From Tumblr: Am I still planning to quit fandom after A Bed of Thorns is finished?

[nym_wibbly]

When BOT is over are you still planning to quit fandom?
~ Anonymous

I never planned to quit fandom (though whenever my failing sanity demands it, I avoid the hell out of fandom for a while!). What I plan to do is stop posting my fanfiction where it can be stolen. I was already at the point of “I can’t deal with this again” before the Russian translation incident with A Bed of Thorns. Having been forced to deal with that, souring what was a wonderful writing experience that had begun to change my mind, erode my fears, and help me move past the nastiness of previous thefts, I’m now beyond done. Nobody else is ever getting the chance to put me in that horrible position. I’m just trying to hold on until I’ve finished my current work in progress, which is A Bed of Thorns. I struggle a lot when I come to post each new chapter, struggle with that fear of being exposed all over again to the uninvited nastiness, to the minority who make fandom hard work, stressful, and hurtful, and that’s no fun. I’m in fandom for the fun.

I don’t think I could ever give up being fannish, or stop writing fanfiction, even if I reach the point of being so severely disabled that I can only write it inside my own head. I’d explode if I didn’t fanfic. Writing it and distributing it are two different things, and in order to enjoy the one, I find that I really, really have to give up the other.