Rambling

[tarigwaemir]

Blair Hall Apts., on the Feast of St. Medericus

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAE YOUNG UNNI! May it be showered with much Super Junior cuteness! ^_^

waldzell is nearly finished with its first course offering. Whew! Next time, I'll know better than to schedule two sessions a week. -_- But it was a lot of fun! More people should apply as facilitators; it's definitely worth it. I think I might attempt running another course later on. While I'm at it, I might as well encourage everyone to sign up for sub_divided's Serious Scientific Research course at doctairej because the concept is brilliant.

Anyway, now I can settle down to finally finishing that monster of a fic that's been distracting me from making any progress on blind_go. And hopefully also actually writing more of the blind_go submission as well. -_-

One of the lame things I do on the Internet when I'm especially bored is check my website stats and look at the referral links. I was rather surprised to find that my top referral link for this month was from an LJ post presenting a Tenipuri het 'ship manifesto, linking to the Atobe/An ficlet I wrote for lucathia_rykatu way, way back. O_O I feel almost guilty about that because I'm actually pretty indifferent to the pairing altogether. Also kind of mindboggled that another top referral link was from a Tenipuri fandom newsletter comm that also linked to the fic, which I found vaguely amusing since I wrote it at least an year ago. >_>

Anyway, I'm a little bewildered by the idea that people are actually reading my writing archive. Well, I mean, I guess that's what it's there for, but I've always sort of assumed that the only people to stop by would be those who had seen me around on LJ. Or at most, people from Hikaru no Go fandom.

Feedback is lovely and flattering to an author's ego of course, but a rec implies that the fic wasn't just fun to read but memorable enough to get linked. In this respect, it tells you what is effective in your writing and what isn't. For example, the two Hikaru no Go fics I've written that I've seen rec'ed are The Ways You Remember and Unsent Letter, which is telling because those were the two fics where I felt I really had something to say. They're also the most emotional. I can't figure out Tenipuri though because I think my best fic for the fandom is Exam Season--at least, it's the fic that I put the most effort into--but people seem to prefer the ficlets like The Fast Way and The Bet, which barely encompass one scene. Hm, I wonder if that means that my shorter fics are generally better than the longer ones. Actually, that wouldn't be surprising given how difficult I find writing long fiction to be. I've been trying to push myself to write longer fics over the past year for this very reason. Perhaps my strengths in writing are better suited to shorter fiction? What are my strengths in writing anyway? Most people compliment the use of language, the poetic turn of phrase, but I really do worry sometimes if I'm slipping into prettiness without substance. -_- That wouldn't bother me so much if I wasn't afraid that it was starting to affect my academic writing as well (my TF last fall for the Joban tradition left me several comments to that effect).

Eh, that's enough self-analysis for today.

Yours &c.

Post-script: lawnmower_elf, I got your postcard from Tokyo! Thank you! ^_^

Comments

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

Most people compliment the use of language, the poetic turn of phrase, but I really do worry sometimes if I'm slipping into prettiness without substance. -_- That wouldn't bother me so much if I wasn't afraid that it was starting to affect my academic writing as well (my TF last fall for the Joban tradition left me several comments to that effect).

LOL, yeah, I tend to do that in my early drafts of lit papers. Expos got me out of the habit though, hurrah for expos.

[troisroyaumes]

I find it annoying though because there's nothing I despise more than style without substance. :X I've always prided myself on avoiding dramatic flourishes in my essays so it's a blow to get criticism to that effect.

Heh, I certainly learned nothing about writing from expos. But the readings were worth it, so no worries.

[serendip.livejournal.com]

슈쥬가 이는데, 저는 한남자가 없어요. 너무 불쌍한 처지예요~! XD