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Author's Notes: Year in Review
Today marks my official fandom anniversary, as close as I can tell. I’m not sure exactly when I first dipped my toes into the fanfic/fanart pool (I watched the anime and read the manga up to date sometime during the summer of ’07, then started searching out fanart, which lead to fanfic, which lead to Christmas ’07 as a Tales from the House of the Moon timesink, which lead to even more reading of ‘major fandom works’), but I do know that on March 11, 2008 I signed up for an account at Media Miner and posted the first three chapters of Every Heart, with no small amount of trepidation.
The rest, as they say, is history…
Why yes, I did this last year as well! I like being able to cross-reference my work in umpteen million different ways, haha.
Stats:
Story Stats
Total words written (as accounted for in MS Word): 153,398
Pairings written: Inu/Kag, Mir/San, Sess/Kag, InuPapa/Izayoi, Nark/Kik, Sess/Kagura
Total stories written (started, in progress, or completed): 31
• Total number of drabbles (100-500 words): 11
• Total number of oneshots (500+ words): 16
• Total number of completed multichapter fics: 0
• Total number of WIP multichapter fics: 1
• Total number of series completed: 0
• Total number of WIP serials: 3
Total number of fiction archives used (not counting LJ): 3
Total number of hits/reviews:
• MM.org
• FF.net
• deviantART
Most reviewed stories (title: number of reviews, compiled across all archives)
• Collected Works (catch-all collection, various pairings): 173
• Fleeting (Sess/Kag): 160
• Fragments (Mir/San): 61
Fandom Recognition
Total number of awards won (fandom-wide, pairing-centric, and/or in contest communities at LJ): 46
Breakdown:
• 1st Place: 25
• 2nd Place: 10
• 3rd Place: 10
• Other: 2 [IYFG Hidden Treasure,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
mirsan_fics Mod's Choice]
• Other nominations: 15
Categories nominated into (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best Angst (Feudal Association)
• Best AU/AR (Dokuga, Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Canon Universe (Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Characterization (Dokuga, Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Crossover (IYFG)
• Best Darkfic/Horror (IYFG)
• Best Drama (IYFG)
• Best Lemon (Eikyuu Kosai, Feudal Association, IYFG)
• Best Oneshot (Dokuga, IYFG)
• Best Romance – Miroku/Sango (Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Romance – Other (Feudal Association, IYFG)
• Best Serial (Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Songfic/Poemfic (IYFG)
• Best Short-Short/Drabble (IYFG, Eikyuu Kosai)
Categories placed (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best Angst (3rd Place – June 2009 – Feudal Association)
• Best AU/AR (3rd Place – 2nd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 2nd Place – 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Characterization (3rd Place – 2nd Quarter 2009 – Dokuga)
• Best Drama (2nd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Lemon (2nd Place – January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai; 2nd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Romance – Miroku/Sango (2nd Place – January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Romance – Other (3rd Place – March 2009 – Feudal Association)
• Best Serial (3rd Place – 2nd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 2nd Place – 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG )
• Best Songfic/Poemfic (2nd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 3rd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Short-Short/Drabble (3rd Place – 1st Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 3rd Place – January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
Categories won (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best AU/AR (January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Characterization (July 2009 – Eikyuu Kosai; 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Crossover (1st Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Lemon (January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Romance – Miroku/Sango (September 2009 – Feudal Association; 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Romance – Other (3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Serial (January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Songfic/Poemfic (2nd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
Most lauded fic (won/placed with the most awards):
• Fragments: 9 placements in 9 nominations, 6 of them 1st Place
Other multi-nominated fics:
• Allegiance: 3 placements in 5 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
• Fleeting: 4 placements in 9 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
• Nihon Idol: 2 placements in 3 nominations, 2 of them 1st Place
• One Winter’s Evening: 2 placements in 3 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
• Dream Lover: 2 placements in 2 nominations
• Illicit: 1 placement in 2 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
Total number of LJ contests to which I made at least one submission: 4
Awards from LJ contest communities:
•dokuga_contest - 2 [ (2) Third Place]
•ebony_silks - 9 [(9) First Place | (2) Second Place]
•iyfic_contest - 0
•mirsan_fics - 7 [(4) First Place | (2) Second Place | (1) Mod’s Choice]
Challenges started/ongoing: 5 (two prompt tables forun_love_you, LJ drabble meme, By Request, mirsanficart Summer Love Challenge, Mirosanta 2009)
Challenges completed: 2 (LJ drabble meme, Mirosanta 2009)
Longest completed multichapter fic: Every Heart, 76,363 words
Longest current WIP: Fleeting, 75,740
2009 Goals ~ how did I do?
Here’s the list of goals I made at the end of last year's post, as points I wanted to accomplish this year…so, did I succeed, fail, or go off in a completely different direction?
• Finish the many projects I’ve inadvertently started (another thing I never wanted to do – have multiple WIPs!)
Well, I didn’t finish any of them, but I made good progress on all of them. – I should have at least one finished this year, plus the one I started when I said I wasn’t going to, LOL :P
• Write more Mir/San
I definitely accomplished this goal, even putting myself in “debt” by starting another WIP before any of my others were finished. Writing Mir/San was one of the highlights of the year, for sure.
• Catch up on the never-ending list of epics I’ve yet to read
Didn’t even make a dent – too much good stuff was coming out that I could follow in real time, which is always preferable. My TBR list, if anything got longer as the year went on and I added more authors and their backlists to the pile.
• Help the awards guilds in any and all positive ways I can
Ahahahahaha. That resolve lasted all of a quarter or two. Instead of raging against the established machine, I got in on the ground floor of my own, helping run/moderate the Mir/San fandom awards in the model of how I think a fandom awards guild *should* be run
• Continue to contribute to contest communities that have supported me
This certainly ebbed and flowed as the year went on. As I stand now, I’m not a member of any of the contests I started off on LJ with…
• Pimp my favorite authors’ work as much as possible (we’re a nice clique, LOL)
Definitely did my time on the pimp stroll, and had a lot of fun doing it =)
• Win an award for characterization (and serial, if it survives any of the awards groups)
Amazingly enough, I did manage to win a characterization award! Two, in fact! Though both was for just about the last characters I ever expected to be recognized for. I placed twice for ‘Best Serial,’ which was also fun, considering both of the fics that placed in those categories were actual serials (even if the fics that won during those quarters were not…) I also won Best Multichapter at EK, which is comparable, I think.
…so, all in all, it appears I accomplished a good deal of what I’d hoped to, which is always nice to see. And the ones I failed at, well – at least I failed in positive ways!!
But what are your thoughts on yaoi?
This was a year defined by the good, the bad, and the ugly. No longer a n00b, not quite a BNF (or the writer of BNF(ic)s), but stuck somewhere in between. It wasn’t a perfect year – I’m the first to admit I’ve made some mistakes – but on the whole, I’d say I’m pretty pleased with it. Sometimes you have to be hurt to know your own strength, and goodness knows I went through my share of wank through the greater part of ’09.
The good: Topping my list of “good things” was definitely the rollercoaster that was working on my fandom opus, Fleeting. I got a good portion of it done, for better or worse, and I’ve learned a helluva lot in the process. For awhile, it was at the top of the world…and then it wasn’t. This is so much my baby, that at times it’s been hard to separate myself from it. Through it all though – the good, the bad, the frustrating – I’ve never stopped loving it. I love the whole process: the research, the planning, the writing, the fantasizing. It’s the fic that’s always hit me in the gut, the heart, and in the brain, and if for no other reason than that, it will always be my most very favorite project I’ve ever done. In some ways, I’m excited to finish it, but in others, I’ll be sad when it’s done. It’s definitely a story I never would’ve written if not for the magical happenstance of the pairing and the prompt table colliding in the midst of a very fruitful period in my writing career.
