I have this horrible urge to apologize to everyone for punting it out into the world, and then no one seems to care.
hahahaha I feel like some of this has to do with your own standards as a writer and as a reader. I sort of feel like a lot of people reading fanfic just want to enjoy themselves and aren't looking at it that critically, and the issues that seem glaring to you just don't jump out at someone who's just along for the ride and hasn't been spending a ton of time working with the story already. I think a lot of people are that way with published fiction, too, but with published fiction those people aren't the one who are vocal. With fanfic, I feel like you get a little more of the positive reviews just because it's easier to share comments in an online community and you sort of have to if you want more of what you like -- it's the equivalent of buying merch to show your support.
But! I really, really miss putting stuff out just for fun and sharing it even though I could see that it was flawed. I miss writing fanfic and being comfortably anonymous and not caring so much about putting myself out there. I think I just had a few rough experiences where stories I was proud of or just wrote for fun got torn down and that killed a lot of the fun for me. I still write quite a bit but sharing stuff doesn't feel like a good investment of my energy anymore. I think what I'm getting at here is that just because your idea of what makes a story flawed and your readers' ideas about that might be totally different, and it might not be that people are seeing the flaws and not caring. It might be that they don't see them as flaws at all.
It makes a lot of sense to me that really working on your craft and focusing on improving it rather than just having fun with it would make you a lot less prolific. And I admire the hell out of how hard you've worked to identify your weaknesses and work at them.
the tone is too wildly self-indulgent for my sense of propriety
I get hung up on this too, and I totally understand it but it bugs the hell out of me at the same time that self-indulgent automatically equals bad. (Not attacking your idea, here, just my own internal editor throws this at me all the time: you can't show people that! It's not serious enough! You'll embarrass yourself!) I get caught up in the idea of self-indulgence, and in telling myself I'm not allowed to do the things I want to do in a story because it won't be palatable to everyone else. Even though I have no idea if that's actually true or not -- I just feel like I can't judge my own work when it comes to my self-indulgence so it's best to err on the side of caution. And of course there's something very personally revealing about showing other people your indulgences. It takes guts.
ANYWAYS, blah, I have a lot of writing issues, but I totally hear what you are saying here and I really enjoyed reading your thoughts. They made me think thoughts! About something that's important to me but that I don't get to talk about a lot.
The other thing I want to say is that I would so much rather read self-indulgent fic my friends have written than no fic at all. Sometimes my indulgences correlate with theirs and I get to be full of squee. Sometimes they don't but I still really enjoy reading people being passionate and excited about things.
no subject
hahahaha I feel like some of this has to do with your own standards as a writer and as a reader. I sort of feel like a lot of people reading fanfic just want to enjoy themselves and aren't looking at it that critically, and the issues that seem glaring to you just don't jump out at someone who's just along for the ride and hasn't been spending a ton of time working with the story already. I think a lot of people are that way with published fiction, too, but with published fiction those people aren't the one who are vocal. With fanfic, I feel like you get a little more of the positive reviews just because it's easier to share comments in an online community and you sort of have to if you want more of what you like -- it's the equivalent of buying merch to show your support.
But! I really, really miss putting stuff out just for fun and sharing it even though I could see that it was flawed. I miss writing fanfic and being comfortably anonymous and not caring so much about putting myself out there. I think I just had a few rough experiences where stories I was proud of or just wrote for fun got torn down and that killed a lot of the fun for me. I still write quite a bit but sharing stuff doesn't feel like a good investment of my energy anymore. I think what I'm getting at here is that just because your idea of what makes a story flawed and your readers' ideas about that might be totally different, and it might not be that people are seeing the flaws and not caring. It might be that they don't see them as flaws at all.
It makes a lot of sense to me that really working on your craft and focusing on improving it rather than just having fun with it would make you a lot less prolific. And I admire the hell out of how hard you've worked to identify your weaknesses and work at them.
the tone is too wildly self-indulgent for my sense of propriety
I get hung up on this too, and I totally understand it but it bugs the hell out of me at the same time that self-indulgent automatically equals bad. (Not attacking your idea, here, just my own internal editor throws this at me all the time: you can't show people that! It's not serious enough! You'll embarrass yourself!) I get caught up in the idea of self-indulgence, and in telling myself I'm not allowed to do the things I want to do in a story because it won't be palatable to everyone else. Even though I have no idea if that's actually true or not -- I just feel like I can't judge my own work when it comes to my self-indulgence so it's best to err on the side of caution. And of course there's something very personally revealing about showing other people your indulgences. It takes guts.
ANYWAYS, blah, I have a lot of writing issues, but I totally hear what you are saying here and I really enjoyed reading your thoughts. They made me think thoughts! About something that's important to me but that I don't get to talk about a lot.
The other thing I want to say is that I would so much rather read self-indulgent fic my friends have written than no fic at all. Sometimes my indulgences correlate with theirs and I get to be full of squee. Sometimes they don't but I still really enjoy reading people being passionate and excited about things.