frayed fingers

[lobelia321]

*falls down exhausted*

I have just finished replying to the very last commentrix on my first person and present tense post. I got 30 odd comments! I got threads wriggling down into that little linky thing! My comments counter says '60 sweet nothings!' It is weird: every few weeks or so I seem to get one of those posts that attract metafandom, and this one also attracted something called Hogwarts Today.

The first time this happened I got into a state. Remember that? The second time I was already more philosophical, though still flustered and put out (how dare someone link me?!). This time, the third, I have much mellowed. I have, however, this strange etiquette driving me that means I must reply to every single comment.

Now the thing is this post hardly attracted any comments from the friendly faces on my flist. All of these people were unknowns to me! So, although some were very nice and some interesting, it was still exhausting replying to them all, like moving around a cocktail party full of strangers, making smalltalk or holding forth, and having to introduce yourself over and over again. I found myself copying and pasting replies because I just couldn't be bothered typing the same thing over and over, and commentrixes did tend to say the same thing over and over, meaning they hadn't read the others' comments first (I guess).

When I write fic, I love and crave every single comment. I gather them all in, the trite ones, the gushing ones, the intellectual ones, the critical ones, the friendly ones. But with this sort of musing-post, it exhausts me and I wish there were fewer of them!

Comments

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

If you don't want newsletters to link your posts, say so in your post or flock them.

And, btw, I'm about 1/3 through the beta on your story.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Hah! That'll teach me to read my LJ comments before going off emailing! Thank you so much for doing the beta on that story, especially as I know you are not a lover of first person so I appreciate it all the more. As I said in the email, please don't feel rushed but I did hope to post it on Tuesday. Otherwise I'll have to wait another week till the Tuesday after but perhaps you think the fic needs so much work that I should wait another week...?

The thing is about people linking to newsletters, that I never expect it. I can't put a caveat on every post I make, and I am not good at identifying what posts are likely to get newslettered. Also, this time round I didn't actually mind (as I did the last few times); it was just tiring. And there is always the option of simply not replying to comments (I know there are quite a few people who have no-reply-to-feedback policies in their userinfo, for example) but I feel that is not quite my etiquette.

[sonicbookmark.livejournal.com]

I wish there were fewer of them!

But you are smart and know what you are talking about!
I like that.
:)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :-) Now that was an unexpected compliment. *grins happily*

And yes, I know quite a lot of narrative theory because I am writing a book about it at the moment (an academic book, not a novel). Which doesn't mean I can actually apply this stuff to fic writing, grr, but it does mean I can throw in the Latinate words if I need to, :-)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

P.S. I should add, though, that there a lot of smart people on LJ and some of the things I have read here contradict the narrative theorists and often people say astute things that the narratologists have not thought of. They tend to proceed from the readers' point of view but the thing about fandom is that it's about writing as much as reading and a lot of people are grappling with these issues on a practical, as it were 'applied' level. This is why I sometimes do writing experiments because I like to test the theories of these narratologists and pick holes in them.

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

oh, i was totally going to leave a 'gosh you've done it again, cackle cackle' comment on that post, but then i thought that might be rude. it would have been rude, wouldn't it?

how fascinating that you are gathering a salon of intellectual meta types around you! you'll have to start stocking gourmet biscuits for them all.

me, i would have liked to comment on it but i am too depressed about prose issues to even hazard a thought on pov or tense. this fucking novel i'm working on is dual tight-3rd-person povs and present tense with flashbacks, and i am so bound up with it i need some kind of prosey constipation medication.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

No, it would not have been rude at all! I was thinking the very same thing! It would have been nice!

Also, they are, alas, not a salon of intellectual meta types. Meta, yes. Types, yes. Salon and intellectual, I wish. Still, I tried to be nice, and nobody was rude, this time. I will start up a stack of virtual bikkies, hoho.

Tight 3rd person pov! Present tense! Flashbacks! I am so intrigued.

He sits tight. There is a third person in the room but it is dark. He can't see who it might be. He is here, and the other is here, and then this third singular presence. He can hear it breathing in the corner. And it reminds him...

...of days spent elsewhere, in another time, where things were not so tense, or maybe more tense. Where his back didn't always flash like this, flash with post-monition. Where things were perhaps less tight...

but no, here he is. Tight, with this tight third person bearing down upon him.


*um* Is that what your novel is like...???

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

ahahahah i wish. that's gripping!

your version sounds more like something written by one of those morose european post-war writers, the ones with no plot, no proper nouns, and lashings of existential angst, i.e. the kind of book my more intellectual friends keep saying they're going to write one day ahahahahah *wipes brow*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Which post-European novelist are you thinking of? Name one! I wish to confirm whether it is self-indulgent experimentalising or total pretentious arty-farty fartcrap.

I have discovered that arty-farty fartcrap is such a megatonne of fun to write. So am more indulgent towards anyone writing it. But! Post-war Europeans are often unreconstructed machos with seventeen balls and absurd sentimental attitudes towards women.

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

ah, see, because i don't indulge in those kinds of novels i can't really tell you which ones. but i know that there are lots written by grimly earnest scandanavian, austrian (oh god, the austrians) and polish writers which are exquisite in their examination of the relentless hollowness of modern existence, use a lot of short sentences and complex modifiers, and while very worthy, make me want to scratch my own brain.

they're always leaning gloomily over bridges being obsessed with themselves. *i* can do that! but i don't have to tell the whole goddamn world about it!

seventeen balls indeed. clearly you know what i'm talking about.

but oh god, is it fun to write! i'm sure it's a ball!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sure it's a ball, hoho. What is a complex modifier? What, for that matter, is a simple modifier? Does one need to know in order to be able to write correct English? I am grammar maven so possibly would like to find out.

I feel bad because I haven't heard back from the people about the position I applied for; this means I didn't get it. :-(