A close second to that would be discovering – and being wholeheartedly embraced by – the Mir/San fans. Never in my wildest dreams, especially not after the very trying times I had dealing with Inu/Kag and Sess/Kag fans, did I ever expect the sort of welcome I received when I started tinkering with Fragments. Not only was it amazing, in and of itself, but it was also exactly what I’d been searching for, the sort of receptive, thoughtful, and vocal audience I’d been hoping to find ever since I started posting my stories for the world to see. I’ve said many times that I wish I could entice my Mir/San fans into reading the rest of my work, or that I wish greater fandom was more like them, and I still do. But as excited as I’ve been to be among them, I’ve also been humbled. Every one of the fans who read my work and who also write? Are amazing, in their own regard. I love being able to fangirl with them over their stories, or someone else’s stories. Everyone on board this ship that I’ve come in contact with has been incredibly thoughtful, mature, and open-minded, which means there’s hardly any wank or drama, and if there is? We can talk about it like adults and settle our differences. Variety is the spice of life, and all that :)
Being with the Mir/San fans has also allowed me to gain some wonderful new friends, be they from my review boards, on LJ, or both. Again I can only stand back in amazement sometimes that these people – whose work I’ve idolized for years in some cases – are talking to me, much less even acknowledging my existence! Wow. I feel very privileged to count these fellow readers, writers, and fans as my friends.
I also received my first piece of fanart ever, which was an incredibly exciting thing. To know I’ve conveyed a scene so well that someone else feels inspired to draw it? Is incredible. I really don’t know that there’s a higher compliment that paying forward creativity.
One avenue of writing I never expected to explore was writing explicit lemons. If you had told me a year ago I’d write more explicit scenes than I could shake a stick at, and win multiple awards for lemonfic? I probably would’ve laughed in your face. That’s how I got into Mir/San fandom, in fact, by wanting to write a lemonfic to meet themirsanficart Summer Love Lemon Challenge. I wanted some practice because I was anticipating some explicit citrus for the end of the Fleeting, but even then…I’ve done more than I ever expected. I’m not in fandom for the porn, so it tickles me that I seem to write just as much explicit stuff as I do ‘tame’ stuff. Exploring ideas for potential lemonfics has also steered me into writing more ‘adult’ stories with ‘adult’ themes, interactions, complications, and I’ve found I vastly prefer this to the rather tiresome sort of drama that happens when the characters are younger. I’ve written my high school AU, and I have no real intention of ever revisiting that particular world ever again, LOL (Nihon Idol excepted, of course).
I also stepped up into fandom in a big way, especially here on LJ. I helped create or revive several communities, which has been a lot of fun (if not a lot of responsibility). It gave me another creative outlet to explore – bannering, which is actually a lot of fun – and meant I automatically had access to wonderful fic, right at my fingertips. The quality of work coming out ofiy_themes is amazing, for one. Getting in on the ground floor of helping with Eikyuu Kosai? Was (and continues to be) amazing.
And speaking of awards guilds...just when I was beginning to give up hope of ever participating in a hopelessly wanky system without losing my sanity, I seem to have become one of the darlings, especially at the IYFG. During the third quarter alone, I won four categories and placed in two others. WTF? Of course, winning an IYFG award doesn’t mean the same thing in 2009 as it did in, say, 2005, but still. It was enough to blow my mind. And to follow that up with another slew of awards during the next quarter? Being in contention for five Best of 2009 polls? So much success, and so suddenly, has made me incredibly wary and a little paranoid. Without actually hearing from this supposed fanbase that I’ve built, I’m left to wonder if someone is just gaming the system for their own amusement.
Of course, that could have something to do with…
The bad: The bad was mostly the ways in which my RL intersected with my fandom life. I had a lot more time to write while I was in graduate school, because of the free/unstructured time that comes with writing a thesis, but alas, that was not to last. And thus began a long chain of events that caused me to step back from fandom for a bit (even when I wanted so desperately to cling to it) and devote some of my headspace to other things going on in my life, beyond my stories:
• I left Europe at the end of August and spent a great deal of time in a deep depression because of it;
• I spent a few months desperately searching for a job in a shitty economy while my degree status hung in limbo;
• I found and accepted a job that suddenly sucks up a lot of my time, between an actual 8-hour work day and a two-hour commute;
• I was displaced because of renovations to my room for the last two months of 2009;
• I spent the first two months of this year sitting vigil for my grandfather, who eventually did die in mid-February
In the midst of all of this, I’d taken on a lot of backend, administrative work in the fandom (running various communities, making banners, compiling the newsletter – which meant keeping up with all the awards guilds), which is harder to shuffle around because of my now-loaded schedule and concurrent grief. I probably became burned out on administrative stuff way before it began to affect my creative output, but I persevered, mostly because I promised others I would. Being organized and efficient is something that comes naturally to me, so in a lot of ways, this was an easy, brainless way to keep up with the goings-on of fandom. Unfortunately, it played a big role in what has become my “fandom ambivalence” – I see so much of what goes on behind the scenes that 85% of the fandom is totally oblivious to, and I can’t help but become a little cynical, a little jaded. Things I used to covet now feel worthless, and I can’t help but kick myself a little for wanting them so badly. It really is all a popularity contest, and if you can’t keep up? Well, there are two or three others who are ready to stand up in your place, should you fade.
Ambivalence might seem like bitterness to some folks, but I’d say to be bitter, you’d have to care about it in the first place. A lot of the things I dismiss? I really don’t care about.
That’s not to say I don’t care at all, obviously…or else I’d never have the events to even mention in the next section.
The ugly: I don’t think I could say I had a sophomore slump of a year. Even with a lowered total output of work, it appears the masses found it to be, for the most part, of good quality. Which is another reason why I find it so amazing (impressive? pathetic?) that I managed to alienate myself from huge swathes of potential readers, by parting ways with two of the biggest pairing ship sites on the internets, and leaving a whole slew of pairing-centric LJ communities. For someone who got into this at least partly for the romantic aspects of fannish work, this is taking Doing It Wrong to the nth degree.
It all started, amusingly enough, when I was asked to help with an LJ community, one that gave me my first shot at making banners (back before I really knew what I was doing with software more advanced than MS Paint). I should’ve known better, I suppose, wary as I was of the ‘owner’ of the group, but I managed to step in it anyway. There was a good outcome to the mess (in the formation ofiy_themes), but at the same time, the people I was in disagreement with linked up with some other rather wanky sections of fandom, which ultimately led to me leaving Eternal Destiny in order to get the target off my back.
But leaving Eternal Destiny and the crazy Inu/Kag shippers behind was a cakewalk in comparison to what happened at Dokuga.
I feel like I was chewed up and spit out by the Sess/Kag shipper machine that is Dokuga. I was never really accepted there, with my view of the pairing, but for some strange, misguided reason, I valued their system. Maybe because the first long fic I ever read was Tales from the House of the Moon, and I didn’t know any other way for Sess/Kag fans to be other than how they reacted to that story. I thought all Sess/Kag fiction was held to that standard (among others). I wanted to find a base there, because Sesshoumaru is the character I feel most passionate about, and I enjoyed exploiting the same sort of dynamics that Resmiranda explored in her stories. I never expected praise, validation, or awards, but I wanted their attention, at the very least. And it is to my ever-loving frustration and deep, derisive bitterness that I never received the appreciation I thought was due for my work.
