Do you post (about) your writing outside of writing sites?
Do you post (about) your writing outside of writing sites?
Posting what we write on websites dedicated to writing seems obvious, but do you post your fic on websites that are not dedicated to writing, like social medias? Or do you keep the full fic on its fic site but still post about it elsewhere?
I personally have trouble posting about my writing, it always feels like it's not the right place for that. Like all the people interested in reading fanfic are already checking fanfic sites and it would just be annoying to most users of other sites to see posts about it. And while I'm sure part of it is just personal history with social medias, I'm unsure how much of it has basis in reality, because it's true that I almost never see fanfic-related posts where I lurk.
What's your opinion on that?
I struggle with talking about my fics on other sites. I briefly maintained a blog to link to my AO3 posted fics...but I think there was a sense of "who I am doing this for again?" combined with distractability. XD
Sites like Tumblr really are fandom dependent. Certain fandoms have a home there and you can easily find content, but not ALL of them.
I gave up on Twitter while it was still cool! (That is to say, I just did not keep up with it and what it's become has not made returning appealing.)
I honestly feel weird talking about my own works outside of the sites on which they're posted. I become suddenly self-conscious and struggle to go into detail. But, I love hearing about what everyone else is working on and I beta read a lot of my husband's works.
I've been meaning to repost my work on Pillowfort and Dreamwidth. I've done a few, but I have a lot more to upload on those. I want to do it mainly in case if a site goes down, I will have other places to upkeep.
About my writing? I have my account here on Kbin and a mastodon account. It's hard to post about a lot of the time. I'm more of a lurker most of the time. It is hard to always come up with what to talk about. I've never understood how it could be easy for anyone to post so much. Maybe other people have a lot more going on than me? Then again, I find a lot of posts (even about writing) not as interesting, so I might just not understand this whole system. The posts I see are so specific that it is hard to relate with them. They are from authors I don't read and fandoms I'm not in. I usually try to write about a more general topic, so more people could interact if they wanted to.
I went through cycles of spending time on r/fanfiction (before excising Reddit completely from my life). I appreciated how people writing all sorts of stories in all types of fandoms could relate to most of the topics posted there. I'm hoping this place will cultivate a vibe similar to that. Except including fanart and fan comics, which weren't allowed there for some reason.
I feel you on the "better to have backups" front, I created my neocities archive for this over July and August! (I had... just a tiiiiiiny bit of backlog to upload so yeah, took me two months xD) I'm not familiar enough with Dreamwidth to comment on that, but I'm on Pillowfort and I don't know how comfortable it can be to post texts that get even a bit long? Is it good for you so far?
I never understood how people even do social medias in general x') I'm struggling just posting "this new fic now exist" because it feels like spamming to me, but then, well, I'm aware I have a personal problem with social medias... I'm trying to keep doing that on Mastodon though, as a way to liven up the tags for the fandoms I write in. But it always feels like if it's not fanart or a meme I shouldn't bother... (Case in point: I offered to write for any prompt in a Pillowfort community, I got one (1) answer, but someone posted a meme that's not even funny today and there are already 3 likes...)
I never was on Reddit. I just started to get a vague interest in it because my current fandom is apparently surprisingly active on Reddit... a few weeks before the whole "strike" happened. I had barely mastered "reading that one subreddit" x'D I came here in hope more people would jump ship and I could find at least a tiny bit of activity for this fandom but even if someone did create the community, it was already abandoned by the time I came in. I'm now the only poster in there and I have no clue what I'm doing because I wasn't active on Reddit so I don't understand what's expected of this kind of website. I honestly feel very lost. But to get back to r/fanfiction, it's nice to know a place like this can exist! I hope we can create something nice here now =) (And I'll try to keep in mind to include fanart and fancomics in the discussions, even if it's not always easy because I'm just a writer ^^)
There aren't expectations that you must follow. Just post the stuff you write or share ones you enjoy.
But I'm with you on social media, always feels like advertisement/self promoting (which it is) but in an unsolicited fashion
I post some of my fancomics on AO3 does that count? I do have plans to reformat some of my pure written works, stuff them with some illustrations and post them on ComicFury.
Reddit was my main site once upon a time (despite the fact there was no good place for fancomic conversations lol). In general I usually chat about writing on various Discords. I used to post updates of my comics on twitter and tumblr but that dropped nearly as quickly as it came. Going to echo a_mac_and_con here, it is not natural to talk about it unless the environment already presents it... even if the said places have personal blogging spots that can be about whatever you want? Brain be dumb like that.
I'm curious to what sites you are speaking of though. If the site is big enough, usually there will subspaces for fandom- and then something that goes into fanfic. But this can heavily depend on your fandoms? Some are far more welcoming of fanfic than others.
Given how AO3 is currently optimized for text and only text, I suppose it can count, yeah ^^
Brain do be like that, very much yes. If you feel comfortable answering, did you stop posting updates to twitter and tumblr because of personal awkwardness, lack of reactions...? (Or just because the sites are a mess and a half, that works too x') ) Back when I still was on twitter I tried posting links to my fics but I never got any reaction at all so I stopped after a while.
I spent years on tumblr, and was semi-lurking in some fandom spaces (reblogging, sometimes commenting, almost never posting). I don't remember seeing posts about fanfic or fanfic links except from maybe one user? Then I got "active" (still semi-lurking style) on twitter, and I don't think I ever saw anything fanfic in the fandom tags I checked. Oh wait no, sometimes there was a post about a big bang or other event that included art and writing, but I think that's all. Now I'm on pillowfort, still never seeing fanfic stuff. The only writing I see is original NSFW in the teratophilia community. And for the last year I've also been on mastodon, I'm clearly outside of fandom spaces there (first 6+ months I was really in no mood to seek them out) so can't really judge, but in the fandom tags I've been following for the last few months I'm the only one posting fanfic. So in short: except for mastodon, I've always found fandom spaces, but these spaces have always been fanart, memes, headcanons (and too often, infighting), but no fanfic. Which is why I was curious to see if my experience was shared or if I somehow stumbled upon non representative subsets of all these sites x')
Lack of reactions do not stop me. Lack of reactions makes me feel more comfortable in posting because it means less purity police bullshit. Twitter I dropped for the reasons I dropped Reddit. Everything else is ADHD+Depression+Anxiety.
So with tumblr and twitter it is VERY dependent on your fandom. Some have hashtags I didn't even know and others... no hashtags at all. You just had to luckily stumble upon them (likely because they wanted to avoid drama-seeking people).
As for places like Pillowfort and Mastrodon, these are VERY small sites and largely new. This is also where we get into the issue of self-fulfilled prophecy. Most people want to post in places where they will get interactions (nothing wrong with that and understandable), so they instinctively seek places where there is already a crowd. Even when there are sites that are designed to be fandom friendly like Pillowfort if the community isn't already there, they tend to not move unless extreme circumstances request it (and, sadly, isn't deemed too inconvenient).
Honestly, no different than what inspires most people into writing the stories they write. I remember seeing so many comments on r/fanfiction from people who wouldn't write stories for fandoms because they were seemingly dead or non-existent. Not to say if everyone actually posted they would get rewarded. Because most people are only going to go to places they know, which they were advertised to, etc.
I've only posted a handful of art on Mastrodon right now. I do have a Pillowfort I keep meaning to fix up. Such things take time, for better or worse.