Writing neurosis; attention meta (not: attention! Meta! *g*)

[hmpf]

So, whenever I've posted new fic to my website and announced it in LJ, I tend to check my website stats the next day or so, because I do want to know about the people who read my stuff. Not writing *for* an audience does *not* equal not being curious about the audience you do acquire - and it's simply a fact that if I put something online, it will be read, and yes, I am curious about those invisible strangers who consume something that was produced by my brain. (That, in itself, is not neurotic, I think.)

So... 97 hits since posting.

(Possibly) little known fact: I can see who reads my story - at least for a significant number of the readers. No, I'm not psychic; it's just that my webspace provider's stats include info on where people came from. So, if - as is the case in about 90% of the cases - you came from your friends page to my website, the stats will tell me you came from "http://yournamegoeshere.livejournal.com/friends" or "http://yournamegoeshere.livejournal.com/friends/people_I_read_occasionally" or whatever. Sure, it could be someone else who just happened to read your friends page and followed the link to my story displayed there, but I kind of assume that that doesn't happen all that often. (I may be wrong there.)

It's nice to be able to see who 'visited', even if they didn't leave a comment. :)

Occasionally - very occasionally - however, it also causes... well, maybe not exactly angst but certainly a kind of puzzlement. This happens when I see that people who I was almost 100% certain would like the story (and whose opinions I'm very interested in, because they're smart and bright and brilliant writers whose brains I want to marry and so on) have read it yet haven't commented. Because then I'm kind of set to wondering, what happened there? Were they busy and only had a minute to sort of scan the story before RL snatched them away from the keyboard again? Were they in a "no talking" mood? - I know it happens to me, and hey, this is still true. Or - and this is where the writing neurosis rears its ugly head: did they think the story sucked, and either didn't tell me because they wanted to avoid hurting my feelings, or simply because they thought it was so blah it wasn't worth talking about at all?

Now, I firmly believe that, *especially* in fandom, it is absolutely essential to one's emotional wellbeing to, well, not put a lot of weight on how many, or which, people react (or, as the case may be, *don't* react) to something you post. That way, inferiority complexes lie. I mean, like probably most of us, I've *been* there, in the early years, feeling like the most boring and worthless person in the world when a carefully considered forum post or fic I posted sank like a rock. It takes a special kind of resilience to experience that, and experience that *repeatedly*, and yet persist in fandom. (A solid 'sociological' understanding of how people/groups work helps, because it prevents you from automatically coming to the conclusion of 'I'm too boring to be noticed'.)

Well, as you can see, I'm still here, so I clearly have some of that resilience. ;-) And while I have, in the last three years, reached the dizzy heights of being recced on crack_van a couple of times, and being linked on metafandom (before I was dropped from their trawl lists again), I'm mostly back now to being mostly ignored, and I'm mostly fine with that. I understand that it's very probably because of my extremely erratic posting behaviour and my general anti-socialness; I understand that my worth as a person (and my worth as a writer) is not directly related to the amount and kind of attention I get.

There's just two areas where this not expecting attention thing still gets a bit tricky on occasion.

One is if people whom I hero worship a bit are concerned. I still don't *expect* them to react to anything I do, but it's hard/impossible to kill the hope (and, oh, did I mention I've been defriended by a couple of those people in the past? Talk about blows to the ego...)

The other is if people with whom I feel a somewhat closer connection are concerned. That's the real clincher. Because I am pathologically anti-social in Real Life, I have no handle on the practice of normal human relationships (I can write about them, sort of, but even there I have obvious limits). Reciprocity is... confusing. How much of it is normal? How much is too much? What are you supposed to expect of people, and what is too much to expect? My 'solution' to these questions so far has been the same I employ for fandom interactions in general, namely: try not to expect anything, ever. (Especially as I'm chronically unreliable myself in a number of serious ways in RL.) But even I can see that that is its own kind of neurotic, really.