Just like the crazy Inu/Kag fans, they shipped fanon over canon, they preferred childish, immature setups and AUs requiring such suspension of disbelief as to be absolutely untenable for fanficcing. But, worse than that – worse than bad characterization, complete ignorance of the manga, worshipping self-proclaimed “real authors” who were mostly trying to peddle their vanity-published wares – was the underlying wankery, the misogyny, the lies and secrets that site was built on. I cannot abide any place that glorifies rape, that sings the praises of authors who want to set romance-writers back three decades, that turns my favorite character into an untenable monster, just because that’s what they want him to be. I left that site after the administrators decided they’d rather shield a troll with the most fucked up psychological theories about rape, sexuality, and “true love” I’ve seen for awhile, than listen to reason, and I haven’t looked back since. Excising Dokuga and its cesspool from my fandom life was the best thing I think I’ve ever done, and I only wish I’d done it sooner.
So what do I regret? That I became entangled with people from that site who, against all odds, proclaimed to love my work, but the second I took a stand and left the site, they turned their backs on said stories. I pour a lot of myself into my work, especially Fleeting, and I thought the people who were following that story were doing it out of something beyond blind loyalty to a pairing ship. To find out I was wrong cut me to the core, and it still haunts me today. It’s brought on an ugly side to my desire and need for brutal honesty, in that – this is how I process getting past something I once held in high esteem: I have to hate it in order to minimalize it and let it go. So, to those of you who have put up with my whining, I thank you – and I apologize. Nobody should be subjected to that.
For a long time, I felt adrift in fandom, until I managed to right my ship by moving on into Mir/San. I still feel that way sometimes, and I’m taking steps to actively avoid the negativity that’s brought me to this point in the first place. To that end, I’m really trying to focus on the stories I enjoy reading, and leaving the sort of reviews I enjoy receiving, the rest of it be damned. I don’t have time for this shit anymore (literally or figuratively), and I’m tired of playing nice just to have people want to be my friend or being unafraid to comment on my work. I’m blunt. I’m honest. I’m brutal, at times. All I ask is that others treat me in the same regard.
*sigh* So really, it seems, this was as much a learning experience for me as anything else – in that I’m finally willing to admit what I need and want to get out of this experience to make it worth the time and effort I pour into it. If you read my work? Tell me, in some way – even a simple comment of, “Hey, this is good, here’s what I liked about it” means way more to me than winning awards ever will. Comments help me grow, help me know what I’ve done wrong and what I’ve done right, help me know which of my ideas can be shared with a wider audience, and which need to be locked down to a list of a precious few, if they are shared at all. That’s why we share our stories, after all – because we want to know how others receive them.
Personal favorite stories: (listed in chronological order)
• “Distress” (April 16, 2009)
• “A Desperate Choice” (June 12, 2009)
• “Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces” (October 22, 2009)
• “A Most Favorable Arrangement” (January 29, 2010)
Goals for the next 12 months:
• Once again at the top of my list is finishing the projects I’ve already started. At least two of them – Fleeting and Fragments – have ends in sight, which, if my muses sustain, should be finished by the time my third anniversary rolls around
• My 12-month goal for 2010 has been to focus more on giving the sort of review I enjoy receiving, and I’ve been doing more of that lately and have found it incredibly rewarding. That, plus using the review reply system at the archives and on LJ, gives me a much richer feedback experience than I used to have – and since I’ve never been one to rake in the reviews, this means I can enjoy the ones I do receive, and I can connect more with authors whose work I enjoy.
• Continue to keep my LJ communities afloat in whatever ways I can (it’s easy when you have awesometastic co-mods :D)
• Be recognized for my characterization of Sesshoumaru (of all the awards I’ve ever sekritly wanted to win, this has always been at the top of my list *shame*)
And, to end this post on a good note, I'd like to revive a little metawriting meme, since metawriting is what I'm all about on this journal, LOL :P
Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.
The rest, as they say, is history…
Why yes, I did this last year as well! I like being able to cross-reference my work in umpteen million different ways, haha.
Stats:
Story Stats
Total words written (as accounted for in MS Word): 153,398
Pairings written: Inu/Kag, Mir/San, Sess/Kag, InuPapa/Izayoi, Nark/Kik, Sess/Kagura
Total stories written (started, in progress, or completed): 31
• Total number of drabbles (100-500 words): 11
• Total number of oneshots (500+ words): 16
• Total number of completed multichapter fics: 0
• Total number of WIP multichapter fics: 1
• Total number of series completed: 0
• Total number of WIP serials: 3
Total number of fiction archives used (not counting LJ): 3
Total number of hits/reviews:
• MM.org
• FF.net
• deviantART
Most reviewed stories (title: number of reviews, compiled across all archives)
• Collected Works (catch-all collection, various pairings): 173
• Fleeting (Sess/Kag): 160
• Fragments (Mir/San): 61
Fandom Recognition
Total number of awards won (fandom-wide, pairing-centric, and/or in contest communities at LJ): 46
Breakdown:
• 1st Place: 25
• 2nd Place: 10
• 3rd Place: 10
• Other: 2 [IYFG Hidden Treasure,
mirsan_fics Mod's Choice]• Other nominations: 15
Categories nominated into (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best Angst (Feudal Association)
• Best AU/AR (Dokuga, Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Canon Universe (Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Characterization (Dokuga, Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Crossover (IYFG)
• Best Darkfic/Horror (IYFG)
• Best Drama (IYFG)
• Best Lemon (Eikyuu Kosai, Feudal Association, IYFG)
• Best Oneshot (Dokuga, IYFG)
• Best Romance – Miroku/Sango (Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Romance – Other (Feudal Association, IYFG)
• Best Serial (Eikyuu Kosai, IYFG)
• Best Songfic/Poemfic (IYFG)
• Best Short-Short/Drabble (IYFG, Eikyuu Kosai)
Categories placed (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best Angst (3rd Place – June 2009 – Feudal Association)
• Best AU/AR (3rd Place – 2nd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 2nd Place – 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Characterization (3rd Place – 2nd Quarter 2009 – Dokuga)
• Best Drama (2nd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Lemon (2nd Place – January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai; 2nd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Romance – Miroku/Sango (2nd Place – January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Romance – Other (3rd Place – March 2009 – Feudal Association)
• Best Serial (3rd Place – 2nd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 2nd Place – 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG )
• Best Songfic/Poemfic (2nd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 3rd Place – 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Short-Short/Drabble (3rd Place – 1st Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 3rd Place – January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
Categories won (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best AU/AR (January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Characterization (July 2009 – Eikyuu Kosai; 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Crossover (1st Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Lemon (January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Romance – Miroku/Sango (September 2009 – Feudal Association; 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Romance – Other (3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 4th Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
• Best Serial (January 2010 – Eikyuu Kosai)
• Best Songfic/Poemfic (2nd Quarter 2009 – IYFG; 3rd Quarter 2009 – IYFG)
Most lauded fic (won/placed with the most awards):
• Fragments: 9 placements in 9 nominations, 6 of them 1st Place
Other multi-nominated fics:
• Allegiance: 3 placements in 5 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
• Fleeting: 4 placements in 9 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
• Nihon Idol: 2 placements in 3 nominations, 2 of them 1st Place
• One Winter’s Evening: 2 placements in 3 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
• Dream Lover: 2 placements in 2 nominations
• Illicit: 1 placement in 2 nominations, 1 of them 1st Place
Total number of LJ contests to which I made at least one submission: 4
Awards from LJ contest communities:
•
dokuga_contest - 2 [ (2) Third Place]•
ebony_silks - 9 [(9) First Place | (2) Second Place]•
iyfic_contest - 0•
mirsan_fics - 7 [(4) First Place | (2) Second Place | (1) Mod’s Choice]Challenges started/ongoing: 5 (two prompt tables for
un_love_you, LJ drabble meme, By Request, mirsanficart Summer Love Challenge, Mirosanta 2009)Challenges completed: 2 (LJ drabble meme, Mirosanta 2009)
Longest completed multichapter fic: Every Heart, 76,363 words
Longest current WIP: Fleeting, 75,740
2009 Goals ~ how did I do?
Here’s the list of goals I made at the end of last year's post, as points I wanted to accomplish this year…so, did I succeed, fail, or go off in a completely different direction?
