I fear you are misunderstanding what one of the purposes of thsi list is.
It it to criticise fanfics and their writing.
If you ever attend a professional writers workshop, I assure you the
comments you will hear make the negative C&C here seem very tame. And there
is a good reason for this. Its intention is to tear the authors work apoart,
to help him se the poor spots, so he can fix them. (and note, thsi si done
in aq group, in public!!)
If you cant take these sort of comments, then unless you are the one in a
million who can write good fiction straight off, you are'nt going to be a
good writer. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. At least here you don't
have to face the people criticizing you...
-----Original Message-----
From: AnChan1984@aol.com [SMTP:AnChan1984@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 1999 4:34 AM
To: ffml@fanfic.com
Subject: [FFML] [Spam] My First Rant
Okay... I thought I might as well throw my two cents in... ::takes a deep
breath:: here goes... (forgive me if parts of this start sounding corny):
Well, for starters, I'm (fairly) new to this list, and I joined 'cause I
really love to read, and I thought it would be good to improve my own
writing,
and frankly, I really think it has. I've got more ideas for fanfics then
I've
ever had, and more people are saying that my writing is getting better and
better.
My dream was to have my name up there with the 'big' fanfic writers --
Lurker,
Kleppe, SKJAM!, Lawson, and many, many others -- and when I found the web
page
for the FFML, I was ecstatic. I joined, and was at first overwhelmed with
the
amount of mail that poured in. I found many good fanfics, and was pleased
to
find that many of my favorite authors were on this ML. I eagerly awaited
more
fics, and sat diligently through spam after spam after spam.
After a while, I got up what little courage I had, and posted my newest
fic,
which I found to be the best I had written so far. I patiently waited for
the
C&C to roll in -- I had seen many other fics get tons of C&C with only the
slightest mention for it, and I had begged and pleaded for it. If I
remember
correctly, my total number of responses was around 5. I was a little
miffed
at first, but then was pleased with it (hey, it meant at least *someone*
had
read my stuff). One incredibly nice and wonderful guy gave me C&C and
accepted to be my co-writer when I generously offered (okay, I demanded)
it to
him. Later, another person responded to it, and ripped my fic to pieces.
I
was completely crushed. Luckily, my savior/co-writer defended me and
reestablished a little of my pride (^.^*). Awhile later, I forgot my
savior's
e-mail (;_;) and retreated into the depths of the ML, waiting for a topic
that
I could try and respond to.
I found many fics that I probably would have C&C'ed, but I was afraid that
nobody would really take a 14-year old no-name seriously, so I dug myself
deeper. Many topics were way over my head, and I felt even more out of
place.
Fics passed, and I greedily took any helpful hints on writing. I
continued
writing, very proud of my works, but still too afraid to post, after
seeing so
much hostility to writers. I begged for my savior (Freemage-sama) to come
back in contact with me so I could try to work up my courage again, but
was
greeted with silence.
I don't really know the reason why I wrote this; maybe I just wanted to be
recognized. Maybe I wanted to tell people not to be so harsh on some
people.
It's okay if you hated a fic, but don't scream at the writers. How am I,
a
14-year old freshman girl with high school crashing down on her s'posed to
compete fics with people like Kleppe and Lurker and Lawson? My fic that I
posted was my pride and joy; one person killed it down with a single
glance.
He later said he didn't mean to, that he *did* enjoy the fic, he just was
commenting on it. Those comments killed my meager little ego. All I'm
saying
is please be nice with your C&C. You can't all expect for us to be
perfect
writers. People join this ML to become better; shooting down their dreams
isn't a good way to do that.
.......
Whew!!! That was tiring!! I'm not very good at writing serious stuff...
it's
too boring. >� If you're reading this, that means you didn't delete this
mail and you actually sat through my whole rant. Good for you!!!!
(Wow...
people are actually reading my stuff!!! This is soooo cool!!! *-*) Ja
ne!
~An-chan