Soledad's Journal

According to FF.net:
Crossover - Doctor Who & Sherlock - Rated: T - English - Adventure/Friendship - Chapters: 70 - Words: 96,505 - Reviews: 169 - Favs: 69 - Follows: 126 - Updated: once a week, regularly.

Whining behind the cut - read it to your own peril.
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Yes, I know I shouldn't let such things get to me, but apparently I was born thin-skinned and will die the same way. So, if you don't want to watch me ranting, don't look behind the tag. This is your only warning.

( FF.Net again, of course... where you can't remove signed reviews )

Meaning those of very little feedback, I mean. There are such things, you know. Back in the earlier days, when my stuff seemed to attract other readers than a very small handful of loyal readers (you know who you are and I still love you to pieces), I was concerned about negative feedback all the time.

And with good reason. A lot of nitpickers (with way less knowledge about the fandom in question but with great confidence about knowing everything better) or simply mean-spirited idiots seemed to spot my stuff. And, unlike people who might actually like my stories, these people saw it as their holy quest to tell me that my plot/pairing/characterization/background knowledge/grammar was shit. Even if it was not.

I was crushed, a lot of time. Especially when I saw mediocre crap getting nothing but glowing praise. Or when popular writers (even good ones) fell into a routine, writing the same thing all over again, just because it proved successful, and despite their stories now being boring like hell, their following still kept worshipping at their feet. I admit that I was jealous. Sometimes I still am.

But again, since I mostly write the kind of stuff I would like to read and that I rarely find anywhere else, I realised that being ignored is actually not such a bad thing. It allows me to enjoy my own writing without being worried what others will say to it. Of course, supportive reviews are still a gift of God, which is why I like picowrimo so much. But basically, when I have to meet my own standards, most of the time, I think it allows me to write better. Or what I consider better writing. It usually doesn't match with the things that are widely popular. But that is all right. Most of the time anyway.

Yes, it is cold comfort, but it is still better than trying to write things the wide public likes to read and being unhappy with the results.

Since I'm too sick to actually write (brain doesn't work properly, plus the injured hand is a bother, too) I decided to re-read one fo my old stories, "Out of Legends". It's a SGA/Andromeda crossover that I finished 4 years ago. It has relatively many revirews - 113, so far - and most of them are fairly positive.

There were, of course, a few obnoxious idiots who had their own ideas where the story ought to go and who ought to feature in it and gave me lots of grief about it, both here and on the spacebattles.com board. Unfortunately, some weren't anonymous, so i couldn't remove them. Ah, well.

So, having re-read the story for the first time in 4 years, I'm still supremely content with both the plot and the way it's written, and all the self-important idiots who wanted to have a different story just should sit down on their asses and write one for themselves. So there.

My poor stories aren't doing well - neither on LJ, nor on FF.Net.
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... I'm really saddened about how the story is doing on FF.Net. It never had that many readers - few of my stories ever had - but there were a handful of faithful ones who could even be bothered to drop a nice comment from time to time.

I've posted Chapter 5 exactly a week ago. According to the hit counter of the site, not a single soul has read it in a whole week. Which kinda makes the question of reviews a moot point, right?

I really don't know how to do this right for people. If updates are irregular, they complain and leave. I've really worked so hard both on "Smiths & Joneses", so that I could update them on the weekly basis and therefore spare my readers the tedious waiting, and what happens? They don't complain, just leave.

On otherworlds_lib the story is doing slightly better, thanks to such wonderful people as jenn_calaelenaviv_b, milady_dragon, sammydragoncat and the ever-present pharlap1, but even there, it seems I've lost half of my readers. Or more.

It's really, really depressing. Once I've finished "Atonement", just to get it out of my hair, I'll probably turn my back on Torchwoodfic for a while. It's just not worth the effort. :(

... means lowering yourself to housework. Obvoulsy. I was frying potato slices yesterday when I got a spash of hot oil into my right eye. Most unpleassant. It doesn't exactly hurt, it's rather the same feeling as when one gets a splinter in one's eye - every time I blink, it's irritated, presumably when the eyelid slides over the place. I wonder how long it will take it to heal. Eyedrops are of no real use, nor is the eye salve I have, so it's sitting out and waiting for it to get better, I guess.

The last chapter of "Atonement" found to little to no echo among my fellow antigwennites. The blatant lack of sledgehammer Gwen-bashng might have something to do with it. This is actually the first time I got more reviews for a chapter on FF:Net than on LJ.

Ah, well, I know that most of my stuff simply means too much effort for most readers. I write stuff I'd like to read but hardly ever find elsewhere: with long, intricate, multiple plotlines, lots of worldbuilding and detailed descriptions. That's the sort of stuff I like, but few people share my weird tastes. As a friend of mine once put it: "We've got a layered taste - it's a thin layer nobody else shares with us." Unfortunately for me, my friend isn't into fanfiction at all.

Yesterday wasn't a good day writing-wise. Injured eye issues and all that; I was fairly depressed again. Did a little bit of translating for the Elfhelm story and am about to type it up right now. There may or may not be any excerpts tomorrow.

The very last day of summer holidays. Weatehr forecast promises temperatures close to 40°C. God, I so hate the heat wave!

I really wish I had permanent betas, at least in my main fandoms. That way, perhaps people would pick less often on my grammar and care more for the actual stories. :(

As it is, only my Merlin stuff is safe, thanks to the_wild_iris.

And no, the fact that I'm not a native speaker is no excuse. Even native speakers have betas. I chose to write in English, after all, because the fandoms are English-speaking. So I ought to - and would like to - deliver grammatically correct work. Alas, there's only so much that spellchecker and grammar checker can do for one...

There are ugly thoughts behind the tag, so read it at your own discretion. I've also taken the liberty to screen the comments, so that I can delete them when they are being hurtful, before anyone else would read them. I don't feel up to dealing with public abuse. Sorry.
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Oh, and I've done a little more trimming on my friendslist. I'm just done with caring for people who don't care for me.