• Finish the many projects I’ve inadvertently started (another thing I never wanted to do – have multiple WIPs!)
Well, I didn’t finish any of them, but I made good progress on all of them. – I should have at least one finished this year, plus the one I started when I said I wasn’t going to, LOL :P
• Write more Mir/San
I definitely accomplished this goal, even putting myself in “debt” by starting another WIP before any of my others were finished. Writing Mir/San was one of the highlights of the year, for sure.
• Catch up on the never-ending list of epics I’ve yet to read
Didn’t even make a dent – too much good stuff was coming out that I could follow in real time, which is always preferable. My TBR list, if anything got longer as the year went on and I added more authors and their backlists to the pile.
• Help the awards guilds in any and all positive ways I can
Ahahahahaha. That resolve lasted all of a quarter or two. Instead of raging against the established machine, I got in on the ground floor of my own, helping run/moderate the Mir/San fandom awards in the model of how I think a fandom awards guild *should* be run
• Continue to contribute to contest communities that have supported me
This certainly ebbed and flowed as the year went on. As I stand now, I’m not a member of any of the contests I started off on LJ with…
• Pimp my favorite authors’ work as much as possible (we’re a nice clique, LOL)
Definitely did my time on the pimp stroll, and had a lot of fun doing it =)
• Win an award for characterization (and serial, if it survives any of the awards groups)
Amazingly enough, I did manage to win a characterization award! Two, in fact! Though both was for just about the last characters I ever expected to be recognized for. I placed twice for ‘Best Serial,’ which was also fun, considering both of the fics that placed in those categories were actual serials (even if the fics that won during those quarters were not…) I also won Best Multichapter at EK, which is comparable, I think.
…so, all in all, it appears I accomplished a good deal of what I’d hoped to, which is always nice to see. And the ones I failed at, well – at least I failed in positive ways!!
But what are your thoughts on yaoi?
This was a year defined by the good, the bad, and the ugly. No longer a n00b, not quite a BNF (or the writer of BNF(ic)s), but stuck somewhere in between. It wasn’t a perfect year – I’m the first to admit I’ve made some mistakes – but on the whole, I’d say I’m pretty pleased with it. Sometimes you have to be hurt to know your own strength, and goodness knows I went through my share of wank through the greater part of ’09.
The good: Topping my list of “good things” was definitely the rollercoaster that was working on my fandom opus, Fleeting. I got a good portion of it done, for better or worse, and I’ve learned a helluva lot in the process. For awhile, it was at the top of the world…and then it wasn’t. This is so much my baby, that at times it’s been hard to separate myself from it. Through it all though – the good, the bad, the frustrating – I’ve never stopped loving it. I love the whole process: the research, the planning, the writing, the fantasizing. It’s the fic that’s always hit me in the gut, the heart, and in the brain, and if for no other reason than that, it will always be my most very favorite project I’ve ever done. In some ways, I’m excited to finish it, but in others, I’ll be sad when it’s done. It’s definitely a story I never would’ve written if not for the magical happenstance of the pairing and the prompt table colliding in the midst of a very fruitful period in my writing career.
A close second to that would be discovering – and being wholeheartedly embraced by – the Mir/San fans. Never in my wildest dreams, especially not after the very trying times I had dealing with Inu/Kag and Sess/Kag fans, did I ever expect the sort of welcome I received when I started tinkering with Fragments. Not only was it amazing, in and of itself, but it was also exactly what I’d been searching for, the sort of receptive, thoughtful, and vocal audience I’d been hoping to find ever since I started posting my stories for the world to see. I’ve said many times that I wish I could entice my Mir/San fans into reading the rest of my work, or that I wish greater fandom was more like them, and I still do. But as excited as I’ve been to be among them, I’ve also been humbled. Every one of the fans who read my work and who also write? Are amazing, in their own regard. I love being able to fangirl with them over their stories, or someone else’s stories. Everyone on board this ship that I’ve come in contact with has been incredibly thoughtful, mature, and open-minded, which means there’s hardly any wank or drama, and if there is? We can talk about it like adults and settle our differences. Variety is the spice of life, and all that :)
Being with the Mir/San fans has also allowed me to gain some wonderful new friends, be they from my review boards, on LJ, or both. Again I can only stand back in amazement sometimes that these people – whose work I’ve idolized for years in some cases – are talking to me, much less even acknowledging my existence! Wow. I feel very privileged to count these fellow readers, writers, and fans as my friends.
I also received my first piece of fanart ever, which was an incredibly exciting thing. To know I’ve conveyed a scene so well that someone else feels inspired to draw it? Is incredible. I really don’t know that there’s a higher compliment that paying forward creativity.
One avenue of writing I never expected to explore was writing explicit lemons. If you had told me a year ago I’d write more explicit scenes than I could shake a stick at, and win multiple awards for lemonfic? I probably would’ve laughed in your face. That’s how I got into Mir/San fandom, in fact, by wanting to write a lemonfic to meet the
mirsanficart Summer Love Lemon Challenge. I wanted some practice because I was anticipating some explicit citrus for the end of the Fleeting, but even then…I’ve done more than I ever expected. I’m not in fandom for the porn, so it tickles me that I seem to write just as much explicit stuff as I do ‘tame’ stuff. Exploring ideas for potential lemonfics has also steered me into writing more ‘adult’ stories with ‘adult’ themes, interactions, complications, and I’ve found I vastly prefer this to the rather tiresome sort of drama that happens when the characters are younger. I’ve written my high school AU, and I have no real intention of ever revisiting that particular world ever again, LOL (Nihon Idol excepted, of course).I also stepped up into fandom in a big way, especially here on LJ. I helped create or revive several communities, which has been a lot of fun (if not a lot of responsibility). It gave me another creative outlet to explore – bannering, which is actually a lot of fun – and meant I automatically had access to wonderful fic, right at my fingertips. The quality of work coming out of
iy_themes is amazing, for one. Getting in on the ground floor of helping with Eikyuu Kosai? Was (and continues to be) amazing. And speaking of awards guilds...just when I was beginning to give up hope of ever participating in a hopelessly wanky system without losing my sanity, I seem to have become one of the darlings, especially at the IYFG. During the third quarter alone, I won four categories and placed in two others. WTF? Of course, winning an IYFG award doesn’t mean the same thing in 2009 as it did in, say, 2005, but still. It was enough to blow my mind. And to follow that up with another slew of awards during the next quarter? Being in contention for five Best of 2009 polls? So much success, and so suddenly, has made me incredibly wary and a little paranoid. Without actually hearing from this supposed fanbase that I’ve built, I’m left to wonder if someone is just gaming the system for their own amusement.
