Random gratitude
Jun. 2nd, 2023 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormkeeper_lovedoris- I finally made a Duran Duran playlist on YouTube. (Really? This is what I lead with?)
- Doris has a 2-day weekend this weekend, and next weekend she has a 3-day weekend. This is good for a woman who often works Mon-Sat!
- Also shoutout to us for prepping our food in advance of our trip last weekend. I made lasagna, Doris made hummus and tabouli. So we didn't have to do a ton of cooking at the AirBnb (though it did have a great kitchen)
- A business trip that I didn't want to go on this past week was indefinitely postponed!
- A few days before the Mineral Point trip, I went to a forest preserve (Evan Fields) that I hadn't been to for years and had kinda forgotten about.
- And Doris agreed that next year, we can go to the Dells again!!
- Loved the mermaid documentary on Netflix, Mer People!
- I did a good deed yesterday. It involved 2 cats who'd been left in a cat carrier outside the fire station
- And before that, I donated a meal to the local homeless shelter. While I was picking up the food, I got a message from Sachin!! (Nothing huge, just confirmation that he's filming something. He can't tell me anything about it but I did find out that it's a movie he's filming, not a show)
And now, fannish stuff:
- My latest Shadow and Bone fic is doing very well. It has 51 subscribers - woo! You know what I'm going to say next. I wish it had more comments and kudos. But I'd still call it a (small) hit and I love writing it. Funny note - about 3 hours after I posted the first chapter, I got 4 comments and I thought 'This is it! I'm finally going to have a mega hit!' But...that hasn't happened. I believe my reaction is called "clowning".
- And hey, I have 2 Shadow and Bone fics which are at 115 or higher in terms of kudos, so I'm again calling that a win
- On our way to Mineral Point, we listened to part of one of the books that inspired Shadow and Bone the TV show. Someone once said that for the show, they took storylines from the books and put them in a blender. They were right.
- Reddit has subreddits for A03 and for fanfic in general. I realized that it's really, really good to know that nearly every author struggles to get engagement. Almost everyone. I also learned that other writers are often thrilled to 'just' hit 100 kudos. Someone did a post asking people to post the stats on their highest rated fic, and I was like 'here we go, everyone's got one with 900 kudos.' But that wasn't the case. Plenty of writers had their highest fic near where my highest is (344) and plenty were below that.
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Date: 2023-06-03 12:48 am (UTC)Sounds like you're having a mostly excellent time up there, between the postponed business trip and getting two weekends off in a row. I'm in awe of the amount of quality time you and Doris manage to carve out together. <3
Yay for Shadow and Bone fics doing well! I'm curious now, looking at those Reddit questions. Checking my stats real quick. . .
My top one is still "The Constant Moon" (Doctor Who smut, but with a spooky outer space plot) at 328 kudos. That one has the highest hit count, too. You beta read it for me, so you can totally take credit for it too!
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Date: 2023-06-03 11:10 am (UTC)I swear that normally Doris and I don't get that much quality time together. Unless I do, as you said, carve it out. So I guess that's what I've been trying to do.
Oh wow, congrats!! 328 kudos is really good. Like I said, compared to what I saw people posting on reddit, that is a strong number of kudos and it truly seems like writers who get like 700 kudos are rare birds. I do remember that fic and loved it!
Just curious, what is your 2nd highest? My 2nd highest has 192 kudos. I cowrote it with a friend.
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Date: 2023-06-03 10:29 pm (UTC)It's great that you make the effort though!
Let me see, my second highest is....*checking* 178 kudos. That's a longer one, and it's an MCU fix-it. Sometimes I think the more popular ones are the ones with larger, more persistent fandoms.
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Date: 2023-06-04 10:39 am (UTC)Thanks for the info -that is interesting; you and I are very close on our 1st and 2nd highest kudo counts.
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Date: 2023-06-04 12:16 pm (UTC)That is interesting! I reckon we write for similarly sized fandom interests.
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Date: 2023-06-03 08:13 pm (UTC)Hooray that you have another Dells trip to look forward to!
Really sweet about the kitties. Fingers crossed it was accidental and they are back with their family (and if not, they find a new loving family).
I think it's great that there's a subreddit for fanfic writers. I'm glad it helps to know that so many other writers are struggling to get engagement too. Plus it can be like a therapy session! I mean, it makes sense. You pour hours and hours and tons of creativity and stuff into it, you work hard editing and cleaning it up, and you put it out there in the world and... crickets. Can you see how many times it's been "read" (or I guess opened?).
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Date: 2023-06-04 10:42 am (UTC)Yes, there are all sorts of stats we writers can look at. #1 is comments but we also look at kudos, bookmarks, subscribers, and hits. (In that order).
Here's a funny note about my hits. My top 3 fanfics in terms of hits are long, multi-chapter fics (in Spartacus and The 100) that were updated gradually over a period of months. But #4 and #5 are both Shadow and Bone one-shots that are smutfics. So apparently lots of people are clicking on one-shot smut fics in Shadow and Bone...often.