Sorrow waited, sorrow won

[gwyn]

Trying to write two stories, make a vid for Escapade, and thinking about other vids I want to make, and it all feels like too much. I got another one of those emails I get from time to time, where someone comments on how much they liked a story but they can't believe that it doesn't have more kudos/bookmarks, and that always depresses me something fierce. I know it's a lovely compliment that someone thinks your work deserves more, but it also starts to remind you, time after time, that you are in that situation.

It's a lot like when I was young and just starting out as a writer, and I'd send out stories that always came back with personal notes from the editors about the quality of the stories, along with the rejection that (usually) it wasn't what they were looking for. People in my writing group were always, wow, I never get personal notes from the editors! And I was like, yeah, you know, the first couple times it's cool, but then you realize that it's all still a rejection (after rejection, after rejection). The first time I ever got an acceptance, I almost threw it away, because I thought it was a note from the editor about the rejection.

I've been trying really hard to think about this wonderful post from sperrywink and just concentrate on my own efforts to put forth what I want to see in the world, or think about destina making dolphin noises (waves at destina), but I do really get torpedoed sometimes. A lot lately, because I feel like I'm writing and vidding into a void--fandom's always been about participation and communication for me, and once I lost my fic website a couple years ago, all my fic's been on AO3. Try as I might, I've never been able to develop conversations with people there the way I have been on LJ/DW/email, or on Tumblr (I mean, certainly if you have a lot of followers on Tumblr, you could, but that's not my world). I've met a lot of great people in those spaces in the past, and even recently, because I wrote them a comment on their fic or vid, or they wrote to me, but it doesn't seem like you get that on Tumblr or on AO3, and a lot of those friends have been lost to attrition lately. Although, really, yeah, it could very well be a referendum on the quality of the work, and that's definitely the place my depression-mind goes to.

I think too the isolation of not having a lot of friends left/friends who are into the same thing I am compounds that. There are so many stories floating around in my head right now, so many vids, and it's a struggle to get past the why bother. Especially when I can't seem to get them to come out right, like the vid for Escapade feels (ugh, I keep looking at the timeline and wondering if I can ever make a good vid again, let alone a good Steve/Bucky vid) or the stories ("you're keeping the outfit" porn should not be this difficult!) have been lately.

I should probably shut the comments off on this, because people will think I'm fishing for compliments and I am not fishing for compliments, seriously, but I don't know, maybe there's someone else out there in the depresso-ball pit too who'd like a safe space to talk about that, so I guess I will keep them open. Or maybe you have some cool tricks, like sperrywink, to remind yourself that it's the creating that matters and you are more than welcome to share them with me.

Comments

[belmanoir]

Ugh, I hear you. I am so so glad I have Sonia because if I wasn't really writing for her, the one or two comments I get on every story on AO3 would completely kill any desire to write. I try to remind myself that the kudoses I do get would just be "this is cute." or whatever on lj but it's...I dunno, even the comments I do get, half the time it's "where's the sequel???". Is that seriously a compliment to you?

As for tumblr, wow it is NOT designed for interaction. I can't believe that asks disappear from your inbox after you answer them, and you can't reply to a reply! (Although I think fanmail is a little better for that? Dunno, never used it.) As far as I can tell, Sonia has a million friends she made on tumblr but she talks to them all on twitter, NOT tumblr. Like the content is on tumblr and the discussion is on twitter. Bzuh? WHY WOULD YOU DESIGN A PLATFORM THIS WAY. I hate hate hate that everything I DO post that's fannish, if I want people in that fandom to read it, I have to like, tag it and then EVERYONE WHO LOOKS IN THE TAG will see it. Including hateful assholes. There's none of that public-but-private space like on lj where something could be seen by anyone but in reality was mostly going to be seen by your friends. there's nothing equivalent to lj comms where you could have, like, a separate group by interest but it still had kind of a friendly vibe. there's definitely nothing equivalent to flock. tl;dr: there's a lot to love about Tumblr but there's a lot to hate also.

I'm sorry you've been feeling shitty. ♥

[nagasvoice]

Seconding this. While I love AO3 for the range and and depth of stories--nothing like it for diving into somebody's work across many fandoms--I just prefer the longer and more thoughtful form of communicating on lj and DW, and the tone of interactions. RE: feeling isolated and depressed, I hear that one. Taking part in organized fannish exchange has been pushing me into creating work for a small older fandom and some crossovers, but I'm not in that heady intoxicated stage where you stay up way too late and gulp down everything you can get your hands on. Maybe just as well right now, energy must go elsewhere right now and that kind of marathon is very tiring.
Ahh, but the mental worlds that evolve from that! The creating, I agree, that's the point. You may not hear much from folks and may never know how much it helped them to think in your worlds for awhile.

[gwyn]

I think that's one of the hardest things for me--being, after all this time, in a huge fandom and still being utterly invisible and feeling like there's no point in making anything to contribute. Unless you're a BNF, or have a BNF to pimp your stuff, you can forget about people finding your work, so I could really spare myself the effort and just make these little movies in my head. Yet I keep writing them down. I dunno why.

[gwyn]

I have such a hate relationship with Tumblr, for all that I use it pretty much every day--that's where my primary fandom is, so I sort of have to if I want to find meta or gifs or whatever. And I hate Twitter even more, but fortunately I don't feel like I have to be over there. Maybe it would be different if my Twitter wasn't for work, I don't know.

The saddest part for me about the comments and kudos thing in AO3, because I mean, it's great and I no longer have my own website and stuff, but it's that it doesn't really encourage getting to know anyone--you can't private message, so if you want to take a conversation offline you have to work to do it, and that's how I got to know an awful lot of people. We sent each other notes and then took conversations private. And much as I love downloading capabilities, I think that's one reason I get so many of the "why doesn't this amazing story have more kudos and bookmarks?" comments--people DL the big one, or all of them, and they never come back, either because they never get around to reading it or when they did, they didn't care enough to go back and leave something.