Of course, that could have something to do with…
The bad: The bad was mostly the ways in which my RL intersected with my fandom life. I had a lot more time to write while I was in graduate school, because of the free/unstructured time that comes with writing a thesis, but alas, that was not to last. And thus began a long chain of events that caused me to step back from fandom for a bit (even when I wanted so desperately to cling to it) and devote some of my headspace to other things going on in my life, beyond my stories:
• I left Europe at the end of August and spent a great deal of time in a deep depression because of it;
• I spent a few months desperately searching for a job in a shitty economy while my degree status hung in limbo;
• I found and accepted a job that suddenly sucks up a lot of my time, between an actual 8-hour work day and a two-hour commute;
• I was displaced because of renovations to my room for the last two months of 2009;
• I spent the first two months of this year sitting vigil for my grandfather, who eventually did die in mid-February
In the midst of all of this, I’d taken on a lot of backend, administrative work in the fandom (running various communities, making banners, compiling the newsletter – which meant keeping up with all the awards guilds), which is harder to shuffle around because of my now-loaded schedule and concurrent grief. I probably became burned out on administrative stuff way before it began to affect my creative output, but I persevered, mostly because I promised others I would. Being organized and efficient is something that comes naturally to me, so in a lot of ways, this was an easy, brainless way to keep up with the goings-on of fandom. Unfortunately, it played a big role in what has become my “fandom ambivalence” – I see so much of what goes on behind the scenes that 85% of the fandom is totally oblivious to, and I can’t help but become a little cynical, a little jaded. Things I used to covet now feel worthless, and I can’t help but kick myself a little for wanting them so badly. It really is all a popularity contest, and if you can’t keep up? Well, there are two or three others who are ready to stand up in your place, should you fade.
Ambivalence might seem like bitterness to some folks, but I’d say to be bitter, you’d have to care about it in the first place. A lot of the things I dismiss? I really don’t care about.
That’s not to say I don’t care at all, obviously…or else I’d never have the events to even mention in the next section.
The ugly: I don’t think I could say I had a sophomore slump of a year. Even with a lowered total output of work, it appears the masses found it to be, for the most part, of good quality. Which is another reason why I find it so amazing (impressive? pathetic?) that I managed to alienate myself from huge swathes of potential readers, by parting ways with two of the biggest pairing ship sites on the internets, and leaving a whole slew of pairing-centric LJ communities. For someone who got into this at least partly for the romantic aspects of fannish work, this is taking Doing It Wrong to the nth degree.
It all started, amusingly enough, when I was asked to help with an LJ community, one that gave me my first shot at making banners (back before I really knew what I was doing with software more advanced than MS Paint). I should’ve known better, I suppose, wary as I was of the ‘owner’ of the group, but I managed to step in it anyway. There was a good outcome to the mess (in the formation of
iy_themes), but at the same time, the people I was in disagreement with linked up with some other rather wanky sections of fandom, which ultimately led to me leaving Eternal Destiny in order to get the target off my back.But leaving Eternal Destiny and the crazy Inu/Kag shippers behind was a cakewalk in comparison to what happened at Dokuga.
I feel like I was chewed up and spit out by the Sess/Kag shipper machine that is Dokuga. I was never really accepted there, with my view of the pairing, but for some strange, misguided reason, I valued their system. Maybe because the first long fic I ever read was Tales from the House of the Moon, and I didn’t know any other way for Sess/Kag fans to be other than how they reacted to that story. I thought all Sess/Kag fiction was held to that standard (among others). I wanted to find a base there, because Sesshoumaru is the character I feel most passionate about, and I enjoyed exploiting the same sort of dynamics that Resmiranda explored in her stories. I never expected praise, validation, or awards, but I wanted their attention, at the very least. And it is to my ever-loving frustration and deep, derisive bitterness that I never received the appreciation I thought was due for my work.
Just like the crazy Inu/Kag fans, they shipped fanon over canon, they preferred childish, immature setups and AUs requiring such suspension of disbelief as to be absolutely untenable for fanficcing. But, worse than that – worse than bad characterization, complete ignorance of the manga, worshipping self-proclaimed “real authors” who were mostly trying to peddle their vanity-published wares – was the underlying wankery, the misogyny, the lies and secrets that site was built on. I cannot abide any place that glorifies rape, that sings the praises of authors who want to set romance-writers back three decades, that turns my favorite character into an untenable monster, just because that’s what they want him to be. I left that site after the administrators decided they’d rather shield a troll with the most fucked up psychological theories about rape, sexuality, and “true love” I’ve seen for awhile, than listen to reason, and I haven’t looked back since. Excising Dokuga and its cesspool from my fandom life was the best thing I think I’ve ever done, and I only wish I’d done it sooner.
So what do I regret? That I became entangled with people from that site who, against all odds, proclaimed to love my work, but the second I took a stand and left the site, they turned their backs on said stories. I pour a lot of myself into my work, especially Fleeting, and I thought the people who were following that story were doing it out of something beyond blind loyalty to a pairing ship. To find out I was wrong cut me to the core, and it still haunts me today. It’s brought on an ugly side to my desire and need for brutal honesty, in that – this is how I process getting past something I once held in high esteem: I have to hate it in order to minimalize it and let it go. So, to those of you who have put up with my whining, I thank you – and I apologize. Nobody should be subjected to that.
For a long time, I felt adrift in fandom, until I managed to right my ship by moving on into Mir/San. I still feel that way sometimes, and I’m taking steps to actively avoid the negativity that’s brought me to this point in the first place. To that end, I’m really trying to focus on the stories I enjoy reading, and leaving the sort of reviews I enjoy receiving, the rest of it be damned. I don’t have time for this shit anymore (literally or figuratively), and I’m tired of playing nice just to have people want to be my friend or being unafraid to comment on my work. I’m blunt. I’m honest. I’m brutal, at times. All I ask is that others treat me in the same regard.
*sigh* So really, it seems, this was as much a learning experience for me as anything else – in that I’m finally willing to admit what I need and want to get out of this experience to make it worth the time and effort I pour into it. If you read my work? Tell me, in some way – even a simple comment of, “Hey, this is good, here’s what I liked about it” means way more to me than winning awards ever will. Comments help me grow, help me know what I’ve done wrong and what I’ve done right, help me know which of my ideas can be shared with a wider audience, and which need to be locked down to a list of a precious few, if they are shared at all. That’s why we share our stories, after all – because we want to know how others receive them.
Personal favorite stories: (listed in chronological order)
• “Distress” (April 16, 2009)
• “A Desperate Choice” (June 12, 2009)
• “Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces” (October 22, 2009)
• “A Most Favorable Arrangement” (January 29, 2010)
Goals for the next 12 months:
• Once again at the top of my list is finishing the projects I’ve already started. At least two of them – Fleeting and Fragments – have ends in sight, which, if my muses sustain, should be finished by the time my third anniversary rolls around
• My 12-month goal for 2010 has been to focus more on giving the sort of review I enjoy receiving, and I’ve been doing more of that lately and have found it incredibly rewarding. That, plus using the review reply system at the archives and on LJ, gives me a much richer feedback experience than I used to have – and since I’ve never been one to rake in the reviews, this means I can enjoy the ones I do receive, and I can connect more with authors whose work I enjoy.
