I got me / some horses / to ride on, to ride on
So, I've been gagging lately on the desire to self-promote, internets.
Gagging, here, to mean I have not posted with my usual frequency, and I have not posted things I thought about posting, because there were some other posts sitting before that in the mental queue, which I have not yet forced out, this being one of those.
Specifically, I started trying to do the self-reccing meme, after I saw it once on network and once on my reading page (Jade Lennox self-recs), and I have been cringing at the whole process. I am facing, basically, two problems with this meme.
One, there are some stories I wrote years ago, which felt so important and so good when I wrote them, and I am afraid that they do not stand the test of time. And I don't really want to go back and re-evaluate those stories, but I also don't want to recommend stories that are not very good, especially since I wrote them. I mean, I've never written the sorts of stories I really want to read (NOVELS! SAGAS! EPICS! PLOTS!), but I have written many stories that I read several years later and enjoyed. But, these stories felt like they were really good stories when I wrote them, and I don't want to go back and discover they were only middling fair.
In the interests of full disclosure:
Two, if I want to impress people with my fannish self, I have to use meta. Fandom has spoken, and it finds my fic…not bad. Which makes doing all fanfic-related memes pretty disheartening, because I know that you (collectively, if not individually) like my meta better than my fic.
And, like, I'm pretty resigned to the fact that I'm not a very well-known/widely-read/highly recommended fiction author, but doing a fiction meme like that just sort of…rubs my nose in it.
And, the other meme I've been gagging on is the Love Is All You Need meme at
petra's, again, for two reasons.
One, I'm bad at thinking up nice things to say about people. I don't know, maybe I'm doing those sorts of memes wrong, but I feel like one is supposed to respond with something along the lines of, "I like you because…." and I look at most of the names on the list and think, "I don't know." Like, even the people I actually like, the answer is either, "I don't know," or "for this totally self-interested reason that you do or make something I like, and, wow, how much feedback did I not give you when it would have been appropriate? D:"
So, I don't say nice things to people, and then I feel like I shouldn't ask them to say nice things to me. Because that's not…fair or something? I'm taking more than I'm giving? Oh, let's be honest: I am totally failing at the girl game, the one where other women effortlessly do the verbal equivalent of chimpanzee lice grooming (or bonobo sex.)
The other reason I haven't put my name in is because of my fear that no one would say anything nice to me. Like, I have these moments where I think maybe no one likes me? Which, I know at least some of you actually do, but what if the rest of you are just here for my Deep Thoughts™? Or, worse, mockery? Like, I accept people hating and mocking me as one of the normal consequences of speaking publicly. (Although, I have to say, if I do have enemies, they've been very nice about not saying that I'm a terrible person who is terrible directly to me, and I appreciate that.) But I'm not really into confirmation of that sort of thing. And if no one said anything in a Be Excellent To Each Other meme, it would seem like everyone hates me, which is not what I'm hoping for. So, yeah, basically, I'd rather not ask for hugs and have none than ask for hugs and be roundly rebuffed.
Which is also why comments are closed on this post.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.
Gagging, here, to mean I have not posted with my usual frequency, and I have not posted things I thought about posting, because there were some other posts sitting before that in the mental queue, which I have not yet forced out, this being one of those.
Specifically, I started trying to do the self-reccing meme, after I saw it once on network and once on my reading page (Jade Lennox self-recs), and I have been cringing at the whole process. I am facing, basically, two problems with this meme.
One, there are some stories I wrote years ago, which felt so important and so good when I wrote them, and I am afraid that they do not stand the test of time. And I don't really want to go back and re-evaluate those stories, but I also don't want to recommend stories that are not very good, especially since I wrote them. I mean, I've never written the sorts of stories I really want to read (NOVELS! SAGAS! EPICS! PLOTS!), but I have written many stories that I read several years later and enjoyed. But, these stories felt like they were really good stories when I wrote them, and I don't want to go back and discover they were only middling fair.
In the interests of full disclosure:
- Whore (Standard's Not My Native Tongue Megamix) a remix about Gaila being a minority but not a victim of it
- Hollow Lust an Anita Blake story that makes Edward/Richard work
- An Honest Word (Tower of Silence Mix) a Scully story wherein I argued that Scully has her own fucking reasons for fighting
- das Märchen (Start. Stop. Stutter: re-collection-dj vivacious ice) a Timbertrick story about reacting to underage sex
Two, if I want to impress people with my fannish self, I have to use meta. Fandom has spoken, and it finds my fic…not bad. Which makes doing all fanfic-related memes pretty disheartening, because I know that you (collectively, if not individually) like my meta better than my fic.
And, like, I'm pretty resigned to the fact that I'm not a very well-known/widely-read/highly recommended fiction author, but doing a fiction meme like that just sort of…rubs my nose in it.
And, the other meme I've been gagging on is the Love Is All You Need meme at
petra's, again, for two reasons.
One, I'm bad at thinking up nice things to say about people. I don't know, maybe I'm doing those sorts of memes wrong, but I feel like one is supposed to respond with something along the lines of, "I like you because…." and I look at most of the names on the list and think, "I don't know." Like, even the people I actually like, the answer is either, "I don't know," or "for this totally self-interested reason that you do or make something I like, and, wow, how much feedback did I not give you when it would have been appropriate? D:"
So, I don't say nice things to people, and then I feel like I shouldn't ask them to say nice things to me. Because that's not…fair or something? I'm taking more than I'm giving? Oh, let's be honest: I am totally failing at the girl game, the one where other women effortlessly do the verbal equivalent of chimpanzee lice grooming (or bonobo sex.)
The other reason I haven't put my name in is because of my fear that no one would say anything nice to me. Like, I have these moments where I think maybe no one likes me? Which, I know at least some of you actually do, but what if the rest of you are just here for my Deep Thoughts™? Or, worse, mockery? Like, I accept people hating and mocking me as one of the normal consequences of speaking publicly. (Although, I have to say, if I do have enemies, they've been very nice about not saying that I'm a terrible person who is terrible directly to me, and I appreciate that.) But I'm not really into confirmation of that sort of thing. And if no one said anything in a Be Excellent To Each Other meme, it would seem like everyone hates me, which is not what I'm hoping for. So, yeah, basically, I'd rather not ask for hugs and have none than ask for hugs and be roundly rebuffed.
Which is also why comments are closed on this post.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.