Re: RE: Drain Brameged Inc. Bites the Hand That Feeds It

[Mad Hamlet <Mad-Hamlet@xxxxxxx>]

Greetings,



> > A. I don't really want to grow a pair, I am happy the way I am, thank you
very much.

That's quite all right. Attempting to do so literally would be awkward for
everyone. It's why it was a metaphor.

> > B. If I were being more critical then I feel like being presently, I would
love to give you a blow by blow of you incoherent rant.

'you' should be spelled 'your'.

Sorry, sorry. I couldn't help it.

>>I honestly didn't understand half of it. In short, you forgot the first
rule of writing,
remember who you readers are, and don't piss them off. 

Wrong.

I don't care about the readers. You think I'd write something like this if
concerns for warm and fuzzies of the great unspeaking masses was on my mind?

Let me correct myself. (It happens.)

I don't care about the readers feelings. I care about the readers having a
good story. A bit of a paradox I know but if logic really was applicable to
real life congressmen, pop stars and sports announcers would have been ground
up as fertilizer years ago. But I digress.


The main reason I don't care is because I don't have to. I'm not a Hollywood
writer, my income (sadly) doesn't depend on my writing, the reviews, critiques
and popularity of my work and since there are no critiques from the people
here I can't learn anything either. So again: Why exactly should I care?

> > C. You were personally one of the main reason why I quit writing.
If you willingly give me, a complete stranger, such power over your future
actions then more the fool you.

> > I just couldn't take your EVIL EVIL rant like criticism. Sorry I am not a
professional writer, and my skills are so far beneath you. 

Interesting. As best as I can recall I never critiqued anything of yours
personally. The only communication I can remember between us was the highly
amicable correspondence we had regarding my efforts at getting the erotic
ending of 'Forge' right.

And let me just get something off my chest. (If you do decide to literally try
and grow a pair you'll have to do that too)

Evil?

EVIL?

You think _I_ am Evil?

Let's do a little comparison: You make the final call.

Which is Evil. 

You have a group committed to, and focused on a singular love, a shared
interest. The gathering is there to create magic, worlds&stories. 

Not just any stories though: Lesbian stories (Huzzah!)

On the one hand parts of the group want to struggle. They know that from such
adversity comes power; that in fact, part of the pleasure comes from the pain
of overcoming. They want peaks to climb, challenges to aspire to, detractors
to challenge. They want to rise up above the rest, share their vision and
stand tall; to shake the heavens themselves. Or, rather in less melodramatic
terms: They want to get better and know the best way to do is to study others
and be studied by others.

On the other hand another part wants everyone to be happy. They FEEL that no
one person should stand out above others. It is their lofty opinion that
criticism and bad are inexorably linked and therefore criticism is to be
avoided. They have the impression that storytellers, their very members, have
the emotional maturity of Micky Mouse on Quaaludes and have to be 'protected'
from the big bad critical thinkers. They want to cut the tops off all
mountains, fill the bottoms of all chasms. Everything has to be calm, smooth,
peaceful like the surface of a windless body of water&like The Dead Sea
perhaps. Everything has value and no one thing is any better or any worse than
anything else! Isn't that glorious? Wonderful? Perfect?


> > D. I do like much of the writing on this list, and I try to send the
authors
a little note when I like something.

Good on yer then Mate!

(Oh good job Mad, piss off the aussies)

Which is just the right thing to do; you're going apples and oranges here,
Carol. The rant was about membership participation. Not about C&C'ing,
responses to stories or even my OWN C&C'ing. So you're waffling between the
two. 

I received some of your feedback. In fact I think you were the second person
to respond to Prisms: Black way back when. So, obviously, this rant has
nothing to do with you. And yet you respond to it so readily. 

> > I also don't' cut someone to shreds because the
misspell a word or don't us perfect grammar.

Going with the most general interpretation of 'tear someone to shreds' it must
be assumed you mean 'make a vicious and devastating personal attack upon a
person who makes a slight grammatical or spelling error.' 

I have never, using that definition, shredded anyone for a grammar or spelling
lapse. If, on the other hand your definition of 'rip to shreds' means simply
'Point out the mistake', well then yes. Yes I rip people to shreds regularly.


In fact I positively revel in their echoing screams for mercy, "No! Please,
no! Please Mad-Hamlet!! I didn't know there are four 'I's in Mississippi!!
Have pity on me!!"


> > Over the years I have seen many
a writer improve there skills. Each story being better then the last.  Have
I read everything on the list no, I try to read my favorites, The Bear and
Hunter Ash, or a story here or there, but I have a life. Issues, so a quick
note is all I honestly have time for generally. It doesn't mean the list is
falling to pieces.

Math, Carol.

There two-thousand, one hundred and fifty one members on the BWW. The average
number of posts, starting from 2003 to the present day, is around two hundred
and fifty one posts a month. From this we can figure that maybe eleven percent
of the list are active participants. In truth this percentage is much lower as
that figure is dependant on every single post being from a different member
and no one repeating. 

Let's add to the terror.

On average the membership has gone up while the activity has sunk. Look back
to say. 2001, August: One thousand and ninety seven posts! And back then the
membership was&I think one-thou five hundred?

Were we to take the average per year of posts, compared to the number of
members the average would be dropping like a stone and in the face of those
numbers, adding in a little  Occam's Razor it is far more likely that 'Apathy'
rather than 'Real Life' is a major factor. 