• Continue to keep my LJ communities afloat in whatever ways I can (it’s easy when you have awesometastic co-mods :D)
• Be recognized for my characterization of Sesshoumaru (of all the awards I’ve ever sekritly wanted to win, this has always been at the top of my list *shame*)
And, to end this post on a good note, I'd like to revive a little metawriting meme, since metawriting is what I'm all about on this journal, LOL :P
Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.
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I think you've accomplished a lot this year, in terms of your production, and you should be proud of that. You've definitely shoveled in the awards, too. I hope that this next year holds a lot less "bad" and "ugly" for you. I think your goal of reviewing is an admirable one and will make this a better year for the authors you read as well as for you. It really is the best way to connect with others and to enjoy the interactive aspects of being part of a fandom. Yay for you!
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Hence why it took three days to compile... *facepalm* I suppose its worth it in the end, but its something I kinda sorta really didn't have time for this year, not like I did last year.
I think you've accomplished a lot this year, in terms of your production, and you should be proud of that.
I'm down by almost half, all told. I was surprised when I realized it was that much, even though I've been kinda MIA for the last six months. Not contributing regularly for contest comms is probably why, but alas *shrug* My time is limited now.
I hope that this next year holds a lot less "bad" and "ugly" for you.
Me, too. The only people I have left to piss off are Mir/San fans...and if I do that, I might as well just give up and leave altogether. (Don't think I haven't given that some serious thought of late...)
I think your goal of reviewing is an admirable one
*shrug* I've got to find something worth sticking around for, and considering the authors I enjoy seem to have about as big an audience as I do? I figure they could use the love and support :P Maybe one day the karma will find its way back to me, but who knows.
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I bow before your awesome organization skills! <3
Congrats on another year in the fandom, we're really glad to have you here. I'm sorry it hasn't been exactly an easy time, but this fandom was never renowned for its lack of wank... Too many fantwits who don't know when to shut up, I'm guessing.
And you shouldn't be flabbergasted by them awards. Those are some deserving stories which simply got the recognition they rightfully earned ^_^
Hope the next year will be better for you, my friend! <3
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Its not that hard to be organized when you did all the hard work long ago :P "Yay for 'skeleton' posts" is more like it!
Congrats on another year in the fandom, we're really glad to have you here. I'm sorry it hasn't been exactly an easy time, but this fandom was never renowned for its lack of wank...
I know - I really picked the wrong fandom to be passionate about, that's for damn sure o.O Next time I have such a personal attraction to a character/pairing/series, I'm staying way the hell away from any sort of organized fandom!
Hope the next year will be better for you, my friend! <3
I do, too - mostly RL needs to sit down, shut up, and play nice for a little while...
Oh ~ and I will come back for your metawriting post (thanks!!) when I have the time to analyze it, later this afternoon (See what sneaking online at work will get you? *facepalm*)
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Even now, five years beyond Mushin's passing, he still felt raw and vulnerable in personal relationships; that's why he didn't have very many, beyond a few trusted friends. Meeting Sango had changed all that – for the first time since his father, he sensed in her someone worthy of his time, his effort, his love and passion and protection – the whole of his being, the entirety of his soul. Perhaps most surprising of all, to him, was that none of this was tinged with worry or fear. When he was with her, it just felt right. He wasn't afraid to share his past, the soaring highs and deep hurts, the promises and regrets, the thick and thin of it all. The more he knew of her, the more he sensed she could be the one…another time, another place, maybe it could've all fallen into place perfectly.
Instead…
He looked up, finding himself across the street from her hotel, as if drawn there by some force beyond his own will. He glanced up into the window he knew was hers, relief flooding through him when he realized the light was on. So she's still here, he thought to himself. Against all odds, his tumultuous memories calmed, fresh resolve forming in his heart.
The obstacles were obvious. They lived in two different worlds as of yet; she, in her glamorous whirlwind of society parties and fancy hotels, of beautiful gowns and pantries filled with gourmet food, of never having to worry about paying bills or covering payroll, stood in stark contrast to his more modest lifestyle. He lived in a crummy little apartment, the greatest attribute of which was being close to the bar; he didn't always eat right or well, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been out shopping for pleasure instead of necessity.
Even if she could accept a serious downgrade in lifestyle, would she be comfortable in his world of sin and temptation? Could she live with the idea of being two steps away from a willing lay, or a bottle, or a pill? Would she stand for long working hours or the unsteady, seasonal ebb and flow of his business?
Could she accept that this was his life, or would she invite him into another one, away from all of this as well as his own sorrow-filled past?
The ball was in her court – the balance of his life was in her hands, and she didn't even know it.
All the same, he felt no fear, no regret, no shame.
He was surprised to feel the sting of tears coursing down his cheeks as the wind howled past him, his eyes still steady on that brightly lit window. I'm still here, Sango, he vowed silently. If you still feel it, if you still want me…I'm here.
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and analisn't that hard, since its how I just am, you know?You keep the fandom alive and thriving.
Well I don't know about that (the fandom would be in its final, gasping stages of life if that were so), but I'm glad its enough to keep you interested =)
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I facepalmed so hard. I will never be able to take your flailing about stats seriously again (this is what you keep getting riled up about?). I am not trying to be mean or harsh, but please try to chill about this. For your own peace of mind. Holy hell, can't you see how you managed 19 votes at the IYFG for Fleeting? Twenty-six thousand hits at one archive - 50+ favorites, 100+ alerts, 6 C2s? I hope you realize that while these may not be the ultra-stats of a BNF years in the making, some of us can only balk in awe at the attention you feel you so lackingly receive.
I love the whole process: the research, the planning, the writing, the fantasizing. It’s the fic that’s always hit me in the gut, the heart, and in the brain, and if for no other reason than that, it will always be my most very favorite project I’ve ever done.
This is what you should be focusing on. Not how many of so-and-so's readers you can attract or win over, or how many people review versus just read the story, or how many awards you get per nomination on average. I think this: it is to my ever-loving frustration and deep, derisive bitterness that I never received the appreciation I thought was due for my work is the root of your problem, but I honestly do not know what to say in response to it, and I have no suggestions to make. Just, well, if that's how you go into something like this, you are always going to be disappointed. Is that really what you want out of fandom?
Everyone on board this ship that I’ve come in contact with has been incredibly thoughtful, mature, and open-minded, which means there’s hardly any wank or drama, and if there is? We can talk about it like adults and settle our differences.
Amazing how that works, isn't it? I'm still worried that with fics like Fragments and Eight-Fold Path doing so consistently well in the pan-fandom awards groups that we're going to eventually see an influx of immature people trying to capitalize on the "trend", but at least everything is holding steady so far (and we even managed to gain back some of the people who had stopped writing or were on hiatus, so yay for that, too).
Without actually hearing from this supposed fanbase that I’ve built, I’m left to wonder if someone is just gaming the system for their own amusement.
Head, meet desk. Your stats. Look at them. You don't get to that many hits/faves/alerts/c2s if no one is reading.
And thus began a long chain of events that caused me to step back from fandom for a bit (even when I wanted so desperately to cling to it) and devote some of my headspace to other things going on in my life
I hope, for your sake, that there is much less drama and depression in your RL in the year to come.
I thought all Sess/Kag fiction was held to that standard
What baffles me is how, after realizing that this was not the case, you managed to not only stick with it and put up with it for so long, but continued to want to be an accepted part of it. I have no idea how you managed that... I'd have been long gone. I've left entire sites and communities for less aggravation than Dokuga put you through.
the second I took a stand and left the site, they turned their backs on said stories.
