Long-Winded Meta-ish Thoughts Of The Week
Random Thought #1 Look at my pretty new default icon! I made it myself, and it's totally inspired from Adam's fierce outfit the other day my favourite peacock feather earrings that I misplaced back in the summer.
Random Thought #2 Today I did one of those grocery shopping trips where I stocked up on everything and pretty much just put whatever caught my eye into the shopping cart. I now have that wonderful feeling that comes from when the pantry is stocked & the fridge is full of real food (vs leftover take-out).
Actual Reason For Posting
I signed up for Archive Of Our Own (AO3) a few weeks back, but because I'm lazy, didn't do more than a fairly basic setup of my account. This afternoon, though, I had fun playing around with the import function, and uploaded all my Kris/Adam fic, as well as my Glee fic. While I did still have to edit the Header information (it managed to import my summary and notes, but then also left them in the body of the fic, and because I always have over-long authors notes, it sometimes didn't catch that I actually had multiple paragraphs of notes, there), it was a lot simpler than I was expecting, actually. The one thing, of course, that I couldn't do was embed video right into the page (for Whataya Want From Me) but I was able to link to it, and that works too.
I kind of ran out of energy before getting to uploading my SG-1 stuff, though. Or at least, I didn't feel like figuring out the answer to this internal debate I've been having lately.
When is it too late to go back and edit?
So here's the thing. Part of the motivation for finally uploading to AO3 was that I was accepted to aific over the weekend, and I thought it might be good to be able to link there when I make my introductory post. During the process of applying, however, I had to confront that ever-present demon on my shoulder - my internal editor.
I originally posted Whataya Want Fromafter spending four crazy days writing like a maniac while the whole time questioning what I was even doing writing the fic. I'd never written slash before, nevermind RPS, and that combined with all the other boundaries I felt like I was pushing was where the first set of notes "I used to tell people I had standards. Then I wrote 2nd-person POV Emo R-rated RPS songfic about American Idol" came from. The thing is, though, I was so caught up in disbelief that I'd even written the fic, I barely even gave it a basic read-through for editing purposes. Over the first few hours (and days) after posting, I was constantly going back to add a comma, change a verb tense, restructure a sentence, etc. After awhile I just started up a new file where I dumped sentences/paragraphs that just felt awkward in my head, and felt oddly justified when I noticed that the same parts kept jumping out at me every time I read them.
(ETA: I had awesome betas who pointed out a bunch of stuff, and who think I'm crazy because I keep editing it. I'm just overly critical of myself and tend to nitpick everything.)
So before I sent in my application to aific, I went back and did those last (final) edits, along with a few others, mostly because enough time had finally passed that I was able to view my overuse of the comma objectively, and take out about a dozen of the offending buggers. Of course, there are still one or two "bigger" issues I'm kind of twitching to correct (mostly, I don't feel like the introductory flash-forward scene actually ended up matching the moment in the fic where it was supposedly taken from), but that's the type of thing I've come to accept that it's better to just leave after a fic has been put out there. To change that now would be altering the basic shape of the fic, and that seems like too much.
The reason I mention this, though, is because I found myself re-reading a couple of my SG-1 fics while debating what to link to in my application, and, well, I made a few observations. First of all, I was kind of shocked to see how my writing style has progressed since writing those fics. I don't know why, but it feels like something has finally clicked, and I'm finding myself writing a lot more naturally these days, and somehow, well, better than I ever have before. I've spent years writing and re-writing and trying so hard constantly improve myself, and now, well, I'm feeling like all the hard work has paid off. Will I come back to what I'm writing now in a few years and be able to see all the areas that I still need to improve on? I hope so, because I still feel like I have so many aspects of writing to explore. (I have to admit, though, the eighteen year old who was initially rejected from Fiction Alley (and the twenty year old who got rejected from the SugarQuill and pretty much got dismissed as being a boring writer by the rest of the internet when the whole thing turned wanky) is feeling quite proud of the resounding affirmation my application received.)
But I'm getting side-tracked from what I wanted to say. Here's the thing. I'd kind of like to go back and edit my SG-1 fic pretty thoroughly. Be my own beta at this point, essentially. Is it odd to want to do this to fic that's been public for (some of it) almost two years, now? I remember having a similar debate about going back an editing one of my oldest Harry Potter fics, to reflect the canon of the last few books, and in the end I decided I'd rather leave it as an example of my early writing (and also, how many things I got right, even if I did get some of the names and other details like that wrong). I'm kind of wondering if I should do the same (and just upload the fics as is, already) with the SG-1 fics.
