This isn't going to be much of a post. My glasses problems still aren't fully resolved (I have new glasses en route that are more or less the same prescription as my old glasses, which should let me work on a computer without eye pain and without looking through the fog of scratches on the old lenses) so I haven't been able to do much writing over the last month. And most of what I've been doing has been preparing for a game jam I'll be participating in during July and August.
A game jam--for those who don't know, which I kind of expect to be most people seeing this, as they're rather a niche thing--is a lot like NaNoWriMo, except that they have different time limits (this one is two months, but some are only a weekend!) and the goal is to produce a game. (Typically a video game, but sometimes it's to create a tabletop RPG.) I'm going to be writing a visual novel, and have gotten together with a programmer, two artists (one for characters and one for backgrounds) and a composer, so I'm actually going to be under huge pressure not only to get it written but to do it well, because these four other people's entry into that game jam is dependent on what I write. And I'm beginning to wonder if I'm capable of writing anything good enough. :( But I'll probably devote next month's IWSG post to talking about the game (and likely August's to talking about how it's going), so that's not actually what I want to talk about here.
So, I've been posting both fan fiction and some mythology-based fiction to AO3, a major site that hosts such works. And I've been reading some of what others write, which is often a frustrating experience, since so many people don't have a very good grasp on how English works. (Sometimes this is because it's not their native language. Unfortunately, in just as many--possibly in more--cases, they don't have that excuse. But it would seem rude to point it out either way, so I just have to suffer in silence. Or more accurately, rant about it to the empty room I'm sitting in and then not post anything online about it.) And in the case of mythology-related works, a lot of people have some bizarre and frustrating misunderstandings about various aspects of Greek mythology and/or ancient Greek culture, particularly where the Trojan War is concerned. And again, most of the time I feel like I can't say anything about it, and often it doesn't seem worth it, because there's not much to the work in question.
But then there was a work-in-progress that was really good, except for the grammar and mythological confusion. I didn't say anything about the grammar, because I got the feeling from it that English was not their native tongue, but I did mention some of the mythological problems, accompanied by compliments on various aspects of the work that I enjoyed.
The compliments were not enough. The author replied, having taken considerable offense. (And based on the grammar on display in their reply, English is their native language.) And yes, my phrasing was not good, which made the situation worse. I have a terrible tendency to get too comfortable in a place--real or digital--which makes me relax and then causes me to say or do something thoughtless and inappropriate. This was that moment for AO3, so I am suddenly feeling very uncomfortable about being there, and have neither read anything else there nor posted anything (despite that I had a work in the process of going up at the time) since then.
What bothers me most about the author's reply is the formulaic nature of it. It was exactly what I had heard people on the "pet peeves" threads in the fanfic forums on the NaNoWriMo site complaining about before the site was ruined and I abandoned NaNo in disgust. The author first said how not all fanfic authors want criticism, and then said that they didn't need to improve their work because they were doing it "out of love." It's one of those things that I wanted to think was made up just to complain about it. How can someone claim that being motivated by love is license to create a shoddy product? When something is a labor of love, you're supposed to work extra hard on it, because you want it to be perfect, because it's something you love. Using love as an excuse for laziness and unwillingness to improve...has the meaning of love changed, or am I just such an old fogey (at 45) that I cling to ancient and abandoned practices?
Whatever the explanation, I am left feeling like I don't belong on AO3, like it's the home of the "I don't want to improve my craft because it doesn't matter to me even though I claim to love it" tribe, a tribe which is necessarily hostile to me, an inveterate over-proofreader of and eternal fiddler with my own work. I mean, is that secretly the reason my fics don't do well, because I actually go in and fix 99% of my grammatical errors before I post the piece? (I know it's not: the reason they don't do well is because I suck as a writer.)
The bigger question, though, is what do I do with my writing if I don't post it there? I've kind of gotten to liking sharing it with the internet, even though the 'net is entirely uninterested in it. Maybe I should start a third Blogger blog and post my novels there instead of on AO3? (Or just post it to this one since I'm barely even using it anyway?) I've seen people on Kickstarter trying to fund print editions of their novels who have said that the full text of the novel is posted on their website already, so maybe posting a novel to a blog isn't that strange a practice. I don't know, though; it feels like a weird thing to do somehow. Fortunately, it doesn't matter yet, since I haven't finished the rewrite of book two anyway.
In sum, I'm just generally feeling weird and off. Hopefully, my mental situation will improve once my new glasses arrive and I can start writing again.
