Do you get fan mail?

LOL. The great dissappointments of life.

I get fan mail!

Okay, so it's email. Aaaand it's fan mail for a fanfic series I wrote and posted on fanfic.net when I was 18. I'm now 25, and every few months I get a note in my email inbox that says something like "This is the best story ever! You are an awesome writer and I love you! Please write more!"

I still feel a happy, warm glow. Every time. It's like instant encouragement.

Ah, yes, the Fanfic fanmail....*gets misty eyed...*

I just got one last week...even though it was something I wrote when I was 14, it still makes me think, "Perhaps I can be a writer!"

There's nothing wrong with fan e-mail. I used to get it all the time after the Olympics in '96. In fact, I married the person who sent me my first bit of fan mail Okay, probably not a trend any of you should follow, I just got lucky.

Do tell!

And about fanmail, that would be great to hear from readers that your work was welcomed into their thoughts, and they took the time to read it...even if some authors think their work is boring. At least someone else doesn't think so....

robertpri007 said:

"In fact, I married the person who sent me my first bit of fan mail"

Wow! I bet there's a great story behind that!

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Ok, I'm warning you up front, grab some coffee. The "short" version is rather boring, as I can't use my writing flare

My husband sent a bit of fan mail to my sponsors back in '97, when I was 14 and he was 15. He had seen me on Eurosport (think ESPN, but in Europe), when I competed in the '96 Olympics. He wanted to know more about my sport and about me as an athlete (I was the media darling back then, 13 years old and on the US Olympic Team, favorite to win...next in age for my event was 23 I believe, possibly older).

Anyway, my sponsors forwarded it to me as fan mail. Being a typical 14 year old, I ignored all my fan mail, but my mother was particularly insistent that I write to "that poor little European boy." So about 6 months after I got it, I wrote him back. We became friends, and met in person on X-mas a year later. We decided to start dating long distance.

When I was 17 he proposed and I accepted, but when he came over for Easter (just a month before he was moving to the states for college), I broke up with him. Don't ask why...lots of family issues.

He went back to Vienna, dropped his classes in the states, became a depressed bum for a few years while I went off to college. Two years later we started talking again, and when I made plans for a trip through Europe, he made me promise to stop in Vienna.

Well, there were still fireworks, and when I went back for my X-mas visit he asked me to try living with him for 3 months. I agreed, and he proposed before the 3 months were up. So I just never left Vienna, and we lived there for a few years. Now we've been married for 3 years this August. Best choice I've ever made.

And sorry for the story, but you asked for it. Well, actually the person after robert did, but still.

robertpri007 said:

"And sorry for the story, but you asked for it. Well, actually the person after robert did, but still."

That is a GREAT story! 13 years old on the Olympic team! Fall in love with a fan? OMG! This has got movie written over it!
You are going to write the screenplay?

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LoL, actually, I'm writing a memoir at the moment. It gets better. The hospital I was born in caught fire the night I was born, and when I was three months old my mother shot me point blank while I was asleep in my crib (postpartum depression). I was actually pronounced dead on the scene, but no bullet can stop me! Muhaha! And to top it off, my mother is the one that coached me to the Olympics after she got out of the hospital. Oh yeah...and none of this is in the media because we always said it was due to a car accident. If I ever get my memoir published there are going to be a lot of shocked people in the racing circuit

Uh, and if you find my post in the nonfiction section, and it says I was thinking about writing that biography about a "close friend." Yeah, I've recently gotten over insecurity issues. "Close friend" means me.

Azraelsbane said:

LoL, actually, I'm writing a memoir at the moment. It gets better. The hospital I was born in caught fire the night I was born, and when I was three months old my mother shot me point blank while I was asleep in my crib (postpartum depression). I was actually pronounced dead on the scene, but no bullet can stop me! Muhaha! And to top it off, my mother is the one that coached me to the Olympics after she got out of the hospital. Oh yeah...and none of this is in the media because we always said it was due to a car accident. If I ever get my memoir published there are going to be a lot of shocked people in the racing circuit

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HOLY COW. Are you a real person? Your story is CRAZY! This is totally a movie. Maybe Denzel Washington could play your dad. Or your husband.

