Curiouser and Curiouser

Hey, writer friends. Fanfiction or otherwise.

How do you deal with public criticism on your work? In comments, reviews, etc.

Do you feel like it keeps other readers from leaving positive feedback? Opens the door for more criticism? Happy that someone took the time to point out weaknesses?

I did it.

I joined fanfiction.net.

I told elenuial I was doing it, and though he teased me about writing fanfiction, he commended me for being totally unapologetic about it. And, naturally, reminded me that he had suggested I try my hand at it years ago.

I found an awesome beta who was happy to give my story the once-over, and I posted it after a few rounds of revision and creating a blurb.

Me at 5:00: OHMIGOD I JUST POSTED SOMETHING I WROTE ON THE SITE OMG OMG I FINISHED SOMETHING WHAT IF NO ONE LIKES IT WHAT IF NO ONE READS IT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE ON MY BIO

And then I went to buy ingredients for dinner. I came back to my browser to check the recipe I was trying, and saw a notification in my FFnet filter.

Me at 5:15: OHMIGOD SOMEONE ALREADY READ MY STORY AND REALLY LIKED IT AND LEFT AN AWESOME REVIEW AND ADDED IT TO THEIR FAVORITES :D :D

I was, and still am, fully aware that this is what people do on that site. But 15 minutes? And added to her short list of favorites? I hummed to myself as I cooked, bouncing through dinner, and PMing my beta reader to share my excitement. She said I was super cute and I could pretty much hear her laughing at me through the text. Or it could've been elenuial actually laughing at me from my left. But I didn't care. Because it kept coming.

Me at 7:00: SOMEONE ELSE ADDED IT TO FAVORITES AND TWO PEOPLE SUBSCRIBED TO ME BASED ON ONE STORY AND THAT MEANS PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO READ WHAT I WRITE SHOULD I LEARN TO WRITE SMUT NOW THIS IS SO COOL :D :D

I didn't think anyone would actually read anything I posted. I thought it would be like LJ, where friends who shared the fandom would go to hang out. The idea of a total stranger who is not obligated to be nice to me actually taking the time to read my story?

Pretty fucking great.

Something really small and dumb to be excited over, but this is new and fun and really silly. And I'm sure the novelty will wear off eventually.

But for now?

Me five minutes ago: ANOTHER REVIEW AND SHE REALLY REALLY LIKED IT

elenuial: Huge. Dork.

Me: :D

Metal covers of classic Studio Ghibli themes.

Yes. Crazy guitar, screaming vocal My Neighbor Totoro is spectacular.

EDIT: I bought it. Yeah, that's right. I have the whole album now. WHOLE ALBUM OF FANTASTIC.

So, I was browsing through all of those wedding website makers, like from brides.com and theknot.com, and finding all of their design work blah and bland and very limited in how you can customize it. I was feeling frustrated and upset...

...until I realized that I can make one myself. I have webspace, domain names are like $10/year, and although rusty, my command of CSS is highly useful.

Starting from scratch it is.

I don't actually like the way it smells, but Old Spice has some of the best commercials ever.



Seriously. Ribs hurt. Laughing so much.

I have a hatred of those facebook memes where you take an image and tag it with your friends to suit, like a series of smiley faces with "The grumpy one" and "The silly one," etc. They had one for Disney. They had one for the casts of movies. They had one for everything.

Every other day, I get tagged in one of those obnoxious things. Normally, I wouldn't care, except that when you click to see more photos of a certain person, their photo collection is flooded with these 50-person memes.

As a rule, I untag myself from these things. I even wrote a note explicitly saying not to put me in them.

When I got a notification today that I'd been tagged in a photo, I clicked to see what it was. Upon seeing my name under the newest incarnation of the tagging meme, I sighed and let the mouse hover over my name to see what it was this time. Tag a new friend? Tag the person with the best smile? Tag someone who likes good music?

Nope. My name created a box over the very last square, with the words "Tag the prettiest person you know."

...

Damn you, vanity. Damn you.

I will keep my site plain and simple.
I will keep my site plain and simple.
I will keep my site plain and simple.

All the energy I have to redirect from panicking over Bowie is plentiful enough (not surprising) that I'm actually doing something with that domain I have. I have lots of crazy things I want to do with it. But I've always admired the simple, sleeker portfolio websites to the flashy and less comprehendable ones. Something about not needing to see how huge your photoshop dick is by being flooded with crazy overdesigned images everywhere.

So I will keep it as bare-bones, yet still me, as possible.

That's the result of about a few hours of working. I'd forgotten how horribly tedious this whole process is.

xD

So, as I was watching shows on Hulu, a few commercials popped up that made me laugh. Neil Patrick Harris poking fun at his Doogie Howser days speaking for Old Spice? Don't like the brand, but the commercials are rather entertaining. =)

I share now.

Commercial one...
...two...
...and three.

( Embedded videos under cut )

"Trust me. I used to be a pretend doctor - for real."

-H