Here from metafandom's delicious account, and while I agree with some of rawles' points, I relate to your post so much more, except that I'm not yet at the point of being able to shrug. A majority of the few fics I've written, and those that I'm writing or have in mind for the future, are female-focused het or gen, but I'm honestly not sure whether they pass muster as feminist or not. Does one of my potential fics being m/m take points away? (I am pretty sure that having no f/f on my writing roster despite being bi indicates internalized heterosexism or some sort of hangup on my part, though I make absolutely no judgments against anyone else in the same situation.) That said, I have so much trouble writing actual words and getting them into a postable state that at this juncture I think what I need to do is write, and keep reading and thinking about things, and try my very best to make sure my stuff isn't offensive before I post, but mostly just write and hope these things sort themselves out in time instead of actively policing my own preferences in advance.

On some level it's funny that I'm so tied up in knots over all this. One of the tiny fandoms I write in is extremely freewheeling, and in the other there may be no one left to care about my novel-length WIP even if I manage to finish and post it (it's movieverse, while most everyone else seems to have migrated to bookverse or started there in the first place).

I think if I find anything empowering, it's believing that the stories in my head matter enough -- even if only to myself -- to devote time and energy to writing them down. There's a part of me that is afraid even saying that much is contemptible, but at the same time, I've come to a point where I have to put words to my stories or slide back into depression again.

Anyway, thanks so much for this post.