Arrgh. Okay, this got long but not necessarily clearer, but I'm too frelling hungry to continue writing, or clarifying. And hey, it's my partyLJ, I can cryramble if I want to. *g*

Need food now.

*

Someone's mysteriously found this post via metafandom, though I can't see anything there? Oh well, I don't mind either way. So, hi to anyone who wanders in from that direction. Oh, and a lot of people have reacted to this with apologies. Folks: this is not necessary. This wasn't about guilt tripping you; it was about my own neurosis. Neurosis as in 'unhealthy behaviour/thinking pattern'. So, no reason for you to apologise. The problem is located in my psyche, not your behaviour. :-)

Need sleep now.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

When a story reached 3.000 seperate hits and still only had seven comments, I stopped checking any sort of tracker. It's never worth it.

Well, for one thing,

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

it's the only way to find out about recs. I would never have noticed I'd been recced on crack_van - twice! - if I hadn't looked at my stats. *g* So, overall, looking at the stats tends to make me feel good, really. The chances of finding accidental egoboo that way are much greater than those of finding something negative (though I've had that, too - I've been singled out as an example of a person with a particularly sad life one some forum. *g*)

I don't think anything I've written ever got 3000 hits with hardly a comment though. Actually, I don't think anything of mine ever got that many hits (well okay, probably cumulatively over a space of several years, yes, but certainly not in such a short space of time that the stats would show it).

May I ask what brings you to my LJ, btw? It's not that I mind, it's a public journal after all, I'm just curious. :-)

[space-oddity-75.livejournal.com]

First of all, please let me offer you some Sam!Neckporn (because I can!), which I'm sure you'll appreciate. ;)

I think I've always always commented on your fics one way or the other, especially because you're one of my favourite authors and I love the fantastic choice of words you always make. Anyway, the times you don't find a comment by yours truly in your LJ is just because I'm also a lazy bastard who hardly ever updates her own journal (not a single entry this month... being in a foul mood doesn't help my social relationships either). Am I forgiven? *bats eyelashes*

Mmmmmmmmneckporn!

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Nothing to forgive! I'm not trying to guilt trip people here, honest. And yikes, I don't expect everyone to reply to everything I post; that would be insane! I don't reply to every post on my flist, either, not even on the short, select list of people I'm already up to date with! The day only has so many hours...

The story I was whining about (sort of) here was from a different fandom, anyway. *g* I probably have greater 'attention issues' in that fandom (Highlander) than I have in LoM, really, because it was my very first fandom and while I have long since understood my social position in it and - more importantly - its reasons, the fandom and the issues it caused me *did* shape me to a not insignificant degree. It's kinda hard to leave that kind of thing behind entirely.

[melagan.livejournal.com]

I wandered in from _inbetween_'s and found your post very interesting. My own day is busy in spurts and I will quite often bookmark stories for a later read.
It doesn't mean I enjoy them any less, quite the opposite in fact.

Delayed reading

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do that, too. And in fact I am currently going through the memories of the community lifein1973, reading everything that strikes my fancy, because I've been neglecting that fandom for nearly a year. So, I'm no stranger to delayed reading. I also sometimes just take a couple of days to think about a comment I want to make, if I want to leave more than a random squeeing noise. *g*

There's a reason I attribute my worry about people-reading-yet-not-commenting to my neurosis. I'm fully aware that there are three million reason why a person may not comment on a story immediately even though they may consider the story worthy. :-)

But there is an irrational part to my personality that, well... worries. Sometimes. I actually think my writer's ego is fairly healthy - for example, I haven't considered for even a moment that the story just may actually *be* crap. I'm completely convinced that it's really good and that *if* someone doesn't like it it's more due to different tastes than to a lack of quality. But, even so... ;-)

[tgifa.livejournal.com]

Ok, I feel bad for reading 68 Wives and not saying anything.

I tend to read the fics you post here but never ever comment on them, mostly because I don't know the series and feel kinda unqualified to give any proper review.

