Bullseye, Gary.
I also have a list of people who I don't C&C simply because they either
never replied at all, or the reply was "thanks for reading, but I'm not
going to change a thing". When I take the time to critique something, I do
a fair amount of research and spend hours reading the work and doing my
darndest to make intelligent and insightful remarks. Who wants to put up
that kind of effort for nothing?
It's even worse when the person put that "please C&C" tag at the top of
the story, yet don't acknowledge your effort; it's like they're just looking
for an ego boost, rather than a serious commentary.
Sad to say, I've also sent critiques to Kenjiko that never even got a
thank you note. One that comes to mind was a study of his Sailor
Moon/Samurai Pizza Cats crossover (The Admittedly Peculiar Adventures of
Sailor Luna) that took me around 3-4 hours to do. I sincerely hope (and
want to believe) that it was just an oversight on his part, but that
discouraged me enough that I haven't written anything about any of his
stories since.
Actually, now that I think of it, there was one reply I sent to Valandar
The Red that went into the proverbial black hole too...
*sigh*
Ja mata,
LarryF
Gary Kleppe wrote:
Like (I think) most C&Cers, I try to devote my very limited time and
energy to helping authors who are really interested in what I have to
say. Since I can't read the minds of authors to find out how interested
they really are, I have to judge by available evidence -- and one of the
best indicators is how an author has responded to past criticism. I
don't expect an author to necessarily agree with what I say, but I do
want to know that he/she has given it serious consideration.
In this case, both Grayson Towler and myself have in the past posted
critical comments on "Redheads." I never received a reply, and to my
knowledge neither did Grayson. That leads me to conclude that its author
wasn't interested in what we had to say, and therefore C&Cing his work
would probably not be an effective use of my time. (Though I *did* get
some mildly amusing responses from other list members, so it wasn't all
wasted.)
Now, as I said, I'm not a mind reader, and I may be completely wrong in
this judgement; but it's the best I can do with the evidence I have
available. Furthermore, I'm not criticizing Kenjiko personally here. If
he's truly not interested in critical comments -- or in the kind that
people like Grayson and I have to offer -- then that's fine. But I'm not
going to spend my time trying to do C&C for people who -- as far as I
can tell -- aren't interested in it.