Fandoms and archiving
musesfool asked about archiving: "The question is, is archiving all over the place - spreading your love around, as it were - is that attention-whoring or just smart marketing?" and seemag continued the question further.
I honestly don't archive in other places. I post in my LJ and in my website and that is about the extent of my archiving. And I'm massive backed up on my website because I keep wanting to redo the layout.
Am I missing out by not archiving my fic all over the place? Probably. I get no feedback emails from the website even though I see the hits on the statistics, so I assume people are reading. I get feedback from my friends and the communities. Occasionally I'll get recced elsewhere or I'll be on a challenge which will bring in the "strangers". Oddly I seem okay with this. I would like more people to read my stuff, but I don't have the time or patience for the big MLs anymore.
Do I get frustrated by this? Hell yes! I would love more people to read my stuff, especially the non-100 stuff, but I'm always on the periphery of fandoms. I'm not a BNF. I'm rather glad of this fact. I'd wind up arguing and defending myself most of the time. And probably being fandom_wanked the other half of the time. I'm glad when people notice my writing and what I have to say. That's enough sometimes.
Part of it is length. As people have noticed, I like short fics, drabbles and their ilk. Writing massive chaptered fic doesn't appeal to me anymore. A lot of the major archives for HP are geared towards chapters and epics. I toyed with the epics back in my Buffy days, but I never got far enough along to post anything.
seemag also asked about leaving fandoms:
I have been done this road many many a time. Some of my "fandom drift" has been creator induced, when the writer did something that changed the fundamental reason I enjoyed the series in the first place. I started off in McCaffrey fandom in the early 1990s. Renegades of Pern had just been released, so Anne was just starting AIVAS that ultimately turned me off the world. I liked the low tech aspect of the world. I didn't want them to rediscover the old Earth technology like AIVAS. I struggled to write under those conditions, hoping my groups would opt for a more alternate universe approach. Some did, some didn't. Unfortunately I also saw the massive cracks in the system, the in-fighting and petty bickering only fandom can take to a new art form. When the Fannish Weyrs became quieter and less active, so did I. I felt some wistfulness about the Hold and Hall characters I created and some regret at the stories I'd never finish, but it was time to go.
I briefly stayed with "Buffy", but faced some of the same issues. I'm still not sure if it's the darker Buffy that turned me off or whether the group moving away from high school did it. College was such a different experience for me, compared to the similarities I could see with the Sunnydale High stories. If I don't enjoy the series or books, it's very hard for me to stay involved in the fandom. I feel like I have to smile and nod a lot when people gibber about their favorite parts. I felt like I was doing that too much with "Buffy".
I'm dreading what could happen with "X-Men" and Harry Potter. Will they just be more blips on the fannish wall?
I honestly don't archive in other places. I post in my LJ and in my website and that is about the extent of my archiving. And I'm massive backed up on my website because I keep wanting to redo the layout.
Am I missing out by not archiving my fic all over the place? Probably. I get no feedback emails from the website even though I see the hits on the statistics, so I assume people are reading. I get feedback from my friends and the communities. Occasionally I'll get recced elsewhere or I'll be on a challenge which will bring in the "strangers". Oddly I seem okay with this. I would like more people to read my stuff, but I don't have the time or patience for the big MLs anymore.
Do I get frustrated by this? Hell yes! I would love more people to read my stuff, especially the non-100 stuff, but I'm always on the periphery of fandoms. I'm not a BNF. I'm rather glad of this fact. I'd wind up arguing and defending myself most of the time. And probably being fandom_wanked the other half of the time. I'm glad when people notice my writing and what I have to say. That's enough sometimes.
Part of it is length. As people have noticed, I like short fics, drabbles and their ilk. Writing massive chaptered fic doesn't appeal to me anymore. A lot of the major archives for HP are geared towards chapters and epics. I toyed with the epics back in my Buffy days, but I never got far enough along to post anything.
seemag also asked about leaving fandoms:
I have been done this road many many a time. Some of my "fandom drift" has been creator induced, when the writer did something that changed the fundamental reason I enjoyed the series in the first place. I started off in McCaffrey fandom in the early 1990s. Renegades of Pern had just been released, so Anne was just starting AIVAS that ultimately turned me off the world. I liked the low tech aspect of the world. I didn't want them to rediscover the old Earth technology like AIVAS. I struggled to write under those conditions, hoping my groups would opt for a more alternate universe approach. Some did, some didn't. Unfortunately I also saw the massive cracks in the system, the in-fighting and petty bickering only fandom can take to a new art form. When the Fannish Weyrs became quieter and less active, so did I. I felt some wistfulness about the Hold and Hall characters I created and some regret at the stories I'd never finish, but it was time to go.
I briefly stayed with "Buffy", but faced some of the same issues. I'm still not sure if it's the darker Buffy that turned me off or whether the group moving away from high school did it. College was such a different experience for me, compared to the similarities I could see with the Sunnydale High stories. If I don't enjoy the series or books, it's very hard for me to stay involved in the fandom. I feel like I have to smile and nod a lot when people gibber about their favorite parts. I felt like I was doing that too much with "Buffy".
I'm dreading what could happen with "X-Men" and Harry Potter. Will they just be more blips on the fannish wall?