This? Is fandom life, and I say that based on my own bitter experiences. When things are going your way, it's all well and good, but it only takes one word to turn your "fans" on you. They chose the popularity/community over your fics, or at least vocally supporting your fics. It happens. But I don't think it's as malicious as you're making it out to be (if it was malicious, they'd be attacking you for your "betrayal", not ignoring you).
Once again at the top of my list is finishing the projects I’ve already started.
Of course, you know that making this an official goal means you either won't reach it or you'll start eighty new projects to fill the void left by the finished ones. LOL
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About the fact that Fleeting is an anomaly? Yes. There is some fear, perhaps justified, that I'll never have stats that come close to that, outside my catch-all collection that people seem to like for God only knows what reason o.O (And, since the people who read it don't tell me, I really don't know why they like it!)
Seriously. Go take a look at my stats from last year from all the other stories, and you'll see that, aside from my fandom opus, I'm holding steady. Yes, its not an immodest amount of attention, I'll give you that - but its also not enough to justify the absolute sweep of awards I seem to have taken.
(Also - if you could see the list of people that have that story on alert? You'd realize how many of them aren't actually reading it anymore, LOL.)
I am not trying to be mean or harsh, but please try to chill about this.
LOL!! I'm trying to, I'm trying to. It's a long, slow process because I'm very stubborn and set in my ways, but I've already won half the battle, in changing my thinking about it all. Now its just a matter of putting that into place.
This is what you should be focusing on.
I'm trying to - and, in a way, I already am, by refusing to let whatever depression/anxiety/negativity I'm feeling "infect" my work. It's not that I have writers' block, on this or any other story I'm currently working on; its that my emotions are in a very weird place right now, and until I work through them, I'm not going to risk the stories I love so much.
how many people review versus just read the story
This mostly bugs the shit out of me because I want to know what worked, and what didn't, and that's kinda hard to do without feedback. However, pretty much all of the pieces I listed at the bottom there, as being my absolute favorites of the year? Are the ones that have gotten the least amount of feedback. But I love them anyway, for what they've done for me, and that's kinda more what I'm trying to strive for, as I pick through my myriad of ideas. Mostly I'm tired of rejecting some because I know there's no way people will ever read them.
how many awards you get per nomination on average
That stat is something I seriously don't give any thought to until it comes time to do these posts (except with Fleeting, where it has become almost humorous to me, to see it continually nominated for stuff when I know it's never gonna place :P). That's the biggest pain in the ass stat to do, but its certainly an interesting metric to keep up with. I will go back to ignoring it for another 12 months so I can be surprised when March 11 rolls around next year to see the comparisons, LOL.
I think this: it is to my ever-loving frustration and deep, derisive bitterness that I never received the appreciation I thought was due for my work is the root of your problem, but I honestly do not know what to say in response to it
You don't have to say anything =) You can be surprised, or appalled, or think less of me for it, but this is the process by which I work something out of my system. And, considering the one thing I've wanted most from this fandom (that I've never voiced because HELLO HOW ARROGANT IS THIS) is recognition for writing my favorite character well, it shouldn't come as that much of a shock how long I managed to delude myself. Looking back at it now, it seems obvious that the Dokuga people were batshit insane, but it didn't become noticeable until certain things happened over there (namely, the website administrator coming back and bringing the wanky contingent with her) and it spun way out of control.
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You have 18,000+ hits for Collected Works. You have 7,000+ for a four part fic. It's not that much of an anomaly.
Yes, its not an immodest amount of attention, I'll give you that - but its also not enough to justify the absolute sweep of awards I seem to have taken.
You write (very) good!fic. You get enough traffic to cover the amount of votes you get at the IYFG and the other awards groups. I guess I'm just not seeing the disparity.
Also - if you could see the list of people that have that story on alert? You'd realize how many of them aren't actually reading it anymore, LOL.
Have you asked them, or do you just assume that they are not reading because they don't comment?
It's a long, slow process because I'm very stubborn and set in my ways, but I've already won half the battle, in changing my thinking about it all. Now its just a matter of putting that into place.
I wish you luck! I hate seeing my friends make themselves miserable, especially when it's something that doesn't much matter in the long run.
You know I'll support you on that issue, too. It really is okay to take as much time as you need to get an update done. If you take longer but it makes the fic better in the end, then it's more than worth the wait.
This mostly bugs the shit out of me because I want to know what worked, and what didn't, and that's kinda hard to do without feedback.
But you are getting feedback; I'm constantly astonished by just how much thoughtful feedback you get, both here at your lj and on the archives. You're never going to get a 1:1 ratio of hits to reviews... I've found it's best just to appreciate what you do get, otherwise you'll just upset yourself.
You don't have to say anything =) You can be surprised, or appalled, or think less of me for it, but this is the process by which I work something out of my system.
LOL well honestly it's more like... And here I thought you were getting loads of attention and feedback and accolades for your work, because by comparison to where I'm at in this fandom (and therefore where I base my opinion/viewpoint from), well, you are.
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But - live and learn, eh? I can't say I'm proud of the way I handled any of the stuff that led to me alienating myself from so many different factions of fans this year. In a way, though, its been easier to just be myself and not feel I have to filter every goddamned thing I say so much.
Just, well, if that's how you go into something like this, you are always going to be disappointed. Is that really what you want out of fandom?
I think what I want out of fandom has changed, the longer I stay here and the more I see how things work "behind the scenes," so to speak. Don't we all, at some point, harbor a desire to be loved and appreciated by the masses? I'm just adjusting that desire down (several notches) to what is perhaps realistic to obtain. I honestly don't give a shit what "greater" fandom thinks of me, but I am interested in keeping the friends and fans I already have.
Amazing how that works, isn't it?
Holy shit could pan-fandom use a shot of maturity, straight in the vein o.O
at least everything is holding steady so far
*crosses fingers* The sane ship needs to stay sane, for real.
Your stats. Look at them. You don't get to that many hits/faves/alerts/c2s if no one is reading.
And how many of those people are also members of the notoriously wanky IYFG? That's all I'm saying - there are certain voting blocs at play there (just like at any awards guild), and I most certainly do not have one of my own, LOL.
I hope, for your sake, that there is much less drama and depression in your RL in the year to come.
So do I. I feel I've been dealt a hand I still haven't been able to come to terms with just yet. I don't need anything else piled on the plate, so to speak.
Unfortunately, we cannot dictate or control catastrophes in our RLs...so we try to do it online, instead :P
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I'm not a part of S/K fandom, but most of the love for fics like Tales from the House of the Moon that I've seen actually comes from people based in other ships. Dokuga seems too caught up in its fanon and fantasy to appreciate fic like that.
That's why it hurt me so much when they turned their backs on my work because I quit the site, because I thought they were better than that. Instead, they went into the crazycakes fold, and I'm a little horrified I ever wanted/desired their attention in the first place.
LOL, I sum this up with "Well, they do ship Sess/Kag". Try not to worry about it. 99.99% of Sess/Kag shippers are batshit insane by default, even if they try to hide it.
I'm just adjusting that desire down (several notches) to what is perhaps realistic to obtain. I honestly don't give a shit what "greater" fandom thinks of me, but I am interested in keeping the friends and fans I already have.
This is a good way to look at it.
Holy shit could pan-fandom use a shot of maturity, straight in the vein o.O
But then the entire earth might implode from sheer impossibility. And we don't want that to happen, do we? LOL
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Well, the "Resmiranda standard" is still something I hold, even if they don't. And it was a painfully slow process to realize that Dokuga was, in fact, its own universe. I can't really explain why I held out hope over there for so long, anymore than I already have *shrug*
I've left entire sites and communities for less aggravation than Dokuga put you through.
