Alright, it's about time I started getting down to writing something. I have a lovely Spring Break in which I'm supposed to look for another place to live and study calculus, not to mention hound admin officers (and actually FIND those admin officers first), but I'm doing this instead.
(Comments for Gegenschein will show up... eventually. I'm still stuck at the 'sentence fragment' stage. For dedicated writings, this could take MONTHS. Maybe I'll just descend into worn-out fangirl babble instead
)
But anyway!
Reading EnvironmentFic-reading has always, always, always been a private affair as much as possible. If it means I get up at 2AM in the morning on the holidays to read fic, yes, I do. I have no problems with personal comfort, since for the past few years I've been away from my beloved armchair (it belonged to a psychiatrist, and therapists must have Comfy Chairs in their offices, as I've come to believe), but in an ideal situation, the door is shut, the blinds are drawn, the light is minimal (so no one can possibly look underneath the door crack to realize that the computer is on and I am doing Things At Ungodly Hours), and if I have my laptop, my back is facing the wall and I am facing the door, ears
preened to react at the slightest suggestion of Someone Opening the Door, and usually another document opened instead with fingers (and cursor) poised to switch if necessary.
Fic ChoiceIt's a sort of a mishmash, here. Off JPH!P I hunt sometimes based on pairings, or on characters. Lacking 5th gen and 6th gen usually doesn't encourage me to read a fic, unless I find a secondary source that indicates that there is a Work That Must Be Read, in the canon of good fic. (Sometimes I go with blogs, or other forum posts.) On this board, I sometimes go by title - even though the title is really secondary, there
is a reason why interesting papers have interesting titles which speaks to the author's involvement in his/her work, and it sometimes gives me a vague idea of what the story will involve. On the overall I prefer works that are completed, just so I know that once I've marathoned an entire day reading, I know there's Something Fulfilling at the end of the road. I suppose it's great that I'm not a die-hard fan of oh, say Schubert or Robert Jordan; I'd be
devastated to go through their works right now (or in the former's case, listen to the Unfinished Symphony at the time of his death
)
So yes, even the author's comments and changes in the Title with chapter posts do influence me, especially when they're not in the Read From the Very First Post category. (And this is a category that fics have to work their way in, sadly.)
With works in progress, sometimes I base it on how frequently it's been updated, or once I finally click that link, I scroll through it as quickly as possible to determine the quality of the update before actually going back to the top and properly starting there.
I'm much happier with light prose, so I highly applaud those writers who convey a lot in as little words as possible that flows as fast as possible (dependent on my reading speed), and save the highly dense material for later. Years later, I think.
It's why I haven't read rokun in a long time; I need to find a long, long period of time where I'm alone and energized, which is extremely rare these days. 
)And of course, the quality of the prose is important, as well. I'm alright with sacrificing style for a well constructed or interesting plot, and if I have absolutely nothing to do, then I don't mind forgoing it, but it's still something I mull over. If my eyes start to bleed, then, it's always easier to return to collections of better prose that I have access to, be it the Wikipedia or these hordes of papers and the rare dissertation and monographs to read instead. (Yes, I read those things
for fun.)
Fic Commenting and ContinuationAs you can see from my post count, I comment almost rarely, and am just focusing on Gegenschein in the fear that Estrea will refuse to update after I've been prodding her for months.
Having spent too many brain cells (than necessary, really) into the whole flying realm of Textual Criticism and Evaluation, I've left my ability to respond personally to writing somewhere out in the Great Plains and the flat, straight freeways. In other words, if commenting would let me yap weird stuff about the Juxtaposition of Sub Chapters and the Evocation of Space And Power Conflict contained within the imagery and diction... well yeah, I would.
But that takes more brain cells and time, and so I usually read fic and leave the emotional pull in the realm beyond the written (typed?) word, and shape the commenting for a later date, if ever.
For multi-part stories, how often I read them is something I like to think about, as well. Short updates (if that's been the general trend) usually don't get touched too often, unless I only have a small amount of time to read (like my morning ritual of e-mail and board checking - and yes, the first thing I do waking up is to turn the computer on). I worship tabs with a passion (there are 6 of them now, and if I were in a Wiki session, I'd easily could open up 30 or so). Stories that I haven't invested too much of myself in reading will get one tab, while if I'm working on a multi-parter I could probably have each post opened up in a different tab. So yes, if I've found a prolific writer, I assure you there will be 20 or so tabs opened, and possibly several windows opened for each arc or fic instead. >_> I'm also following JFC's habit of having several copies of the same thread open (at different pages, if necessary) when commenting, to determine the flow of my comment.
As for fics that are necessarily deserving of my attention... well, I make use of that notify option at the upper right corner
to actually allow me to read or re-read fics at work in the guise of my e-mail (even board surfing belongs to my private realm, thank you
). Which means that I have copies of those un-edited posts sitting in my inbox, and it's fast reaching 300 unread...
And in the case that I'm going to be separate from a stable Internet connection for a while, I have those transferred to Word Documents too
(Because that's
how we did it in those days of Limited 28kbps and all, my old soul howls.
)
Topic: Fanfics Review / General Discussion Thread (Read 304543 times)