From Tumbr: Anon Ask - Do I regret being too busy with A Bed of Thorns to write other OUaT fic?

[nym_wibbly]

Do you regret that you missed out on writing more OUAT fanfic, due to being tied up in ABOT?
~ Anonymous

In a way. I mean, it’s my poor health that I regret, not A Bed of Thorns! Twenty years ago I’d have churned the thing out and moved on to the next shiny, and I miss that ability to work at pace and keep on top of fresh inspiration. I regret losing that.

I wouldn’t trade A Bed of Thorns for a hard drive full of fly-by-night plotbunnies. In… what, 35 years now… I’ve never written another story that the audience responded to so powerfully, or which motivated me so completely, or which challenged me to learn new ways of writing in order to do it justice. I’ve never had a ‘vision’ like it, or so lasting.

There’ve been times when the attention and scrutiny intimidated the hell out of me, and I regretted having my eggs all in the one basket then. The Russian translation fiasco nearly finished me as a fanwriter, or at least as one who puts their stuff out there into the interwebz. The backlash over the miscarriage plotline was a nasty shock, given how hard I’d tried to explain that no, this wasn’t another baby-ever-after story - even when I was avoiding giving away any spoilers, I was upfront and clear about that. The rudeness and sense of entitlement from a minority of (former!) readers made that hard to get through. I take the view that nothing fictional is worth real-life woe/abuse/strife. Nothing. I’m inclined to simply walk away and do something better with my time, rather than keep doing whatever it is that’s attracting the wrong kind of fannish contact!

There’ve been times when I’ve wondered if it’s worth putting so much of my limited energy into the story, but I’ve always, ultimately, decided that the answer is yes; that this one is something special, and worth a special effort. And if it’s the last thing I ever get out there into the fanspace, at least it’s something that’ll stand the test of time - not one of those pieces that make no sense once everyone’s forgotten the fanon and discussion of the moment. I’ve written a lot of those, and I can’t stand leaving them online for posterity. I regret the ephemeral nature of those pieces more than I could ever regret embarking on A Bed of Thorns.