WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 19 -- Saturday

[linaewen]

Saturday is here at last!  I hope it's a great day for you, whether writing happens or not.

Have you had a good week of writing?  Did you accomplish any of your goals?  Do you feel like you are on track for what you wanted to accomplish this month?  Post here anything you want to share, like story snippets, word counts, complaints about writer's block, or pleas for betas.

Here's one last Flamingo-influenced discussion post for the week:

 

How do you feel about lack of comments on a story you've posted.  At archive sites where kudos is given, is this good enough feedback for you or would you prefer comments?

Comments

[linaewen]

I'm visiting family today, so I'm not sure what will happen with writing. But the chapter I'm working is begging me to pay attention to it, and that's a good sign. I've got everything I need with me to work on it, so if I get some quiet time to myself, I should make some progress.

Comments are always gratifying, but I also appreciate kudos and read count on a story. Whoever invented the kudos button, thank you! I think it's a great way to let an author know the story was well-received -- for me, it's enough as a writer to get that kind of acknowledgment. If a person clicks the button and also leaves a comment, that's a double blessing. ;-)

[i_paint_the_sky]

I love the kudos button very much. I will leave a kudos on pretty much anything I enjoy, even if it isn't something I plan to read again. AO3's bookmarking is also good though for showing the stuff I like/rec the most.

[i_paint_the_sky]

I have not gotten that much writing done this week, though I did get some which I am happy about. But since this is a long weekend in Canada, I'm hoping to really get some solid work done across the board over the next three days.

Lack of comments does make me sad, especially with something I'm really proud of. I do however definitely like getting at least a kudos or a favourite, even if I'd rather a bit more concrit. That said, I also almost never leave comments so I can't complain too much.

One thing that helps with lack of comments at least over at FF.Net is being able to track views. I have a big multi-chapter fic I'm posting now over there and it's really great to see how many people are reading it, especially how many people are getting all the way to the latest chapter. So even if I only have 6 or so reviews on it, I know that about 100 people or so have felt the need to read what is posted so far.

[roane]

Gah. It has been a tough week for me writing-wise. I'd hoped to be much further along in this chapter than I am. But it's the weekend, so hopefully I can get some good work in over the next day or so.

I LOVE comments. Love them. Even short little "This is great!" comments are awesome. Longer comments are pure gold. But I do like the kudos thing too. Obviously, I'd /prefer/ comments, but I'll take any feedback I can get. :D

And... here's my usual snippet. Irene just got out of the hospital with a concussion, after a lighting rig fell on her in a possibly suspicious accident.

******

"Stop treating me like a china doll, I'm fine!" Irene sat propped against the headboard of her hotel bed. "You know, 'keep her under observation' doesn't mean I need all three fucking Stooges standing watch around my bed."

John glanced at Greg and Sherlock and fought a smile. They were being a little overprotective, maybe. "Bad metaphor," he said. "We don't need anyone else getting a knock on the head."

"I'll knock you on the head if you don't stop hovering."

"Wasn't 'irritability' one of the symptoms the doctor told us to look out for?" asked Sherlock. Irene threw a pillow at him.

"Just tell me we know who this guy is now," said Irene.

John sat down on the side of the bed and sighed. "We really don't. I mean, there's not much to go on: Molly's description, and the notes. He doesn't exactly tell us anything about himself."

"Doesn't he?" Sherlock curled in the armchair, knees drawn up to his chest. "He's my age, possibly a bit younger. British, and considers himself to be at least marginally upper class. And he claims to have met me and had a conversation with me. That last bit doesn't really help, of course, but it's part of what we know. He's relatively attractive—something I knew before Molly's sketch—"

"What?" said Greg.

"Attractive?" said John, overlapping with him.

"Of course," Sherlock said. "Oh, stop being jealous. He was attractive enough to get Molly's attention, but he's not so attractive that he can't pass unobserved when he wants to. He blends in."

[electric_butterfly]

I like kudos, but comments are always nice.

As for goals, well...no, I haven't been doing well at all. Hopefully, things will get better before the end of the month.

[lullabymoon]

I didn't get any writing done today, haven't done for the last week or so, but I did manage to start pulling together the case details for my het big bang so making progress that I'm pleased with.

If I know something isn't going to be popular, or isn't part of a big fest, then I can sort of set myself up for the lack of comments. Otherwise I'm a bit :( I love the kudos system, both as a reader and a writer. I view them as 'I really liked this!' comments so they're definitely good enough feedback for me.

[sharpiefan]

I prefer comments - I try to give them myself, and I prefer to receive them. After all, kudos apply to the whole thing, and you can't pick up on bits you really liked, or that you didn't think worked so well. And comments just are a lot more personal - and it gives the author a chance to reply to their readers, too.

(Which reminds me, I just got a comment on a multi-part fic of mine, after having several kudos, and I want to go and thank that commenter... :D )

[amaresu]

I haven't written anything this week due to waking up and having voicemails from work requesting I come in early. 10+ hour work days are just not conductive to writing.

I love kudos. They are wonderful. I especially like there there's no awkwardness about leaving them on older fics like there are with comments.

[bay_alexison]

The past couple of days had been slowly working on my help_japan fic. Was working on scene, finished a planned second to last scene, and then back to same scene I started LOL.

I prefer comments as I like to know what they like specifically, but I like kudos as the readers read and like my work at least.

[krait]

I mostly go by (in the sense of "feel like my story is interesting or not according to") hit count.

I have low hit counts and low kudos and low comments (if my tendency to reply to them is compensated for) because almost everything I've written is in smallish fandoms, I'm not well-known, and I'm almost the opposite of a self-promoter. (When I posted my Loveless fics, I backdated them to when they were written; so they likely never appeared in the "recently posted" section. I often forget to mention on DW that I've posted something, too.)

[lacygrey]

Kudos is a great way of thanking an author when you don't know what words to use - and sometimes a fic can leave me speeechless - a bit like that pause that sometimes happens before an audience applauds a piece of music because they are still in the world it created.

The other good thing about kudos is that it gives a better idea than hit count on whether a piece is liked (oneshots particularly where you can't judge by the number who read on to the next chapter). All that hit counts tell me is that I had a good enough summary/title for people to click, or that the fic attracted people who liked that rating/pairing/fandom.

Before Kudos, if I had a massive hit count but no comments, then I would fear that everyone had hated the fic.

Comments are wonderful of course, and I always try to leave them and reply to them - I think its a cool way of interacting in fandom.

[lacygrey]

Have you had a good week of writing? Did you accomplish any of your goals?

The week was bizarre: I was switching in and out of different working situations. Though I didn't have a weekly goal I wrote up some of my notebook content, which is my month's goal.

The old stuff (Sprited Away ficlet from 2009) isn't as terrible as I'd thought it might be. Should I be pleased about that or worried that I haven't improved enough since then to see the difference?

Then I found a fic plan, also from 2009, for a Hikago fic I'd planned before I'd read any other Hikago fics. It squarely hits at least three fandom clichés. I'm glad I didn't try to write it.