A Collection of Goings-on
Sep. 24th, 2019 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse I spent a good deal of yesterday attempting to clean out the in-box of my AO3 account. (Archive of Our Own, for those don't know. It's a major warehouse for fan fic and is a recent Hugo award winning site.)
I should have been writing. I don't know if you're like me, but sometimes I get really stressed by a pile of unanswered e-mails.I start to get physically agitated to see them sitting there. And, there were a lot, because I had successfully ignored them for a long time... I just couldn't take it any more. I foolishly thought, however, that if I tackled everything in one day, that would be it. I would be done. There would be no comment left un-thanked, no query left unanswered.
NOPE.
I still have nearly 300 comments I have not replied to. JFC. I mean, this warms me? I'm really pleased that my fan writing inspires commentary and squee and fan theorizing, but LITERALLY WASTED A DAY and hardly made a dent.
It's a terrible thing to complain about, honestly. I mean, I know there are lots of people out there who anxiously await comments and kudos to come in... and then get very, very few or none at all. In fact, at least one of the commenters really, really wanted me to check out their writing because I'd inspired them and they admitted that no one seemed to have found it or commented on it.
So, i'm hyper-aware this is an embarrassment of riches that I should NOT complain about. And, I'm not, not really. (I mean, I am, but only because I hate leaving so many people unanswered and unread.) I bring it up partly because I suspect that I'm probably a better loved fan writer than I am an original fiction writer.
It's hard to know. Because of the way I structured my fan writing, one or two fans can generate a massive amount of comments. My most in/famous piece of fan fiction actually a work-in-progress that is broken up into literally hundreds of small chapters/installments and so a determined reader who comments on every piece can end up leaving me a PILE of comments. All that mail, then, often really only represents a single, enthusiastic reader.
Still, I probably should have done something more productive with my day, especially with the deadline looming.
I did, at least, put some nearly-finishing touches on the stairs. As you know, I patched the giant holes. Shawn also wanted me to skim coat the tops, which I did and then (much more difficult) somehow coat over some of the cracked bits of the sides of steps. This, it turned out, was a bit more clumsy. I managed it, but it looks the least professional of all the unprofessional concrete work I've done. Happily, it's the least important, as no one WALKS on the up-and-down bits of the stairs. I think the VERY LAST thing I'm going to do to the stairs is look into exterior concrete paint, just to give the steps a nice, even look to them. I will browse the paint/concrete section of the hardware store and see if such a thing is available. I suspect it is.
Yesterday, I thought I lost our big orange cat, Buttercup, for good. I think I have reported here that when Buttercup gets out, sometimes he gets very hissy and scratchy with me, acting very PTSD when I try to pick him up, like he somehow imagines that I will do him real harm. (I can only suspect that he has some kind of muscle memory/lizard brain from the people he used to live with/times he experienced out-of-doors,) Once, he clawed up my FACE in an effort to get away and it's the kind of experience I'd really not like to have a repeat of, so, these days, if he gets out when the rest of my family is around, I get one of them to pick him up. Most of the time he is fine with them for whatever reason, so it works out.
No one but me was home yesterday.
Luckily, Shawn reminded me that humans are persistence hunters. We can't outrun gazelles, but we can wait them out. So, I mostly just watched and waited until my giant (overweight) cat exhausted himself and was literally panting from having over-excited himself by being OUTSIDE for nearly an hour. He still hissed at me when I picked him up, but he had no fight left. He basically slept the rest of the afternoon.
Persistence hunting.
It's my new thing. :-)
How's by you?
I should have been writing. I don't know if you're like me, but sometimes I get really stressed by a pile of unanswered e-mails.I start to get physically agitated to see them sitting there. And, there were a lot, because I had successfully ignored them for a long time... I just couldn't take it any more. I foolishly thought, however, that if I tackled everything in one day, that would be it. I would be done. There would be no comment left un-thanked, no query left unanswered.
NOPE.
I still have nearly 300 comments I have not replied to. JFC. I mean, this warms me? I'm really pleased that my fan writing inspires commentary and squee and fan theorizing, but LITERALLY WASTED A DAY and hardly made a dent.
It's a terrible thing to complain about, honestly. I mean, I know there are lots of people out there who anxiously await comments and kudos to come in... and then get very, very few or none at all. In fact, at least one of the commenters really, really wanted me to check out their writing because I'd inspired them and they admitted that no one seemed to have found it or commented on it.
So, i'm hyper-aware this is an embarrassment of riches that I should NOT complain about. And, I'm not, not really. (I mean, I am, but only because I hate leaving so many people unanswered and unread.) I bring it up partly because I suspect that I'm probably a better loved fan writer than I am an original fiction writer.
It's hard to know. Because of the way I structured my fan writing, one or two fans can generate a massive amount of comments. My most in/famous piece of fan fiction actually a work-in-progress that is broken up into literally hundreds of small chapters/installments and so a determined reader who comments on every piece can end up leaving me a PILE of comments. All that mail, then, often really only represents a single, enthusiastic reader.
Still, I probably should have done something more productive with my day, especially with the deadline looming.
I did, at least, put some nearly-finishing touches on the stairs. As you know, I patched the giant holes. Shawn also wanted me to skim coat the tops, which I did and then (much more difficult) somehow coat over some of the cracked bits of the sides of steps. This, it turned out, was a bit more clumsy. I managed it, but it looks the least professional of all the unprofessional concrete work I've done. Happily, it's the least important, as no one WALKS on the up-and-down bits of the stairs. I think the VERY LAST thing I'm going to do to the stairs is look into exterior concrete paint, just to give the steps a nice, even look to them. I will browse the paint/concrete section of the hardware store and see if such a thing is available. I suspect it is.
Yesterday, I thought I lost our big orange cat, Buttercup, for good. I think I have reported here that when Buttercup gets out, sometimes he gets very hissy and scratchy with me, acting very PTSD when I try to pick him up, like he somehow imagines that I will do him real harm. (I can only suspect that he has some kind of muscle memory/lizard brain from the people he used to live with/times he experienced out-of-doors,) Once, he clawed up my FACE in an effort to get away and it's the kind of experience I'd really not like to have a repeat of, so, these days, if he gets out when the rest of my family is around, I get one of them to pick him up. Most of the time he is fine with them for whatever reason, so it works out.
No one but me was home yesterday.
Luckily, Shawn reminded me that humans are persistence hunters. We can't outrun gazelles, but we can wait them out. So, I mostly just watched and waited until my giant (overweight) cat exhausted himself and was literally panting from having over-excited himself by being OUTSIDE for nearly an hour. He still hissed at me when I picked him up, but he had no fight left. He basically slept the rest of the afternoon.
Persistence hunting.
It's my new thing. :-)
How's by you?
no subject
Date: 2019-09-24 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-24 10:07 pm (UTC)