Soledad's Journal

My Advent calendar was doing reasonably well on SoA, at least given the average of comments I tend to get there: at least 2 reviews per chapter. Until Chapter 18, that is. No-one of the 88 people who supposedly read it found it good enough to say something encouraging. That's hard. It isn't an easy series to write, but until now at least a few people seemed to appreciate it.

On FF.Net, someone mentioned that they had the same OC as I, wondering if that was a coincidence. Which means in translation: they suspect that I've stolen Elulindo from them. I never read a word of their writing. It's all very discouraging. And I was so hoping that I might pull through the stupid calendar. I've written 20 chapters already. But by this sort of reaction - and the lack of it - I'm not sure I'll bother to actually finish it.

Everyone who even fleetingly knows me can tell you that I'd give my firstborn for having lots and lots of reviews. Preferably positive ones, as - unlike many heroic souls out there - I'm not a glutton for punishment. I'd like people to, you know, like my stories.
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... in case anybody is interested. I've just watched "The End of Time" - I'd put it out for months because of what I heard about it suggested that it would be really, really bad.
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Sooo, I've taken another turn to New Who Series 3. Six episodes in two days - Who-poisoning ahead! Ahem. There are worse ways to go, I guess. Anyway, my thoughts:

Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel
- They weren't bad episodes as clichéd sci-fi goes. The friendly faces of the cybermonster took some of the real horror, but other than that, they were good average as evil robots go.
- Loved the Zeppelins - that was a good idea. And I loved how Mickey actually grew a backbone and finally left that git Rose.
- Particularly hated Rose in these ones, though. It was like "Father's Day" all over again. She gets told not to do something and WHAMMM - she runs off doing exactly that.

The Idiot's Lantern
- This one was just boring. And I was so disappointed that Rose got back her stupid face. She was a lot more likeable without. Particularly hated when she sent the boy after his idiot father, with the argument that no matter what a wanker he was, he was still his father. As if *that* would give anyone a free card...

The Impossible Planet/Satan's Pit
- Now these I loved! There was *finally* some real sci-fi, including technobabble! And the Ood were great, absolutely great.
- Actually, the whole thing was fantastic, until the Beast appeared. The whole Devil idea is a dead horse beaten to new deads repeatedly, and the monster looked ridiculous.
- I'm glad the Doctor managed to save Ida (I was afraid that she'd die heroically to save Rose or whatnot), but I was irritated to hell that all those space force professionals would need a 19-year-old, undereducated girl from the 21st century to tell them what to do. Oh, please!

Love and Monsters
- Gah, was this really, really bad. No wonder, the Rustoid wrote it. It was "Random Shoes" from Torchwood all over again, even the deadly boring POV characters having almost the same name! And Jackie in her midlife crisis, trying to get into Elton's pants? Well, it gives us an idea what Rose/Gwen will become in a few years.
- Still, I hated the episode. Fast-forwarded most of it, it was so deadly boring.

Coming up: the Battle of Canary Wharf and assorted unpleasantries.

Reading the ones I got so far was mostly pleasant. The most reviewers seemed to like my stuff. Some of them complained about the typos, though - well, I'm terribly sorry, but when so very few people seem willing to do any beta work at all, spellchecker and proofreading my own stuff can only take me so far. Besides, my spelling isn't any worse than that of many a widely popular authors (not all, I would hurriedly add) who have the advantage of being native speakers. And to think that I extra re-read and corrected those stories... it was lost effort, apparently.

*is mildly pissed*

Someone also complained about the "constant head-hopping" in "The Prisoner of Dol Guldur". I'm not entirely sure what they meant with it. Granted, the story is written in steadily shifting POVs: those of Enadar, who's trying to find out who he is and where he is, and the others who try to heal him after his ordeal. But since these sections are clearly separated from each other, it should not be so very hard to realize through whose eyes we are seeing things.

*is moderately pissed*

The other reviews, though, were very positive, so all in all I shouldn't be too unhappy. Even if it does annoy me that some people can only see the negative things (unless you are one of their icons, that is, in which case grammar and spelling don't matter). Interestingly enough, these usually are the same people who'd never do the beta work, as it would require some effort from their side.

That said, I probably won't check out the reviews again until the MEFAs are over. Why upset myself? I accepted the nominations to get people read my stuff. I have achieved that. The rest shouldn't matter, right?

Total of posted chapters: 15
Number of new, never before posted chapters: 3
Average reads/chapter: 13.4
Feedback: zero

So, the story is obviously total crap. At least I can be happy that so many people were willing to dig through it and were too polite to tear it to pieces. That, or nobody is really interested in Elladan/Boromir anymore, since "Discretion" hit cyberspace.

Well, save the generous ardath3 who sent me an e-mail about the update.

Shit, it's really depressing.

Sometimes I wonder why I am still trying...

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I really, really need to get better organized. At least in my mind, weird place as it is. I was trying to decide whether I should write various posts or a single insanely long one. I settled for multiple tags.

Allrighty, the To Do-list. Not necessarily in any order of importance.

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But, I had great fun yesterday. Earonn sent me an absolutely wonderful CD, full of great stuff, Tolkien-related and otherwise. And I've been promoted by her to the "Mistress of Mischievous Elfies". I think I like that. Very much, in fact.
*hugs Earonn*

And, of course, there are the things I wish I could do, I just never find the time for it. Part of the reason is that I tend to waste my time for unimportant and unnecessary things lately. I just can't bring up the energy for most of the really important things.

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Well, at least I seem to be growing a thicker skin against certain reviewers.

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Obviously, I'm not a lost case entirely. Though that attracting negative people with my black aura thingy seems to prove right. Life is weird.

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.

Finally, the three-day-week is over and I'm looking expectantly at 4 days + an afternoon off. Even my private student cancelled today's lesson, which is okay with me, since I'm not in any mood to teach today.

It's a little weird that we would celebrate the Day of Work with - not working for four days, but I think I could get used to it. *g*

On the bus home I was thinking of the not-so-long-gone times when I had to give 30 lessons at school, had a part-time job on two evenings, attended to evening school on another two afternoons, had my private students in-between, took English lessons on the weekend and cared for my dying grandmother. It was only seven years ago, actually. How in hell did I manage that, when nowadays I feel like death warmed over from giving a mere 21 lessons and 4 private students a week? Can it be the evaporating of motivation or am I getting older? *sighs*

Chapter 12 of "Elvenhome" has written itself in this morning, and I even have ideas for the next one. And if I consider that I meant it to be a *short* story...

Having a bad feedback week so far, but it's only Wednesday, after all. There are still three or four more days until the next scheduled update. More vampire Timeline it is for now.