Fic: 'I love you' is a thing you say to people who are dying (9/16); hard R

[quinara]

[start of fic and notes]

'I love you' is a thing you say to people who are dying
by Quinara

Season 7. Buffy/Spike. Some Watchers survived, because sometimes people do.

[breakfasts III]

Comments

[quinara]

Would that I could! This is a reply to one of your other comments as well, really, about how I could be in the headspace to produce more stuff after posting, but the basic fact is that I obsess and obsess and obsess. Once the grip of finishing something comes on me, WOE BETIDE the world that tries to get in the way. I always do my final edits in the posting window, but once I start on that process I get into this mindset of tinkering, and it's very hard to switch off until it's all done. And even then I keep bothering myself about it until it's finished (to my satisfaction, of course, which is how you managed to catch me, because I wasn't yet satisfied but had given in). I've never been any good at posting while I write, because I go back and change so much in random places as things develop, so I've sort of come to accept that I will always post things in the most socially awkward way possible, and then people may or may not read them eventually.

(Long story short, after I burnt my own eyes out writing the Spikeid for years for only ever about one comment, if that, on the parts as I went along, I became pretty much inured to the vagaries of commenting and convinced that posting everything in one go was the only way, so as not to get caught up in the hope-disappointment cycle that next chapter everyone was going to start reading. Although now I look at things like this and think maybe I should post it to EF, because everything seems to be there these days, but then I start wondering if that means I'll have to move all my fic over there, which I don't have time to do, and all these other random thoughts...)

[the_moonmoth]

Welp. I think it comes down to what you're writing for, and I freely admit that I lose sight of this sometimes, but good writing - the best writing - comes from the author writing it for their own satisfaction, and not for comments, recs or accolades. Time was, I never posted WIPs, and then I only posted short things as WIPs, and then the short WIPs grew legs and spines and galloped away over the horizon, and here I sit with a bunch of unfinished WIPs to my name, some lovely comments, and a gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction and failure :-/ I admire your forbearance, is what I'm saying ;) When I was first in fandom, WIPs were kind of frowned on (in my circles, at least); these days it seems they're the norm. But for me, something that I miss is knowing that a favourite author has something big they're working on, and then getting to binge-read it. When the writing is really quality stuff (as yours is) being able to absorb all the themes and ideas and suggestions all in one go is the majority of my enjoyment factor, and it was really good to be reminded of that :)

That said, yes, EF has a far bigger readership...