Give and Take
It seems like there have been several things lately that I've wanted to blog about, then decided not to for one reason or another.
First, I was going to blog about how I hate it when people are passive/aggressive. I was angry at someone whom was being passive/agressive with me, and began to wonder why it is that people just don't feel like they can say what's on their minds. I'm not talking about strangers or people you don't really know, because in those situations, it's often necessary to keep what you think to yourself because you don't have the whole story. I'm talking about people who you do know fairly well and might even consider to be a friend.
I don't pull any punches with my friends. I will gladly ream them out if I think they are being stupid, and those who do it back to me are the ones I consider to be my closest friends. I suppose I understand that people might be fearful of retaliation, and that's why they take the passive approach. But to me, when I find out someone had a problem with something I did weeks or even months ago but never bothered to confront me about it? My level of trust in anything that person has to say going forward will be considerably less.
But, I decided not to blog about that because I thought maybe it would come off as arrogant. Also because it's easy for me to say that I can take what I dish out, but I'm not so sure that it's true in real life. It hurts when people are angry at you. But I think I get over anger much faster than passiveness.
Secondly, I was going to blog about a fanfiction story that I just wrote and submitted to a couple different Harry Potter sites. One site accepted it without question and it was posted the next day. But the second site didn't respond until a week later and only to tell me that one of their own beta-readers would be looking over my story and I should expect to receive their changes in a few days.
This completely threw me for a loop. One, because I had already had my own beta look over it and we had already made changes. And two, because the changes I received back from the site's beta were significant and, I thought, would change the tone of my story if I agreed to all of them. I understand that different fanfic sites have their own policies on screening stories for submisison, but I've never had a beta "assigned" to me before. I was initially upset and a little pissed off. I thought, "This is exactly why I am not interested in publishing anything other than online. Because it would be just like this, except 10 times worse."
But I decided not to blog about that because once I sat down and looked at the beta's changes more closely, I could see that about half of them were valid and either accepted them or changed their wording slightly. The rest of them I rejected and kept my original text. But it was a good exercise for me. I also know that hardly any of my blog readers are into fanfic, and this fic in particular is not one I plan to share with the public at large, so I try to keep those rants to a minimum.
Thirdly I was going to start a new feature called "My Favorite Icons". The HP fandom is rife with hilarious little icons and avatars that people have made, and I've accumulated quite a lot of them. But I think that since I don't have a paid LiveJournal, I'm not able to post pictures directly into my entries, so I'd have to link to them. And most of them are Harry Potter icons, which may or may not be understandable to non HP fans. Eh, maybe I will do this one anyway. Cuz they're awful funny.
I should probably just stop apologizing. This is my blog after all. As another of my LJ friends put it... "If you aren't intersted, just scrolley on by."
First, I was going to blog about how I hate it when people are passive/aggressive. I was angry at someone whom was being passive/agressive with me, and began to wonder why it is that people just don't feel like they can say what's on their minds. I'm not talking about strangers or people you don't really know, because in those situations, it's often necessary to keep what you think to yourself because you don't have the whole story. I'm talking about people who you do know fairly well and might even consider to be a friend.
I don't pull any punches with my friends. I will gladly ream them out if I think they are being stupid, and those who do it back to me are the ones I consider to be my closest friends. I suppose I understand that people might be fearful of retaliation, and that's why they take the passive approach. But to me, when I find out someone had a problem with something I did weeks or even months ago but never bothered to confront me about it? My level of trust in anything that person has to say going forward will be considerably less.
But, I decided not to blog about that because I thought maybe it would come off as arrogant. Also because it's easy for me to say that I can take what I dish out, but I'm not so sure that it's true in real life. It hurts when people are angry at you. But I think I get over anger much faster than passiveness.
Secondly, I was going to blog about a fanfiction story that I just wrote and submitted to a couple different Harry Potter sites. One site accepted it without question and it was posted the next day. But the second site didn't respond until a week later and only to tell me that one of their own beta-readers would be looking over my story and I should expect to receive their changes in a few days.
This completely threw me for a loop. One, because I had already had my own beta look over it and we had already made changes. And two, because the changes I received back from the site's beta were significant and, I thought, would change the tone of my story if I agreed to all of them. I understand that different fanfic sites have their own policies on screening stories for submisison, but I've never had a beta "assigned" to me before. I was initially upset and a little pissed off. I thought, "This is exactly why I am not interested in publishing anything other than online. Because it would be just like this, except 10 times worse."
But I decided not to blog about that because once I sat down and looked at the beta's changes more closely, I could see that about half of them were valid and either accepted them or changed their wording slightly. The rest of them I rejected and kept my original text. But it was a good exercise for me. I also know that hardly any of my blog readers are into fanfic, and this fic in particular is not one I plan to share with the public at large, so I try to keep those rants to a minimum.
Thirdly I was going to start a new feature called "My Favorite Icons". The HP fandom is rife with hilarious little icons and avatars that people have made, and I've accumulated quite a lot of them. But I think that since I don't have a paid LiveJournal, I'm not able to post pictures directly into my entries, so I'd have to link to them. And most of them are Harry Potter icons, which may or may not be understandable to non HP fans. Eh, maybe I will do this one anyway. Cuz they're awful funny.
I should probably just stop apologizing. This is my blog after all. As another of my LJ friends put it... "If you aren't intersted, just scrolley on by."