Atlas was probably the only one where I at least watched a small part of the series, and I should have dropped you a line because I was really impressed when I read it.

Though I could probably say that about any of your fics; I'm always impressed of how you always manage to say so much with so few words. And even though (or because) your fics are all very short, there's an incredible depth to them which leaves me in awe, and I definitely like your style.

About 68 Wives I cannot say much, I don't think that I can understand what it really is about (I've never watched Highlander). But I what I can say is that I like the concept and how it is set up, the counting down and how everything is coming full circle in the end.

And I know how it feels when you are waiting for certain people to comment and they don't; it's not a good feeling. But for what it's worth... you're not alone.

And you have no idea how often I was thinking "It's my LJ and I cry if I want to" when making an emo post ;)

Well, for the record:

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of surprised you even read my fic, because we don't share so many active fandoms. I don't really read much fic outside my fandoms and always kind of assume other people don't either (and I'm fine with that). So, I'm flattered you do read mine! And even more flattered to hear you like it. :-)

[jinxed-wood.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'm a bit shocked you didn't get more feedback as I thought it was a lovely story. Did you crosspost it to highlander_fic, etc?

It seems to me, a lot of how one's story is received depends on silly things like the time of the week it's posted, and the politics of the actual fandom (although Highlander isn't the worst for this). All I can say is keep plugging away :-)

I got a decent amount of feedback, really.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Something like just under 20 comments, I think. That's pretty good for a total of just under 100 hits! So, overall I'm really quite happy with that. I'm just 'angsting' about some specific people here, really. Basically, people who I know have reacted very positively to similar fic in the past etc, so I was kind of expecting this would be up their alley. And, you know how it is (maybe?) - you always look for the reason of a 'mysterious' silence in yourself first (or, in this case, in your fic), even though it's probably just due to some completely random external factor.

Oh, and actually...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware of highlander_fic! Thanks for the tip! I just crossposted to highlander_lj.

[dswdiane.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm fairly sure you probably don't even know who I am, but just as a response, there was a time in the past when I almost never commented even when I liked a story because I didn't have the time for detailed comments. There has also been times in the distance past in which I never commented because I was dealing with depression. That was actually before LJ to be honest.

During the last episode of depression I had, as a matter of fact, I spent about six months doing almost nothing when I wasn't working or attending to essential life support systems, except read HL fic, mostly Duncan/Methos slash and never commented. I just devoured it as if it were th only food that might renew my aching soul. But that is TMI.

I've since realized about option 1 that even saying "hey, that was great," was better than no comment at all.

I think folks have a lot of reasons for not commenting and many of them have nothing to do with not liking the story. I once had a very well known and well respected writer of HL fic tell me in email that she rarely commented even when she liked a fic because she was well known and well respected and overwhelmed with emails from folks whose work she liked but whom she didn't have time to establish a relationship. I *think* that was what she said. I might be wrong.

Anyway, I friended you because I like your fic.

Hi!

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I do know you - well, I know your name, anyway. We've talked before. :-)

I actually don't really mind if people don't comment - it would be fairly hypocritical of me if I did, as I don't always comment either, etc. My issue here (and it really is *my* issue, i.e. a symptom of a larger neurosis/complex/whatever-you-wanna-call-it I have, and therefore *my* problem and not that of the people who haven't commented) is really just that I saw that some people who I sort of thought would love the fic read it but didn't comment, and, well, with the way my mind works, that of course translated as 'they didn't like it' - I am, however, fully aware that there are many other possible explanations, ranging from 'I actually only bookmarked the fic for later reading' to 'the cat chose just that moment to vomit on the keyboard' ;-)

So, uhm, this really is just a case of irrational writer's angst running rampant here. :-)

Oh, and thanks for the friending; I should, however, warn you that a) the proportion of Highlander stuff in my journal is actually rather low, as is the proportion of fic in general, and b) I tend to have long phases of being completely absent from LJ, ranging well into months or more. I'm still 'recovering' from the last such phase, which means I'm currently trying to catch up with my flist, and I tend to get more than a bit overwhelmed with the hugeness that is fandom on LJ, and even just my flist. So, basically... I can't guarantee I'll actually be a) very interesting and b) always present. ;-) (I'll friend you back if you decide to keep me friended after that rather long warning, though.)

