WIP challenge check-in: day 3!

[littlebutfierce]

I love all the cheerleading & commiserating going on in yesterday's check-in post! Yay! How's it going today?

Poll #6857 Day 3 May WIP challenge check-in!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

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All right, how's the fic feeling today?

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I AM A GENIUS
1 (6.7%)

Not bad!
10 (66.7%)

SHUT UP SHUT UP
1 (6.7%)

...
3 (20.0%)

And what did you do today, fic-wise?

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Write
10 (66.7%)

Edit
2 (13.3%)

Send to beta
0 (0.0%)

Research
1 (6.7%)

Procrastinate
7 (46.7%)

Something else I will describe in comments
1 (6.7%)

3 words or less to describe your fic today:

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And in keeping with the fanfic flamingo theme, let's talk about comments. The flamingo has a lot to say about comments.

I think I can identify with all of those images, heh. My favorite might be this one, though:



[Background — a six piece pie style colour split in three shades of pink. Foreground — the long neck and face of a pink flamingo.

Top text: POUR HEART AND SOUL INTO FEMMESLASH EPIC

Bottom text: 5 COMMENTS]

So! Comments! Do you find them a big motivator? Do you find yourself working more on stories that you anticipate will get a lot of comments? Or maybe you're in a tiny fandom or your OTP is really obscure/unpopular: do you find that this means you don't worry about getting comments (maybe it just makes you really, really want the one comment from the one person who'll get the story!)? Are they icing on the cake, but not something you think about while you're actually writing a story? Do you not care at all (or try not to)? Be honest!

&, importantly, do you leave comments yourself?

Comments

[soc_puppet]

I wrote, uh. About a page's worth? I usually write my first drafts by hand, so it's hard to estimate wordcount. Still, I'm almost done with the important backstory, so yay!

I'm planning to move the chaptered fic pages into my Productivity Folder soon so I can at least look at them to try and get myself going. We'll see how that goes.


Ahahaha, comments. Oh boy. I think it is time to share a story I've really been wanting to share for a while now. It's probably way arrogant, but it amuses me, so here goes:

So, once upon a time, like seven years ago or something, I was a much younger fan and had daydreams of being a BNF, as I imagine many of us did at some time (and some of us still probably do). It was a pretty small fandom (still kinda is), and I wasn't a terrible writer, so it seemed possible! And then I hit on this idea that I thought was really fantastic, that had the potential to make me a BNF. And of course I just loved the idea for its own sake and had to write it anyway.

I didn't end up getting a mess of comments, of course. I'd estimate that I got probably a middling number for the fandom and exposure and such. And yeah, I was a little disappointed at first, but you gotta live with what you get, so that's what I learned to do: I kept updating and writing, and became okay with what I was getting.

Eventually I realized that I was pretty okay with not being a BNF; that it was a lot of responsibility and pressure anyway, and that I'd formed a lot of good relationships in the fandom on my own, and being a big name really didn't mean much to me. Eventually, I really slacked off on the fic and the fandom in general, but it was still percolating on the backburner of my mind. I ended up updating maybe once a year or so.

Then, on one of those updates, expecting the same modest number of comments I usually got - I ended up getting about five times that number. At least half of them were along the lines of: "Where the hell has this fic been hiding and how have I not read it before?" And I just - the irony, it got to me. Long after I'd stopped caring how much attention the fic got, it finally got something like the amount I was originally aiming for.

And that's the story of the chaptered fic I'm working on right now, lolsob. I really want to make it to the end, mostly for myself and this one random person who recced the fic back in the day (prior to my popularity explosion), and just. The number of other people who are now invested in it amuses me, I guess. Maybe I should try getting back in touch with the part of myself that was writing for them; it might help with the whole jump-starting process.


As for me, I don't really comment a lot. Especially when I can't think of anything "original" to say or contribute. I know it's absurd, and that everyone likes comments, even a simple "I liked it!", but it's just something I'm a little stuck on. I might get over it someday, and I might not; who knows.

[jagnikjen]

Great story.

I was never aiming for BNF status or anything, but one day I got a PM or email or something along the lines of "I see you're a big name in XYZ fandom and blah blah blah..." and I was like, "What? Really?? When the heck did that happen???" :)

You just never can tell what story is going to tickle the collective fandom fancy.

[littlebutfierce]

Yay for being nearly done w/the backstory!!

Your story! That's hilarious, but also kind of awesome. I'm sorry it feels tricky getting back into the mindset for it, though.

You're not alone w/liking comments but not leaving many *points at rest of thread*. Heh. I've gotten a lot better about leaving comments but I do sometimes worry that my comments suck (which is ridiculous, b/c the point is I liked the story, so no matter how I convey that, the author will be happy to hear it).

[jagnikjen]

I do sometimes worry that my comments suck (which is ridiculous, b/c the point is I liked the story, so no matter how I convey that, the author will be happy to hear it)

Precisely--a good lesson to all of us that a simple "I really liked this!" is perfectly good feedback.