swivel chair. She leaned back as far as the chair would allow, and stared at the ceiling. 'We never should have gotten the spackle,' she reflected. Cymereane found it interesting how she and her friend differed in their writing styles and thought processes. She was an idea girl, herself; she could easily come up with the premise for a twenty-page fic, but she had to make sure there was someone available for editing when she was done!

The mental block was becoming tiresome. She yearned for inspiration. 'Funny," she considered, 'how different JayArre's perceptions of "inspiration" are from mine.' Cym had long ago decided that inspiration implied insomnia until the thoughts were meticulously poured out; getting up at three in the morning to type up a conversation that had popped into her brain. JayArre, on the other hand, believed even being able to write down a few paragraphs marked the signs of true insight. 'Obviously,' Cymereane pondered, 'she's coping with a greater block than I am.' The implication of that was almost frightening, considering how severe her own was.

After setting aside the other ideas for another hour, JayArre moved on to her next unfinished fic. They seemed to be collecting in her Microsoft Word program. Damn, she hated Windows, but was too lazy to look into buying a better browser. In fact, she had so many that the program told her she had used up all of the allotted memory. Damn. Damn Microsoft. Damn her uncooperative subconscious. Damn, damn, damn.

The less sleep she had, the more irritable she became, but she also knew a large part of the irritability came from frustration, as it rightly should. Dozens of stories, some pages in length, others merely a sentence. All waiting to be completed, but at the rate she was going now…ack. The people of the ERFFCC were going to kill her if she didn't post something soon, she had never actually written an entire fanfiction before, and well, people were waiting. She had been accepted on the assumption that she would produce something worthwhile soon, but that had been before. Before, when she was actually in the middle of composing a rather promising story. Before, well, the revolving, infuriating, stuckness. Writer's block sure as hell didn't help her situation. Which part of the brain controlled the subconscious again? The ego, the superego, the id; oh hell, who cared, whatever it was it was severely screwing up her mental processes and that was enough knowledge for aggravation.

Oh, to be one of the marvelous crew that could whip out a virtuoso piece of work in a day, editing time included. She snorted. "If only," she muttered wryly. Her status as a self-and-non-self-proclaimed perfectionist didn't help matters, either. She just couldn't move on unless every word in the sentence was acceptable at least, if not even to her liking. She was grumbling over her latest paragraph; where had she gone wrong? She was trying to write a simple piece, all she had to do was take the entire episode of "All in the Family" and transcribe it, add some emotion in addition to the scripted words, and voila! Unfortunately for her, it was not as easy as it sounded or appeared to be. So far she had completed a little bit, a chapter to look at, but nothing was working, absolutely nothing! Completely unsatisfactory. It was like the communication and motor function portions of her brain was malfunctioning, not exactly a comforting thought. "Must be the caffeine," she muttered.

She glared at the screen, seriously considering deleting her entire fic and filling the desktop space with more mp3s, but that would only provide relief from irritation for a short while. How many more times she could bear listening to "Goodbye Earl," or the "Mission: Impossible" theme, she didn't know. She knew all too well from past experience that deleting a fic would only provide regrets in the future. JayArre thought about leaving the story alone for a while, but she hadn't had good encounters with that strategy, either. Typically, the fact that she even wrote in the first place would get lost in the unpenetrated recesses of her mind. Scatterbrained was a good word to describe her mindset, but she preferred the more politically correct term, recollectionally challenged. She had jokingly talked to friends about starting a support group, Scatterbrains Anonymous, but she quickly realized several problems with this. If it were anonymous, no one would remember who they or anyone else was, or why they were there. 'Heck, no one would remember to even come in the first place,' she mused. As Cym had said, "I'll finally have a group I can forget I belong to!" Absentmindedness isn't exactly an endearing quality for would-be authors, a fact that constantly smacked her upside the head. 'Let's face it,' she thought, 'My brain is working against me.'

In the meantime, she decided to concentrate on some of the more peaceful moments of the fic, the silly, humorous moments. Ah, that moment of passion she had been thinking of earlier.

She typed feverishly, then sent it to Cym.

Cym was eating her butter-pecan ice cream, drinking yet another glass of wine. (She couldn't recall exactly how many glasses she had had, but at this point she figured it really didn't matter.) Her fic was beginning to frustrate her beyond compare. 'What the heck is wrong with me?' The thought echoed in her mind. Her writers block was taking on epic proportions, it was just getting ridiculous at this point. Already already in the last two days, she had gotten three emails asking her to finish it but the exasperation with her fic was taking its toll. The alcohol didn't help matters much, either. The audience wanted to know if her heroine had woken up; if the hero was still asleep and unknowing of her fate. All right, the last email was an advertisement for selling bonds quickly; at first she was tempted to delete it, but after brief consideration she decided she might want to make more money some day, so she placed that email in her growing, "I might actually want to read this again" email folder.