[loqia.livejournal.com]

I just crawled in here from metafandom and would just like to say thank you. Because it's like you crawled into my head and scooped out my thoughts... except not in a creepy way and, actually that was a pretty terrible analogy.

/runs

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNS!!!

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

(What? I am a zombie (http://hmpf.livejournal.com/212728.html)!)

*scoops out your brains with unbleeding, decaying hand*

Also: metafandom? Really? How/why/when/where/what??

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Don't know if it will make you feel any better, but I worry about the same sorts of things after I've posted a story. I nodded a lot reading your post :)

I haven't read your story yet, not on purpose, I just haven't had time/been in the right frame of mind/gotten to it. I really do try to comment whenever I read a story. It may be just a 'I really liked that', but I know how much it means to me when I know people have enjoyed my fic, so I try and do unto others :)

Hehe. Yeah, I think it's a fairly common thing for writers to worry about.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

No need to justify yourself for not reading or not commenting, btw. That really wasn't what this post was about. The post I linked to in the middle of it (the link titled 'this is still true') is just as valid for fic as for anything else. LJ is too huge and too active to pay attention to everything at all times. It's just not humanly possible.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

As someone said above, the thing with hits is there is no way to tell from a hit that the person actually even read the story. They could have opened it in a tab to read later, or opened it up to bookmark (of course you can bookmark by clicking a link, too, but for example, when I bookmark, I like to note the word count on delicious, so that often entails opening the page and getting a wordcount myself if the author didn't note it (or maybe they noted it in their headers, but the person I saw the link from didn't note it, etc.). I have so many fics bookmarked to read (about 700) and so little time to read that it can be months or even years from the time I bookmark to the time I read.

Yeah, I know.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I think yesterday was just 'I worry too much' day in Hmpf country. ;-)

[thoran-ziyal.livejournal.com]

Okay, bin zu faul das jetzt auf englisch zu schreiben ;-)

Ich kann das durchaus nachvollziehen, auch - oder gerade weil ich auf deutsch schreibe und das Fandom doch bedeutend kleiner ist. Da trifft es mich eher, wenn Leute, von denen ich weiß, dass sie meine Stories lesen, nicht darauf reagieren, egal wie sehr ich sie wert schätze. Aber ich denke, als deutsch schreibende Autorin ist frau dran gewöhnt, noch weniger FB zu bekommen ;-)(vor Allem, wenn man dan sieht, wie ioft die Stories gelesen wurden O_O). Ich versuche daher, mir nicht so viele Gedanken über das nicht gegebene FB zu machen, sondern mich über jeden positiven Satz zu freuen.

Anyways. Ich versuche jedenfalls immer FB zu geben, wenn ich eine Story gelesen und für gut befunden habe - auch wenn es teilweise länger dauert, bis ich zum lesen komme (Stichwort Bookmarks).

Neuroses R Us

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Scheint so, als ob doch irgendwie die meisten von uns dieses 'Problem' kennen. :-)

Aber wie gesagt, die *Menge* des Feedbacks ist auch gar nicht das Thema hier - ich hab eine Masse Feedback für die Story bekommen, sogar mehr, als ich erwartet hatte (hatte allerdings auch nicht zu knapp welches erwartet, weil ich *schon* wußte, daß es 1.) eine gute Story ist und 2.) durchaus zum 'Geschmack' des Fandoms paßt).

