First Writing Whinge of the Year, and a question

[shapinglight]

Well, it's not a whinge really. You'd have to be doing some writing to whinge about it. And I'm not - at least, I've written a couple of ficlets this year, and revised all I've already written of that Spangel story I mentioned a while back (you know, the one I started years ago but never got around to finishing? It's okay. I don't mind if you've forgotten) - but that's not really writing.

Or only sort of.

Oh, I dunno. Maybe it is.



Anyway, apart from that, I've finished revising and reposting to A03 all the stories I had on my long-neglected website but hadn't either posted on A03 or consigned to the outer darkness of my evil twin's LJ. When dwyld has a minute, she's going to put up a re-direct page where my website used to be to send readers to either of those locations.

A-and I've been sticking more of my drabbles and short fics up on A03. Thing is, I think I may have gone about it in the wrong way. I went through the list of fics (there are lots of them) and divided them into categories depending on what year of the show they were set in. Then I posted them as series - ie. a series which is all set in BtVS season 2, or season 5 etc.

But maybe I would've been better off doing them as chaptered fics so that so few words didn't take up so many entries.

What do you think?

In other news, well, there isn't any. The year is a month and a half in and I've so far done nothing whatsoever about getting a job, getting on with the house, or anything. God, I feel lazy!

I blame Netflix.

Comments

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

If these fics don't follow the same storyline and don't share the same mood posting them as a chaptered story would be a huge mistake.
Personally, I'm always disappointed when I find out that the "story" I started to read actually is a collection of unrelated drabbles (not that I have anything against drabbles).

[snickfic]

I agree. I'd much rather see a bunch of individual fics that are short than try to hunt around a chaptered document for the ones I'm interested in.

[singedbylife.livejournal.com]

I agree with rbfvid and snickfic. Separate posts would be better.

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Netflix is rather good at sucking away time IMO ...

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

Are your good and evil twin names the same as on LJ?

I'm glad to see you reposting onto AO3.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I think it's fine to have lots of individual stories up. My solution to cluttering up my AO3 feed with drabbles was to post them under a psued (Rebshortcake), but I don't think that really works, either.

I guess I wish that AO3 would allow writers to order things by something other than date, although I do see the point of having the most recent things at the top. But after a while it isn't the most import aspect. It would be nice if we could put "featured" work at the top.

And while I'm at it, I wish we could "favorite" specific authors.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

You need the break after all that manic decorating!

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Mostly because I am incredibly lazy, and because they take up space, when posting to AO3 and FF.net, I've put most of my drabbles and a lot of my very short fics all on the same page(s). I'm sure some readers find it annoying or offputting, but I figure if they enjoy my longer ones, they'll eventually get around to checking out some of the pages containing multiple short things. And if they don't... I doubt the world will stop turning. :)

[sibilant.livejournal.com]

I prefer combining lots of smaller fics into a large one, as it's then easy to download on to my kindle. But that's just me being lazy! Whatever way you want to do it works for me - I'm looking forward to reading them all again, but on my kindle, probably in Greece in June ... whoops, sorry about the drool!

[shapinglight]

Thanks for your input. It seems like everyone who responded feels the same way, so I guess I'll just carry on doing what I've been doing. ;)

[shapinglight]

I'll keep doing it that way, then.

[shapinglight]

It is! My sis was up to visit this weekend and we spent far too much time watching telly.

[shapinglight]

No, I only have one name on A03, which is Glassdarkly.

Bit confusing, I suppose. None of the fics I have posted to my evil twin's LJ (Glassdarklyuk) are on A03, and I doubt they ever will be. ;)

[shapinglight]

Yes, I agree. Both those things would be great.

I would love to be able to put all the drabbles and short fics in their own space. As it is, all my longer stuff (which I posted ages ago) is being buried pages back.

I have this ambition to have a story with 1000 hits. One is very close, but it'll never get there if people don't bother to flick back to page 3. ;)

[shapinglight]

I feel like I've had a good break. I should do something now.

I just don't really want to. ;)

[shapinglight]

I think I'll just carry on as I have been, if only because changing everything now will be even more work than doing so.

[shapinglight]

Ooh, I hope you have a lovely time!

I'll probably carry on as I have been, if only because I'm too lazy to take down what I've already done and start again. ;)

[singedbylife.livejournal.com]

Oh, but why? They are brilliant!!

[yourlibrarian]

Hey rebcake, I don't know if by "favoriting" authors you meant subscribing, but if so, you can! Just click on the link to their author page and press the subscribe button.

The one drawback is that this notifies you anytime the author updates and if they write in multiple fandoms you'll be notified of all their work. But if you just like their writing then it works well.

Also, regarding listing how an author's works appear you can always send that request to their Support team. They track user requests and while they can't guarantee anything will get adopted (or can be implemented in the near future) if it's a popular one there's a good chance it could happen.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, that was going to be my comment as well. I download everything and the problem with things being in a series instead of chapters is that you then have to download each item separately.

That said, I'd have little reason to download drabbles individually and especially for drabble-fic, stories composed of multiple drabbles, the only way I'd read them is if they were all posted as individual chapters. Otherwise I'd spend almost as much time downloading as reading.

But agreed with comments above that if stories aren't set in the same author-verse then they shouldn't be part of a series (or individual chapters of one story).

That said, if they all agree with one another in terms of continuity, OCs, etc. then I'd post them together even if they weren't originally written as a series. But, as handy as it would be for downloading I think expectations of chaptered fic is that it's all the same story and not just various stories in the same verse.

Regardless, I don't think most people would object to your use of the series tag to gather together those same season stories.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Subscribing is okay, but I'd like to have a list of favorite authors. Sort of like bookmarks, only authors rather than individual stories. My solution has been to bookmark at least one story by an author I like, so I can click through that way, but it's an extra step. *wrist to forehead* It's all hard and stuff!

I think I will make a couple of requests. They are very accommodating over there!

[shapinglight]

Thank you. I just prefer to keep them under lock and key, as it were.

[shapinglight]

You're probably right, but I've now posted so many of the damn things I just can't be bothered to change it. ;)