I think this is just proof that I am a total idiot for a challenge. For awhile, it was fun to rage against the machine...and then it just became tiresome. And then it became irritating, when all the wanky shit started going down (and the admins just tried to sweep it under the rug). I have a high tolerance for pointing and laughing at wank, but once I become involved, however tangentially? I'm out.
This? Is fandom life, and I say that based on my own bitter experiences.
As I'm quickly learning myself :P I already knew it would happen, when I started wandering all over the pairing map, but I think it hurt a lot more because of the story at stake.
I don't think it's as malicious as you're making it out to be
I have reason to believe otherwise, but its not really appropriate for a public post of a celebratory nature. Suffice to say, while I am probably overly suspicious an wary of others' motives, that's not because they haven't given me a reason not to be...
Of course, you know that making this an official goal means you either won't reach it or you'll start eighty new projects to fill the void left by the finished ones. LOL
LOL!! Right now, since I'm pretty darned determined not to work on anything longer than a oneshot until I make more progress on my already in-progress fics, it's more like I've stalled completely. I've no doubt I'll fail to reach this goal, in some regard, but I'm ready for at least one of these massive WIPs to be off my back...and all of them but Allegiance have plans in that regard.
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I'm gonna go with "insane stubbornness". LOL
Right now, since I'm pretty darned determined not to work on anything longer than a oneshot until I make more progress on my already in-progress fics, it's more like I've stalled completely.
The bunnies, they do not like to be corralled. This is what you get for trying to tell them what to do: a protest. LOL
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Collected Works...like I said, I can't explain. Memento Mori has been up for a year and a half, and received a lot of attention when it was first posted.
If you want to hear something weird (and maybe this will help explain why I feel the way I do about the hits/reviews/awards ratio), its this: the fic I feel is most balanced between the three is Fragments. It has way fewer views than Fleeting, but the review ratio is better and thus, subjectively, it feels like its earned at least some of the awards that have been heaped upon it. The response I've had for Fragments is the one I'd hoped to have for Fleeting, so its weird for me that it didn't happen...but it did, at the same time. LOL, if that makes any sense.
Have you asked them, or do you just assume that they are not reading because they don't comment?
Some of them are no longer speaking to me. Some of them aren't commenting anymore. This combined list represents a large cross-section of people who used to follow me at Dokuga and added alerts at FF.net for whatever reason (don't ask me to explain why they do that, because I can't).
I wish you luck! I hate seeing my friends make themselves miserable, especially when it's something that doesn't much matter in the long run.
LOL thanks :) Yeah, it is stupid, but we all get bogged down in the dumbest things sometimes. I acknowledge that about 60% of my fandom crises generally have less to do with fandom than with other things, and I've certainly had enough of that to keep my busy of late.
You know I'll support you on that issue, too. It really is okay to take as much time as you need to get an update done. If you take longer but it makes the fic better in the end, then it's more than worth the wait.
I didn't mean to imply she's my only support system, just that she's the one who basically hears the most of it. And, sometimes, you just need someone else to assure you what you want to do is okay, you know?
But you are getting feedback
For already established stories. Which is a shame, since I've mostly been working on 'independent' things lately. It's a little disappointing when others don't seem to enjoy your fic as much as you do, but hey - at least the last couple of things I've posted up I've really enjoyed. That's the point, no?
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I do appreciate what I get - and I'm showing it by review replying more this year. Sometimes that's where the most interesting conversations have popped up, at least in my experience.
LOL well honestly it's more like... And here I thought you were getting loads of attention and feedback and accolades for your work, because by comparison to where I'm at in this fandom (and therefore where I base my opinion/viewpoint from), well, you are.
It truly is all a matter of perspective. I'm not content to merely rest on my laurels just yet - I would like to find more, or better, ways to interact with the fanbase everyone else seems to think I have :P Plus, I tend to think in very concrete terms. I spend most of my day turning the abstract into concrete in order to analyze it, and its something I can't turn off when I leave the lab. So if I don't see evidence that people are reading? I tend to be skeptical of it.
I'm not a part of S/K fandom, but most of the love for fics like Tales from the House of the Moon that I've seen actually comes from people based in other ships. Dokuga seems too caught up in its fanon and fantasy to appreciate fic like that.
Its more than just HotM. There are other, sane writers of S/K fanfiction (like, say, pretty much everyone on my list) who are just as popular and beloved as the batshit. Its like, incomprehensible to me that people can apparently fangirl
But then the entire earth might implode from sheer impossibility. And we don't want that to happen, do we? LOL
At least I would go happy, LOL!!
The bunnies, they do not like to be corralled. This is what you get for trying to tell them what to do: a protest. LOL
:P Actually, I am hoping that, now that I have a good chunk of technical stuff out of the way, I can open the spigot once more. This post took three freaking days to compose, so that's why I haven't even gotten around to watching the new anime episode yet.
I've got them all lined up, nice and neat, just waiting for my attention...for now. We'll see how long that'll last.
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Dokuga and ED. It is too bad what Dokuga has become. Hopefully,MS will never
degenerate into that sort of place. I am a little sorry that you have moved beyond the LJ contests. Your presence is missed there. In some ways your experience with Dokuga was helpful in broadening your horizons. You are more of a multishipper. If you had stayed with Dokuga writing only SK you might have been lured to the darkside. The popularity of Dokuga is a very overwhelming aphrodisiac. One IK writer has found that she writes SK love stories where IY and Kikyou are the primary villains that fanpoodles will flock to her banner in a way that her IK fics were never received. She even has Dokuga Darling for her cheerleader.
Your awards are impressive. You have certainly conquered our little world. Your stats are fairly good considering your that you are not a BNF. I was impressed that you had as many faves as reviews. It is clear that people are reading your stories even it is not the general SK Dokuga audience.
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Thanks :) For what it was, it was a pretty good one, I guess. I certainly learned a lot, both in my writing and in dealing with fandom.
It is too bad what Dokuga has become.
It is - because from what I hear, A Single Spark was pretty nice, while it was around. Too bad I came late for that party.
I am a little sorry that you have moved beyond the LJ contests. Your presence is missed there.
It's not that I've moved "beyond" them so much as...I don't really have ideas for them right now, LOL!! The oneshots and things crowding out my WIPs are all 'independent' stories. I've left a good number of the contest comms, but I still have the ones I help run, two of which I'm eligible to compete in should I ever want to, so maybe I'll cycle back into it. I certainly miss being able to post something up every week!
If you had stayed with Dokuga writing only SK you might have been lured to the darkside.
NEVER. I've always been more of a Sesshoumaru fan than a Sess/Kag fan, and besides, I've never written the sort of stuff Dokuga expects from the pairing anyway, not even when my stuff was accepted over there *shrug* I could never compromise my views or my stories merely to have an 'in' over there, as Kanna37 has done. I care more about being true to my vision of the characters than I do about being a BNF, no matter how tiny the faction of fandom I could potentially rule over.
Your stats are fairly good considering your that you are not a BNF.
Not bad, but pretty skewed in the direction of one story (and one collection...).
I was impressed that you had as many faves as reviews. It is clear that people are reading your stories even it is not the general SK Dokuga audience.
I just wish I had a more vocal audience, is all. Which, I suppose in the grand scheme of things, is sort of a "first-world" problem. I've already climbed half the mountain, to get them to read the work at all :P