[http://users.livejournal.com/ari_/]

you came from your friends page to my website, the stats will tell me you came from "http://yournamegoeshere.livejournal.com/friends" or "http://yournamegoeshere.livejournal.com/friends/people_I_read_occasionally" or whatever

and this is why some of us surf with referrers turned off.

[suckmyglock.livejournal.com]

How do you do that in firefox?

[toshfraggle.livejournal.com]

I'm not somebody important in fandom, to say the least, but I do read a lot. I'm also a very very rare commenter because I teach English and commenting on other peoples' writing is all I ever do. Sometimes it's really nice to be able to read something without having to write a summative response at the end. Heh.

Hehe, yes, I can understand that.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

This post wasn't really about amount of feedback, anyway. I get more than enough feedback these days (which I take as a sign that my writing has grown a lot better over the last ten years. Yay!) - it was just me worrying why some particular people hadn't commented. Most of them have by now, btw, so I really was worrying quite unnecessarily. I do that sometimes. *g*

[turnyourankle.livejournal.com]

here via metafandom.

I think about that a lot, with a little less worry these days though. I know I bookmark a lot of fic for later, and sometimes I just don't know what to say even if I loved it. I don't archive my fic at my site though, and that's probably good cause if I did I'd probably ogle the stat counts constantly :/

What still gets to me though is the del.ici.ous bookmarks :/ I don't see why you'd save something so everyone can see that you enjoyed it and still not leave a comment. Or rec something and not say anything.

I have to admit...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

reccing without commenting to the author puzzles me a bit, too. I mean, when I don't comment on something I like a lot that's usually because I'm really pressed for time or something - that also prevents reccing the story. But if I have the time to write up a rec, what exactly prevents me from at least sending a link to the rec to the author of the story as well? *puzzled*

Finding recs is the main reason I check my website stats, really. Because for some reason, knowing my fic's been recced inflates my ego even more than getting 'normal' feedback, yet reccers these days rarely tell you they've recced you. *g*

Hi, here from metafandom

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I don't get that much attention compared to "BNWs" (Big Name Writers) in my fandom. It does bother me, but there's not that much I feel I can do about it. Part of it is that I think my writing appeals to older readers, people for whom the Internet isn't really their primary sphere. Just as most people don't think to write the author of a book, perhaps some readers don't think that it's really necessary to leave a review.

Some of it is that self-promotion is (IMO) somewhat looked down on. One gets far more readerly attention when your name is brought up repeatedly in "Squee" threads on forums, etc, as opposed to just beating your own drum all the time.

Also, it helps to write (and update) regularly. I am finding myself slowly moving towards more original projects (keeping in mind that for me, "original" is a spectrum and not a clear black-and-white boundary.) This means less time spent on fannish projects, and like the Eagles song goes, "They will never forget you / Till somebody new comes along ..." Unfortunately, the original stuff is largely "no-show," so far at least, and so there's little of the kind of reinforcement one longs for from fanfiction.

Re: Hi, here from metafandom

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>I know what you mean. I don't get that much attention compared to "BNWs" (Big Name Writers) in my fandom. (snip)

Actually, while I do know the feeling from, hm, my first six or so years in fandom, this is not what I was whining about in this post. ;-) But yeah, I know the feeling, definitely. (Although in my case I think my relative lack of feedback in my early years had a lot to do with a combination of lack of skill/lack of social involvement - basically, I wasn't exactly an amazing writer, so I didn't get the kind of 'overwhelmed' feedback that you get even from total strangers if your fic really hits them in the right spot, and I wasn't very deeply socially involved in my fandoms, either, so I didn't get the usual 'pity/friendship feedback' (which I wouldn't have wanted, anyway.)

>Some of it is that self-promotion is (IMO) somewhat looked down on. One gets far more readerly attention when your name is brought up repeatedly in "Squee" threads on forums, etc, as opposed to just beating your own drum all the time.

