Decisions ...

[texchan]

Car shopping hell is over. We finalized a deal today for the new vehicle, and we will pick it up tomorrow. I'm glad and relieved the ordeal is over, although spending that amount of money is a bit terrifying. When I consider I'll likely have the car for 10-15 years to come, it's not quite as frightening. I've had my Mustang for 13 years now, so I tend to keep my cars for a long time. Still ... ouch. Now, of course, the doubts start to set in. Because it's rainy and gray and I don't actually have shiny-happy new car in my driveway/garage to go look at. I have to wait until tomorrow to get that new car "glow".

In other news, I've decided it's time to pull my fanfic down. It seems like a sudden decision, I know, but this is something I've been pondering for quite a while now. I've been pretty much semi-retired from fanfiction for a couple of years now, and I don't see that changing much in the future. More and more, I find myself wanting to spend time working on my own original fiction. And this is a good thing. Fanfic was a great way for me to find my way and to teach myself how to write again. And it's been fun. But it just feels like it's time for me to move on to something new.

I'll be leaving the fic up for about another month. Sometime in January, I'll start pulling stuff down from fanfiction.net. So, if you read fic over there and happen to like anything in particular, you might want to save it before I start deleting things. =)

Comments

[ivorysilk]

I agree with both comments above--write other things by all means, but some of us adore your fic, and are upset when fic we recall and go look for is not available because the author took it down. Of course, taking it down is totally your own perogative, but you worked hard on it, leaving it up is free, and your fic is good and readers are still enjoying it, even if they aren't commenting. A bad review doesn't change that, and changing later as a writer doesn't change that, it just means you write differently--perhaps the writing has more skill or polish later, but different stories need to be told in different styles. I just read a fabulous fic written by someone who is not a native English speaker--and while some of the word usage was odd, the fic itself was well-written overall, the voices spot on, and I loved it to pieces, even if the writing wasn't perfectly polished.

And keep in mind that Tchaikovsky *hated* the Nutcracker, and was dismayed when Swan Lake received bad reviews. My point? Creators aren't always the best judge of their work, a negative review will totally impact their judgement, and something that is a more skilled product is not necessarily the best loved by the public.

It's your decision whatever you decide, always and of course--but I do hope you won't decide this now, and do hope you'll reconsider leaving them up. *hugs*

[tex-chan.livejournal.com]

... are upset when fic we recall and go look for is not available because the author took it down.

Yeah ... I actually hadn't thought of it in these terms. As I mentioned above, I can't or don't think of the stories in those terms because they are my work product. I can't imagine anyone loving them or having any of them as a "favorite" story or whatever. There are several I posted that I just cringe when I think of people reading them. >.O (Actually, I pretty much feel that way about all of them. *nervous laugh*)

I don't much care any more whether people comment or not. And, although I know it seems like it, this isn't a reaction to the bad review I got recently. Not that I'm happy about it or anything (lol!), but, in the end, it's just one person's opinion. *shrug* I've gotten negative feedback before, and I'm sure I will again in the future. I've planned on taking my stories down from ff.net for a long time; I just never bothered to do it because I got too busy with other things. The nasty-gram review reminded me of my own cringe factor.