So again, I ask the question - when do you think it's too late to go back and edit?
(Also, I edited this post about a half dozen times within the first ten minutes after posting. *headdesk*)
Random Thought #2 Today I did one of those grocery shopping trips where I stocked up on everything and pretty much just put whatever caught my eye into the shopping cart. I now have that wonderful feeling that comes from when the pantry is stocked & the fridge is full of real food (vs leftover take-out).
Actual Reason For Posting
I signed up for Archive Of Our Own (AO3) a few weeks back, but because I'm lazy, didn't do more than a fairly basic setup of my account. This afternoon, though, I had fun playing around with the import function, and uploaded all my Kris/Adam fic, as well as my Glee fic. While I did still have to edit the Header information (it managed to import my summary and notes, but then also left them in the body of the fic, and because I always have over-long authors notes, it sometimes didn't catch that I actually had multiple paragraphs of notes, there), it was a lot simpler than I was expecting, actually. The one thing, of course, that I couldn't do was embed video right into the page (for Whataya Want From Me) but I was able to link to it, and that works too.
I kind of ran out of energy before getting to uploading my SG-1 stuff, though. Or at least, I didn't feel like figuring out the answer to this internal debate I've been having lately.
When is it too late to go back and edit?
So here's the thing. Part of the motivation for finally uploading to AO3 was that I was accepted to aific over the weekend, and I thought it might be good to be able to link there when I make my introductory post. During the process of applying, however, I had to confront that ever-present demon on my shoulder - my internal editor.
I originally posted Whataya Want Fromafter spending four crazy days writing like a maniac while the whole time questioning what I was even doing writing the fic. I'd never written slash before, nevermind RPS, and that combined with all the other boundaries I felt like I was pushing was where the first set of notes "I used to tell people I had standards. Then I wrote 2nd-person POV Emo R-rated RPS songfic about American Idol" came from. The thing is, though, I was so caught up in disbelief that I'd even written the fic, I barely even gave it a basic read-through for editing purposes. Over the first few hours (and days) after posting, I was constantly going back to add a comma, change a verb tense, restructure a sentence, etc. After awhile I just started up a new file where I dumped sentences/paragraphs that just felt awkward in my head, and felt oddly justified when I noticed that the same parts kept jumping out at me every time I read them.
(ETA: I had awesome betas who pointed out a bunch of stuff, and who think I'm crazy because I keep editing it. I'm just overly critical of myself and tend to nitpick everything.)
So before I sent in my application to aific, I went back and did those last (final) edits, along with a few others, mostly because enough time had finally passed that I was able to view my overuse of the comma objectively, and take out about a dozen of the offending buggers. Of course, there are still one or two "bigger" issues I'm kind of twitching to correct (mostly, I don't feel like the introductory flash-forward scene actually ended up matching the moment in the fic where it was supposedly taken from), but that's the type of thing I've come to accept that it's better to just leave after a fic has been put out there. To change that now would be altering the basic shape of the fic, and that seems like too much.
The reason I mention this, though, is because I found myself re-reading a couple of my SG-1 fics while debating what to link to in my application, and, well, I made a few observations. First of all, I was kind of shocked to see how my writing style has progressed since writing those fics. I don't know why, but it feels like something has finally clicked, and I'm finding myself writing a lot more naturally these days, and somehow, well, better than I ever have before. I've spent years writing and re-writing and trying so hard constantly improve myself, and now, well, I'm feeling like all the hard work has paid off. Will I come back to what I'm writing now in a few years and be able to see all the areas that I still need to improve on? I hope so, because I still feel like I have so many aspects of writing to explore. (I have to admit, though, the eighteen year old who was initially rejected from Fiction Alley (and the twenty year old who got rejected from the SugarQuill and pretty much got dismissed as being a boring writer by the rest of the internet when the whole thing turned wanky) is feeling quite proud of the resounding affirmation my application received.)
But I'm getting side-tracked from what I wanted to say. Here's the thing. I'd kind of like to go back and edit my SG-1 fic pretty thoroughly. Be my own beta at this point, essentially. Is it odd to want to do this to fic that's been public for (some of it) almost two years, now? I remember having a similar debate about going back an editing one of my oldest Harry Potter fics, to reflect the canon of the last few books, and in the end I decided I'd rather leave it as an example of my early writing (and also, how many things I got right, even if I did get some of the names and other details like that wrong). I'm kind of wondering if I should do the same (and just upload the fics as is, already) with the SG-1 fics.
So again, I ask the question - when do you think it's too late to go back and edit?
(Also, I edited this post about a half dozen times within the first ten minutes after posting. *headdesk*)