Well, and with some reason. If your name gets brought up by others, it proves that others like your stuff. I mean, it's kind of a given that the author of a fic will want to advertise it, but I tend to 'listen' to recs more than I tend to 'listen' to authors advertising their own stuff, too. It's simply more likely to find something really good that way. That said, I don't *exclusively* read recced stuff, because I am aware that there are always less known treasures to discover, too.

>Also, it helps to write (and update) regularly.

Definitely another factor, yes - although perhaps less important once you've passed a certain threshold. I post just about two fics per year and I *do* tend to get a decent amount of feedback.

[cofax7]

I disabled LJToys because I felt like I was spying on people. And because yeah, it was making me crazy to know that, say, destina had opened one of my stories and then not commented.

I don't need to feed my social and creative insecurities that way, thankyouverymuch. ::sigh::

So, yeah, I get you. We all manage it somehow, hopefully.

Heh.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what LJToys is. *g* But I do make use of my webspace provider's stats feature (my main 'fic repository' is my website) - mostly to find recs, really, because being recced by total strangers is the best egoboo. As I said somewhere above, I probably still wouldn't know I'd been recced twice at the crack_van if I hadn't seen that in my website stats. *g*

[khym-chanur.livejournal.com]

Occasionally - very occasionally - however, it also causes... well, maybe not exactly angst but certainly a kind of puzzlement. This happens when I see that people who I was almost 100% certain would like the story (and whose opinions I'm very interested in, because they're smart and bright and brilliant writers whose brains I want to marry and so on) have read it yet haven't commented. Because then I'm kind of set to wondering, what happened there?

For me, it's that I don't like leaving a review/comment if it basically says the exact same thing as everyone else. If something has already got a lot of reviews saying "That was good", I'm not going to leave another review saying "That was good" unless it's really good. But if I'm thinking something that no one else has said, like "I would have never come up with that pairing in a million years", then I'll drop a line.

"Unless it's really good"

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I tend to only leave feedback when I think something *is* really good, anyway. (Or, in some cases, if I think something just barely misses being really good, and I want to point out how much potential I think it has and give a pointer or two as to what's still wrong with it, e.g. 'this is a really great idea, and overall the writing is really good, too, but I think it deserves a thorough beta' or whatever.)

[(Anonymous)]

Is it okay if a complete stranger out of nowhere hugs you?

I predate online fandom: my bright star levels of feedback are a handful of letters a year, if that.

Then I got a website/and a livejournal. Briefly, with a very few stories, I got what I think of as quite a lot of feedback - notably the first MirrorMASH story. Then I moved away from livejournal, back in June 2006, and discovered that being read was situational: most of the people who *had* been reading my stories when they were on livejournal, and even sounding quite enthused about them, weren't going to take a step over to another journal to find them. (Not even a sequel to MirrorMASH.)

So I went from "Not that many people read or remember my stories" to "Wow,dozens of people read my stories!" to "Oh. Not that many people read my stories" again.

I don't check website stats. (I have, in fact, paranoically avoided even finding out how to look for then on my current website.) I do not want to think that people are looking at my stories online, thinking "oh, they suck": I had rather believe that while only a very few people ever read my fanfic, all of them comment on it - and really like it!

I like *writing*. It has been a source of considerable annoyance to me over the past six months or so that I haven't had the time/the energy to do a lot of writing. And I have a bunch of friends who really do like my stuff and will usually read it if I give it to them. But I finished a 137-thousand word novel in 2006 that I was and am really proud of - and though there are maybe 20 people in the world who have read it, not including a couple of the people I gave copies to, I *still* think it's a damned good piece of work. Which is, finally, the work's only reward: not that hordes of people like it.

It makes me feel less guilty about finishing WiP, too, which is a bonus.

I miss getting letters, mind you.

Anyway. *hugs* And quit looking at the website trackers! Just assume that if people aren't commenting they haven't read, and if they haven't read you don't have to worry about what they think of it, because if they haven't read it they can't think anything of it! And there you go.

Jane Carnall
http://janecarnall.insanejournal.com/91950.html