(Though there is the private response possibility too. I do that myself, then
again I also have actually written STORIES)


> > If you want to help the list, be nicer to the would be writers. 
They have to fell safe and excepted before they can risk writing a story for
the list.  
So if you really want more stories, be more positive to people on the list.
That is why I first risked letting the list see anything I wrote. (though in
your words  it was trash)
New writers don't need to be whipped and beaten with there work. The
standard rule for helping someone with a story is to find two things you
like about the story for every one thing you don't like or think needs to be
fixed. 

By the numbers.

1. Being nice: I am always nice. What I am not is a sycophant. I am an honest,
nice guy. Notice the use of 'honest' before the nice.  Nice is secondary. No
one has ever improved upon anything without being beating beaten up about it
(relatively). It is the suffering that makes greatness. 

2. Someone else's personal feelings are not my problem. If a person doesn't
feel ready than they probably aren't and shouldn't contribute; if, on the
other hand, they're actually emotionally healthy, the shouldn't give a god
damn what the faceless masses think and being doing it for their own self
enjoyment. It's a Win/Win. 

Writer A wants to write for fun. Likes weird, bizarre sex stuff. Not a good
writer but writes weird, bizarre sex stuff. Gets C&C'ed. Just wants to write
weird sex stuff, doesn't care about C&C, continues to write weird sex stuff.
Is a happy writer.

Writer B wants to write for fun and improvement. Writes pretty standard
cliché story. Gets C&C'ed, uses the C&C to turn standard cliché story into
short story masterpiece through three or four more drafts and is heralded as a
great writer. Continues to write. Is a happy writer.

Writer C wants to write for fun and popularity. Writes a cliché weird bizarre
sex story. Get's C&C'ed. Writer instantly is horribly offended/hurt because
total acceptance wasn't given unto them and revelries for their genius. The
C&C is underserved in their opinion; they're simply not 'understood'. Writer
either goes off on an 'I am an Artist' binge or packs their bags tearfully and
disappears into the cyber-ether.


The first two are Win/Win situations. The third is Lose/Lose. In all three the
C&C'er is in no way responsible for the writer's feelings. The writers make
the choices alone. 

It's attitudes to the contrary that are ironing out creative differences into
one smooth, steel grey landscape of creativity about as interesting and
pitiless as the slopes of Hell. 

3. I never called your work trash. I read some of it and &wow&it, to this
day, is definitely memorable; If at times incomprehensible; but in a good way.
Specially that CIA story. All that stuff at the ending seemed to be saying 'I
Am A Good Idea, I Am An Interesting Plot' only the writer, you, were having
difficulties communicating it &at least in a way I could understand. 

Oh, right. You might call the above sentence 'ripping you to shreds' and not
take in the possibility that maybe, just MMMAAAAYYYBEE I'm telling you exactly
what happened.

4. I'm interested in quality, not quantity. Wanting 'More' stories is not the
goal. And, point of order, you've changed the subject again. This rant, I
remind you, is not about stories being posted but the pathetic overall
participation of members in the Buffy/Willow shipper community compared to the
membership activity in other BtVS shipper fandoms.

5. Total agreement: New writers shouldn't be beaten or whipped. Old writers
shouldn't either unless they ask politely and know the secret handshake. New
writers must be welcomed, read, criticised, encouraged and then read again ad
infinitum. That entire process there falls under the area of 'Support'. 

The idea of 'Critique' being inherently bad is wrong, what's more it is a lie.
A lie purported by people who honestly, I think, mean well but have forgotten,
and I repeat it yet again, that it is through struggle growth comes about. 

So new writers have to be welcomed to the struggle, encouraged to struggle and
above all else, be taught that the struggle is worthwhile and that is all that
I have ever done.

6. The 'Standard Rule' you cite is very incorrect. I shall quote an editor
friend of mine herein:  No. A professional editor doesn't need that balance.
A professional editor's responsibility is to give their honest evaluation and
comments, no matter what they are.  However, part of that responsibility of is
point out strengths and successes as well as weaknesses and failures.

We can substitute 'professional' with 'capable' for sake of argument.

F. Have you ever thought of comparing Buffy/Willow list to Xena/Gabby list.
Most of the Xena/Gabby list took a dive for a few years after Xena ended,
but many are still out there. 

No.

> > I normally don't flame, but something in the tone of your rant sent me over
the edge, so I will apologize to the List, and even to you Mad Hamlet. I
honestly think you went too far. And that ends my rant.

Ho-l-ey Shit Carol.

You call this a flame? 

Having a contrary opinion is not a flame. Calling a complete stranger a
cross-eyed, inbred, bald-headed, saprophyte,
walking-rectal-baboon-thermometer&is a flame. And for God's sake, it's an
example. I'm not calling you, or anyone else on the List a cross-eyed, inbred,
bald-headed, saprophyte, walking-rectal-baboon-thermometer. 

Unless one wants me to. If that's the case I will but until then I'm not.

To conclude: Center of the Universe? I hope not. If so we're screwed. 

Additionally, since now there is traffic, now that there is response and
activity on the BWW again&I Win.

I remain, as always,
Mad-Hamlet 

I was born modest, but it wore off.
                         -Samuel Clement(Mark Twain)


Look upon my work ye mighty and...ah skip it.
http://www.realmoftheshadow.com/madhamlet.htm
                                    -Mad Hamlet


Creator & Editor of Radio: JAABAFF.
The first and only BtVS Femslash Radio Show.
http://www.wiffy-dreamverse.com/




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