Rain Dance

[rynling]

One of my writing goals for the fall was to write notes and leave comments for all the fic I've bookmarked on AO3. I also set a goal for myself to leave one comment a day on fic I haven't bookmarked.

With one exception (which I've been saving as a treat to myself), I managed to accomplish this goal in September. I read fic while jogging on the treadmill every morning and typed comments before I got in the shower. Some of these comments were full paragraphs that I wrote on my laptop and edited before posting, but most were brief, one-line "I loved this, thanks for sharing" messages of appreciation and encouragement. I like reading fic, and I like writing comments, so it was good times all around.

Unfortunately, I ran out of batteries. I haven't gotten comments on any of my own stories since early August, so I guess I was drawing from a store of energy that hasn't been replenished. There's nothing much to be done about this save to hang tight and chill out for a bit.

Still, I wish there were some sort of forum where you could go and say something like, "Hey, here's a link to my AO3 profile, I need some encouragement and support today and even a kudo would mean the world to me." I remember that there used to be comms like this on LiveJournal... I wonder if it might be possible to recreate something like this via Discord?

ETA: Feel free to drop links in the comments if you need some support too! I'm always looking for readings recs.

Comments

[runicmagitek]

I absolutely feel you on the drained batteries 😰 I swear every other month I'm like, "I will read a fic a day and leave a comment!" and then after a couple of weeks, my brain is at 5%. I'd also love a forum like that, even if my anxiety is screaming at the thought. It's especially hard for smaller/older/quieter fandoms. Like I get there's a smaller audience, but it would be nice to hear something from someone 😞

[lassarina]

I've been slowly working my way through ten plus years of things I tagged in Feedly for "later," but a distressing number of them have gone into AO3's "mark for later" tab because I get overwhelmed on the computer when I have to read more than 4k words in a shot.

This post is a good reminder to tackle some of those marked for later, though.