A pleasant surprise

[wiseheart]

I've been asked for permission by the Tower of Ecthelion people to post my story "Cold Comfort" in their archive. It makes me really happy, as I usually don't get discovered by new peoples, buried under the heaps of dubious stuff on ff.net.

I feel less like a pariah now. :) It's a nice feeling.

Comments

[circestale.livejournal.com]

Congrats, Soledad! :)

I know what you mean about feeling like a pariah... My last story posting to the lists garned a big, fat zero comments, and a post I made in my LJ about the situation has now been flamed by another person on my friends list. Gosh, I'm really looking for that sign that says 'fandom leper' hanging around my neck.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can follow. How did you get flamed? I went to your LJ, but maybe I've been looking in the wrong place?

[circestale.livejournal.com]

No, she didn't flame me directly in my LJ, although she left the tersest response to my original post. A few hours later she left a very long rant on her own LJ about how she felt people who complained about lack of feedback were writing/creating for all the wrong reasons, and should basically shut up, in her opinion. Which is all hypocritical pap considering she was on her own LJ about a month ago doing the same exact thing. Ah, fandom!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I see. That happened to me, too, a few times. People accusing me of review whoring while doing the same.

And I hate it when they lecture me to write for the joy of writing. Damn it, if we weren't interested in readers, we wouldn't post our stuff on the 'Net - especially those who hypocritically state they only write because they love writing. Usually these are the people with their own fangirl pack and sychopants scuking up to them all the time. It's easy to talk down to other people when one has been blown up to *the* star of any particular fandom.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! It's such a good story.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, it had a very capable beta reader... ;)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-D

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! That's a nice archive; you should feel poud. I hope posting your story there brings you more new readers, too.

(It's sad when you stop to think of it - so many nice fics at ff.net, buried under the garbage and never found by the readers who would enjoy them...)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yeah, especially since most serious readers wandered off to HASA - we lover life-froms who aren't on that archive practically vanish from sight.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Open Scrolls and Stories of Arda seem to be attracting a following these days, too. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for you to post some of your non-slash, non-adult rated fics to one or both of those archives to attract more readers?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'm planning to post on Stories of Arda. I've been accepted to author status already. I just need a week or so to figure out how to do it. I'm such an idiot when it comes to follow written instructions. I don't know why.

The problem with most archives is, though, that they only accept a particular sort of stories. So I'm on the Library of Moria with "Innocence" and "Twisted Paths", on The Tower of Ecthelion with "Cold Comfort", on The Trees Remember with my Mirkwood stories, on Anuonnen with "Annúminas" - which is a good thing in itself, but since the majority of my stuff is interconnected, it just breaks my work apart.

But it's still better than nothing, of course. It's my own damned fault to write across All ages and topics. Would I write the same story all over again, I could gather my own fan pack, I guess.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I wish there was a site which (like Stories of Arda) accepted or declined AUTHORS rather than individual stories, and which also allowed publication of all ratings and genres. Like ff.net before the NC-17 ban, but with some minimum quality standards. It would really fill a void in the fandom.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, if we ever manage to put together the Edhellond archive again, that's what we are planning to do. But we'll have to be very picky, I'm afraid, as free websites aren't offering very much space.

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

New archive The Undying Tales (http://undying.not-quite-human.net/) is general, all ratings, self-posting. Unfortunately, it doesn't yet have any traffic to speak of, but it's worth a look.

Gemma
(happy new LJ-lemming)

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing that archive out - I'd never heard of it before now. I'll post a link to it in the HASA URL Library; that might help increase traffic a little.

Oh, and welcome to LJ!

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Ithilwen!

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! Being asked for permission - as opposed to submitting your own fic - is really a compliment!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

True enough. I was even pleased when the Anuonnen archive asked for Annúminas. Granted, the poor story is now sitting among an ungodly amount of pregnant Legolases (is that a word?) but at least people who go there don't pull up their noses, saying "Eeeeeeeek, a mpreg story!" Which was the very reason it had been rejected elsewhere, without being read, of that I'm certain.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

The positive thing is that people who visit the site will now find at least one good example of how it can and should be done.

[cirdan-havens.livejournal.com]

Congrats! :) Shows that people are still reading, just not always commenting.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Not always? You are kidding, right? I still don't understand why is it such a hard thing to drop a dratted line when one reads something one likes. I don't write a long analysis to every chapter I read, either. But it's good to know that people are still reading, and how else would that poor author know?

[jilba.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!! I remember how I felt when Wanderer was first approved for HA! On top of the world, just how you must feel, Soledad!

It sort of makes up for all the rot you've had in your life lately.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a very nice feeling. With all the throwbacks I've been trough with this fandom lately, it's a great comfort.

[jilba.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it is a comfort, and a deserved honour too. Keep writing!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not planning to stop, believe me. My plotcritters are running amok all the time. My greatest fear is that I won't live long enough to write all the stories that are still inside me. :)

[jilba.livejournal.com]

Well, there you go. I thought I was the only one to have *that* many stories in my poor abused brain. Kind of comforting to know I'm wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Congratulations! You know your writing is highly regarded when someone wants to go to the trouble of coding it up :) And ToE is a very nice-looking archive.

[(Anonymous)]

Whereas dumbkopfs who forget to sign their names are never regarded by anybody...

Gemma x

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

If you want to join the jolly crowd, I'm sure one of us can dig up a code for you. Starting with my humble self. :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I have plenty of spare codes kicking around if you want one.