WHY I DON'T REVIEW IN THE FANDOM.

[artemis_rex]

Someone asked me, very politely, to review their story a day or so ago. I had to say no. Funnily enough, a friend and I had been discussing my lack of reviews in the fandom earlier this week.

I don't review in the fandom, and some people may say, "Why not?" I have not reviewed anything in seven months and I haven't reviewed anything that an author

Comments

[nittanylizard]

The subject of reviewing has been going through my head so much over the past couple of weeks. Minus the job, I've got the same thing going on with the husband and the kids and the original writing and the, you know, life. There are stories I really enjoy that I'm behind in reading, forget about reviewing, and that does make me feel guilty, even though I don't even notice if those same authors review my stuff. There's just not enough time in the day to write, review, and reply to everything. It almost makes me feel bad about posting stories, but it's either write and post, plus fit in what reading and reviewing I can, or stop writing fanfic altogether so I can spend all my time reading and reviewing.

Still, I sometimes manage to drift off to a story that really needs help, and I spend a bunch of time crafting a review for it. Sometimes I get a nice reply from the author, and sometimes I get messages from other people who read the review and say, "I saw your review for X and wanted to let you know I was doing the same thing wrong that they were doing, but didn't realize it until I saw your review." Other times they don't get back to me, which is fine.

What really annoys me, though, considering my tight schedule and family and busy life, is when somebody else entirely implies that I should be reviewing the stories they think I should be reviewing, instead of the ones I've chosen to review. I'm perfectly capable of setting my own priorities, and they're not necessarily going to fit into other people's agendas.

I'm thinking that not reviewing at all is a very tempting option, lol. Nice post.