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[bubbleforest]

You know, the more I see it, the more I'm starting to hate the phrase Out of CharacterMostly because other people dictating how a person should be writing kind of pisses me off. There used to be a time when people were ASKING to see new character traits in whatever fandom they were in - at least they did in mine. But apparently now it's not a good

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[zillahseye]

I do really badly with betas. I believe everything they say. I'm all "Oh God, you're right, I DO suck. I'll just. Be over here with my piece of shit fic. That will now not ever be finished because I'm painfully aware that it sucks. And the characters suck and the language sucks. And I suck. Anybody have some chains and vinegar?" Or I try to rewrite the story based on what they like, and the whole thing winds up making no sense and I lose the narrative and all my personal interest in it. This is the same reason I can pretty much kiss a fic g'bye after I post one part of it, or even show a friend parts. I'll never be able to go back to the level of comfort I required to finish it. I feel too closely watched, even if that feeling's illusory.

Welcome to even more of my neuroses: My reccing is totally random. I've read wonderful things I never rec. I don't think I've ever recced anything in popslash, first because I felt like (and was) a total n00b, and then because I was paralyzed that people would think I was snubbing them because I didn't rec their stuff previously and now I was reccing Susie Upstart, or they'd think I was kissing BNF butt because I didn't rec them but I recced Mary Hotshot, or...yeah.

When I rec a story it's not because it's better than unrecced fics. It's because it made me all thinky so I wanted to discuss it with someone, or it was mindbogglingly odd, or an original idea, or a funky new style, or had a pairing I just couldn't believe, or took place in a fandom in which it's nearly impossible to find fic, or because it was Tuesday and I had the link handy. Someone might've written a perfectly wonderful story in a fandom and I won't rec it because I saw links everywhere already, or because it's wonderful just like the other twelve thousand and a half fics with similar subject matter that've flooded the fandom since Episode XYZ aired, or because I'm pretty sure nobody on my friendslist would have any knowledge of (or interest in) the subject. Or because it was Tuesday and I didn't have the link handy.

Of course, fandomwise, the same few authors get raves for a lot of reasons. If all your friends have three hundred friends on their journals, and you have three hundred friends, and all of you are incestuous with your inter-reccing (due to fondness, feelings of obligation, or genuine appreciation) of course you'll have more people encountering your stories, the vital first step to reccing them. Also, quite a few well-known authors are well-known because they're on lots of comms and lists and stuff--you're pretty much buying press with that kind of participation. And...I don't know about you, but I'm scared by fanfic in most comms. I stick to authors I know so I don't waste hours reading "Alien Assbabies Meet Spellcheck--AND WIN!" or 9028809234 chapters about Brian the racist and his bad cutting habit. Hence, I probably end up reading mostly the John Grishams and Stephen Kings of fandoms with which I'm not intimately familiar and in which I don't have personal friends--and reccing only those authors, too.