InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Spiral out"

E. M. Pink (empink) wrote,
@ 2008-06-19 19:48:00

Current mood:	aggravated
Entry tags:	rambling writer, random

On retooling fandom participation
As part of my potential move back to LJ, I decided that I would take a long, hard look at my current LJ friendslist, pare it down mercilessly, and then look on and off LJ for communities that interested me. You know, HP-centric stuff, gen stuff, places with fic that I might like to read, and people I might like to talk to.

So far, I have mostly drawn a big, fat blank. Places I looked at fleetingly beforehand still have the same things wrong with them that caused me to pass over them before. Now, I've only looked for about half an hour, so I'm going to rant here for a bit and probably go back to looking. Because I cannot for the life of me understand why I would still want to write HP fic, but be unable to find anywhere to participate even as a lurker.

Maybe I'm being too picky? Then again, not being picky enough means I skim half my flist here and at LJ AND at JF, and don't read, much less click on, more than one link in the daily_prophet and hogwarts_daily newsletters on LJ. Ladies and gents, I am in a COLOSSAL rut here, so much so that I don't really have a clue where to look for HP stuff that I might be interested in. And LJ/IJ's decentralization isn't helping.

Also: I think I have outgrown pretty much every archive I used to frequent when I used to regularly read HP fic. Oh, Sycophant Hex, why did you stay so much the same :(((. Can you believe I used to trawl through Checkmated? Or click on random authors' names at Sugar Quill and FictionAlley? I've gotten way too cynical (or something else, god knows what) to do that now.

Last word: My problem here seems to be that I either read too widely AND too narrowly. I read widely in that I'll swallow pretty much any pairing, character, or setting if it's written well enough and I'm in the mood for it, and I read narrowly in that on most days, I won't click on even the promising links because their summaries sound like a copy of something that has been done to death, and read to death, by me.

Really the last word: Rec me communities anyone? ANYONE? And by "communities", I mean "anywhere that has more than five people posting, whether on LJ, IJ or the bloody moon". I also mean "places where they don't worship the epilogue, or JKR, or both". And possibly "places where they don't live and die by ships".

Okay seriously: No point in asking for help if I don't give out parameters for the search, eh? Okay. Used to like Snape a lot; have overeaten that meal. AU rocks my frigging boat so hard, but it can be hard to find ones that aren't a) Same Old Slash, b) Unseriously written, c) abandoned, d) rereads for me, or e) all of the above.
And really, that's pretty much it.

ETA: Edited to remove flock.
ETA: Edited again to add vague interests and shit.
ETA 3: Okay, DEFINITELY found one comm to watch: quibbler_report on LJ. And I found a fic through it that caught my eye, one that's right here on IJ! Maybe I won't have to move after all *g*

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summerborn
2008-06-20 07:52 am UTC (link)

Ugh! Can I say I am Right There With You? Well, I haven't really looked at trimming anything off the flist yet, but I've thought about it, and I have such a hard time finding fics. I read mostly on IJ right now because my work filters LJ. I keep a couple of those report/link compilers on my flist, and that's nice but like you said, I don't even want to click on the semi-promising ones most of the times.

But I feel like something's missing, like there's an opportunity here, and I think you nailed it - someplace where there are more than 5 people posting, where things are well-written, where they don't live and die by ships (or the Epilogue, or, y'know, canon, and yet anything really AU should still have recognizable *characters, at least), and where the summaries and good and word lengths are known ahead of time.

It almost makes me want to start a new rec list (ha) >_>

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empink
2008-06-20 08:25 am UTC (link)

Speak not of new rec lists to mine ears :P. But no, seriously, I half think I might start one if I didn't think I might chicken out and abandon it. The thing would be to set a convenient schedule, have places to find stuff, and put my subjectivity and rec criteria out there. I'm past the days of reading a fic or two every day, but something good once or twice a week would do me good.

Also, fics not on LJ/IJ? I half undestand why most rec comms don't bother, but in my experience, I've found just as much good stuff off LJ as on it.
Also... Maybe I should just go ahead and give in. XD. I've never found anywhere that worked for me long term, so why not?

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summerborn
2008-06-20 09:27 am UTC (link)

Would you consider... a collaborative effort? Maybe by working together we can avoid some of the problems of a one-man rec list? Or you could say it was short-term from the start, a summer reading program or something :)

Also, I really like the idea of a set of criteria for fics... hey, just for kicks and giggles, let me show you the criteria I used for judging interactive fiction games: http://www.strangebreezes.com/if/scoring.htm

(though, after this discussion, would you mind screening this comment? Thanks!)

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	empink 2008-06-20 09:56 am UTC (link)
	Would DEFINITELY consider collabing on this. Two heads will probably be better than one on this. And yeah, I think we might as well start out cautiously here-- a summer project feels like something I'd be able to commit to. Am off to take a gander at that link right now. Oh, and comment screened ;) (Reply to this) (Parent)

empink
2008-06-21 12:43 am UTC (link)

Home now, so replying, if a bit later than I thought it'd be :P.

I've read the criteria you used. I think it's great in that it seems to work really well for you, but honestly? I wasn't actually thinking of going into that much detail about the fics I rec. Well, not that kind of specific detail, I guess. Scores and numbers don't help me much with fiction, I think. I kind of tend to measure fiction by how it made me feel, whether it kept me reading it against all better judgement, that sort of thing. If I'm going to put out recs/reviews, I'm probably going to go for a touchy-feely, worded, rambling review.

When I think "rec site I will always probably want to go back to", I think Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I like the snark, I like how they give letter grades, but still explain why something about a B or C book kept them reading. I like how it's so clear that this is 'just' their opinion, and I think I'd find it fun to write in something approximating that style so long as I was comfortable with it.

Do you want to move this over to email, btw? I've got some questions about the possible rec-list-enterprise (Recenterprise?? XD) to think through sort of waiting at the back of my mind, but they'd probably be argued better in email or something similar.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	summerborn 2008-06-23 08:47 am UTC (link)
	Have sent you an email at what I thought was your email address. Let me know if you don't get it :). Off to take a look at that "Smart Bitches" link! (Reply to this) (Parent)