When THOR was published, I included my email address in the Amazon.com page. I got occasional fan letters, most of them fun at the time, but immediately forgettable.

Then I got the ultimate fan letter.

The writer told me he was 18 or 19, loved werewolf movies, and had seen the (not very good) screen adaptation, Bad Moon. He went on to say that he'd never read a novel before, but after seeing Bad Moon, decided to read Thor (the book got a full-screen credit). He liked it so much that now when he sees a movie that he's interested in, he checks to see if it was adapted from a novel, and reads the novel before seeing the movie. No surprise, he always likes the novel better than the book.

I thought, "My god! My book changed him from an illiterate to a literate!" It almost made me cry.

JoNightshade said:

HOLY COW. Are you a real person? Your story is CRAZY! This is totally a movie. Maybe Denzel Washington could play your dad. Or your husband.

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LoL, DENZEL! ::faints:: Yes, I'm a real person. Dunno about the story, but sometimes I feel like I'm crazy My husband assures me it's just residue from the family, and claims I'm perfectly normal.

Channeling stress through writing works. Nearly 25 years of insanity and the only casualties are fictional But I believe I have unintentionally hijacked this thread. I apologize and will be disappearing now.

wayndom said:

I thought, "My god! My book changed him from an illiterate to a literate!" It almost made me cry.

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That is fantastic. I bet this is the BEST FEELING EVER. For a while I was tutoring a 12 year old boy who DID NOT LIKE READING. I spent a little time asking him what movies he liked, etc., and then came back to him with Ender's Game. He was hooked. I actually wrote an email to Orson Scott Card to tell him what had happened and we corresponded a bit. Since OSC is one of my favorite living authors, that was pretty awesome.

Tremendous thread.

Getting fanmail is one of my dreams. Someday...

I get bills. My creditors wish me well, lots of prosperity and so forth. Does that count?

caw

Great love story! You're lucky to have met the guy at such a young age, and then break up with him, to only get back with him a few years after that. Do I hear a little romance novel in the works by that true life story alone??

I am still hoping for my prince charming to show up. All I am doing now is kissing a whole bunch of toads and I hate it. Oh, but there is a young police officer who just moved into the house across from me...maybe I can spark something with him. I've always had a soft spot for the law enforcement..

blacbird said:

I get bills. My creditors wish me well, lots of prosperity and so forth. Does that count?

caw

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I don't tell my creditors that I write books - may be I should and then they would be more lenient and wait for the day when I can pay them off.

I get some fan mail by e-mail.

Barbara

Great thread, Robert. I've gotten "fan mail" like that, too. "I just wanted you to know there's a typo on page 27..." Sigh. (That's why I never read my books after they're published. There's ALWAYS that typo that somehow got overlooked the other 89 times I read the darn thing before it went to the printer.)

And E.A., holy smazole. Your mom SHOT YOU?!! And you still speak to her?? Yeah. Get thee to a word processing program and start writing, wouldja? Those of us in this thread are eager for the full story.

I get fan mail and or complaints usually via email on about an every other day basis. (Once in my Working Daze comic I ran a cartoon that picked on fox news and I received about 50 emails that day, half praising me, half complaining that I picked on a great station.)

Last week I received a compliment and a complaint in one email, from a reader telling me they loved my comics but hated my novels. That was a first.

Ha! The comforting thing about it is that if the story was bad, readers wouldn't care about the details. It's only when the book matters to them in some way that they feel the need to make "corrections" like that.

If it makes you feel better, I can send you some gushing platitudes. I'll even sound all fangirlish.

OMG! You're the best author evahhh! You changed my life! Please, write more! I'll be waiting by the bookstore.

robertpri007 said:

"And sorry for the story, but you asked for it. Well, actually the person after robert did, but still."

That is a GREAT story! 13 years old on the Olympic team! Fall in love with a fan? OMG! This has got movie written over it!
You are going to write the screenplay?

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I agree! Your life would make for one great movie. I'm not a big fan of "based on true life events", but yours would be one I'd really want to see.

Get that memoir written!