She glared at the pictures of her hero and heroine; their smiling photos adorned the small screen saver she had put on her computer as a source of inspiration. INSPIRATION; the word galled her. Motivation, stimulation, muse; but no. If only she had a little inspiration. She read and re-read her story. "What should I do?" she moaned to no one in particular. Cym scrolled aimlessly down what she had composed so far, changing entire paragraphs that didn't need alteration, when she lit onto a favorite paragraph of hers.

JayArre sent the added text, then turned her attention back to her own boring paragraphs. She quickly realized that, in her wired state and in haste to send to Cym, she had passed along her own text, as well. Ah, well. She probably would have emailed it eventually. Rereading the scene, it sparked her interest. This was a scene she could work on. Poor Cleo.

"…Cleo had been hit by a car, and was bleeding profusely." She forwarded it to Cym, then hastily emailed again. "What do you think, enough pain and angst? Should I add more medical details?"

Cym stared at the screen for a moment; she was a bit upset that JayArre had totally changed her fic's intentions. She had been trying, really trying, to develop some serious angst for Carter and develop his romance with Kerry. Carter could never have enough angst. But…the scene could still work. Her eyes once again became glued to the screen. "Like Cleo would actually bleed, we all know she would spout oil," she muttered while typing.

"Really, JayArre, everyone knows that Cleo would probably be sent over to Jiffy Lube, and she would never actually be bleeding." She looked at the screen, on second thought; Cleo had always struck her as more wooden than as a robot. She typed then sent.

"They probably would find termites you know, instead of a blown head gasket."

JayArre looked at the screen…then typed.

"Cym get a grip, I think the wine has gone to your head…maybe you need some more ice cream." Cym read the message her friend has sent her, by gosh, she was right; she needed more sugar. In her half-drunken stupor, she forgotten she had a bowl in front of her. "Hell with that," she mumbled. She grabbed the entire carton and proceeded to eat to her heart's content, occasionally glancing up at the computer screen.

"Cym," her friend had proceeded to type, "we aren't getting anywhere. None of this is going to help our stories. We've come up with dozens of totally, unrelated scenes that we can't use!"

After a lengthy consideration, Cym came to the conclusion of what had to be done. "Ya know what? Screw Daylight! Screw your story! We're gonna co-author a fanfic," Cymereane typed.

JayArre blankly looked at the screen. So eloquent with words was Cym. She sighed. This was it. She had known the day would come eventually, but had never imagined it was arrive so soon. Cymereane had totally,completely, lost it. "What?"

"We are going to write a story. Together. Collaborate. Work together. Team up."

"Thank you, Cym, I believe I get the point. What are we going to write about? We have no plot, no set cast of characters, and most importantly, no plot!"

"Details, details, my little skeptic. Everyone knows that stories take on a life of their own; we'll just start writing, and create a storyline along the way."

JayArre knew from experience that stories did take on a life of their own, but they usually hijacked the car, kidnapped the characters, and left the ending in the gutter to die. She decided not to push this issue.

"Are we just going to ditch our other stories? People are waiting for them."

"Sweetie, I think that you are under the impression that someone has actually read our other stories. Or wants to. Besides, we weren't getting anywhere with them, and we have ideas for a brand new fic! The most inspiration we've had in days, if not weeks; we should act on it!" Cym read over what she had sent; the amount of clarity she retained after a bottle of wine almost scared her, especially after her ability to be coherent had plummeted earlier. Perhaps the sudden flow of ideas acted as a sobriety.

JayArre contemplated this, it was true, neither was accomplishing, well, anything on their other stories, might as well move on to the bigger and brighter. There really wasn't a reason not to, she was coming up with more ideas now than in the past month. "Well, okay. I'm in."

So, each sat at her own computer, tied together through the eternal bonds of instant messaging, and they proceeded to conference deep into the night. As the night wore on and a new dawn approached, both became tired, frustrated, but excited at the prospect of their new story. Finally inspired, and not a moment too soon. Permanent vacations in rooms with padded walls would not be needed after all, at least not for this set of circumstances; we cannot account for the rest of their mental health at this time.

The other fics were still left in the lurch, but so be it. The mind was fickle, and if a story wasn't working, as Cym had so delicately put it, screw it. After hours, days, weeks of work, ideas and paragraphs literally pouring from their previously droughted minds. Fingers, at first, dancing upon the keyboards, then later painfully pecked at the keys as carpal-tunnel syndrome set in. After bottles of ibuprofen and caffeinated beverages, they were finished. Both were convinced that what they had was a real piece of work, intelligent, serious, thought provoking, and above all, good. Biased, sure they were, but they were certain that together, they had created the best piece of drama that either had ever penned, and they were proud. Neither could wait to send it to the masses, but in their hurry they absently forgot to request an editor, thereby leaving mistakes and discussion throughout the fic. By the time it was sent into the virtual world it was too late, but neither cared. The importance was that they had completed an entire story, and put an end to the writer's block. A celebration was in order, but normally this would consist of soda, ice cream, and wine, and, well, they were a little tired of those. Nonetheless, they agreed upon the perfect celebratory act: they were going to go to sleep.

Next week on "When Fanfic Writers Go Bad," we get to the real story...