RE: Hand-biting, and so forth

["danspector@xxxxxxxxx" <danspector@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ugh.  Ugh,  Ugh, Ugh.

I've been bad, I know.  I've let my attention flag, my inbox is
consistently 
full, and I haven't given feedback in god-knows-how long.  I'm not a very 
focused person;  I always start things and don't finish them, my time 
management sucks (I should be in bed, seeing as I have to be at work 
in 8+ hours), and I'm destined to die alone, unloved, unsuccessful and 
probably by my own hand when I can't work any more and I haven't 
saved enough for retirement.  And I never call my family.  Every day and 
in every way, there's more and more things I need to do, more things 
I'm not doing because it's easier to do something else, more ways I 
suck and am a failure and could get really depressed if I stopped to 
think about it.  

That said, while Mad-Hamlet is right that we need to be more active, I 
never really get the point of rants like the one he posted.  What the hell 
are you angling for, here, MH?  The "freedom" to C&C?  You already 
give the feedbacks, last I heard, and contrary to lengthy kvetches like 
this, no one is banning you from giving intelligent, measured criticism 
here.  It seems like somehow you're claiming that the list being quiet is 
a bad thing, yet that also most of the activity (simple fb, non-great fics) 
is also bad.  Seems to be a little at odds, IMO.

And going all ranty with a list of ways people suck doesn't seem at all 
productive.  So we're bad 'shippers if we don't use a chat or correspond 
in RL?  Great, more things I have to do to prove my worth.  Wonderful.  
(I've never gotten the hang of IRC, and this isn't exactly an incentive to 
do so.)  And all the good people are at Wiffy-Dreamverse?  Well, glad to 
know I suck.  Thanks.

(Okay, so apparently this was originally posted at Wiffy-Dreamverse, 
and MH wasn't actually intending to slam those of us here who don't 
participate there. But that's how it read on my initial reading.  Which is
a 
reason to edit before reposting.  And also a good reason to not 
encourage people to just rant blindly, which can oh-so-easily descend 
into flatout negativity and name-calling, IMO.)

And as for the self-proclaimed "master of Words"&did I say "ugh", 
already?  Alan, it's really nice you like what MH said.  It's great you
have 
opinions.  Now if you could sound a little less like the Voice of Authority 
raking us all over the coals for not coming up to your lofty standards,
it'd 
be even sweller.  Your didactic tone is just as grinding as it was back in 
the halcyon days of (irony!) August '01, when you gave a series of 
harsher and harsher FBs to me, and I got more and more upset, and 
savaged a fic you had written (off-list, actually, since I didn't think
that 
was something I needed to share with the group) and, as you may 
recall, upset your co-author (who I believe didn't know about our 
previous correspondence, and who I never intended my critique to be 
read by) so much she stopped writing for two years.  So yes, people do 
get upset, and yes, this can be counterproductive.  The entire purpose 
of these lists is NOT to see who's tough enough to take "the truth", it's a 
cooperative setting for people to share what they've written and for 
others to enjoy it.  There's nothing wrong with criticism, but the "I know 
everything and this is why you're a terrible writer and it's not my fault
if 
you don't want to hear it, a real writer would welcome the challenge" 
tone is not the best way to get things done.  And, four years later, that's 
still what I hear when I read between the lines in your notes.  And if it's 
not what you intended, then you're not communicating well enough.  
And if it IS what you intended, then please dial it back.  In the words of 
one of those eps that Jin so loftily dismisses as "pretty much crap":  
other people's opinions may be valid, you know.

Please DON'T act like you're the ultimate authority on writers and 
writing, tossing in irrelevant quotes from Shakespeare to suggest that 
all the good writers do things your way.  There is NO One True Way to 
write, nothing that's pleasing to everybody.  Talk about what you AND 
only you didn't like, and also talk about what you DID like, and let the 
author know that it's only your opinion.  It's not hard, and it is 
constructive, rather than destructive.  Yeah, maybe YOU wouldn't mind it 
if someone wrote a lofty/snotty carping about everything you did 
"wrong" in the fic, butnewsflash!not everyone is you.  A little 
awareness of and tolerance for people's differences and differing 
psyches wouldn't hurt.

And here I'm contradicting myself, because I'm getting ranty and 
personal and that's most likely a bad thing. Which is the sort of thing 
that I try to steer clear of, and which IMO it's all too easy for
"Criticism Is 
Great! Wimps Shouldn't Write!" crusade to descend into.  But I'll let it 
stand, because it's late and I just wanted to make my larger 
pointthere are other motivators besides unbridled negativity.

(But, you say, "Dan's responding! It worked!"  IMO that's a false 
challenge; you can get a response by shouting "fire" in a crowded 
theater.  Venom for the sake of venom is not productive, even if it 
"stimulates" people to respond; it hijacks the focus away from where it 
ought to be.)

So I want to thank Howard for his IMO more reasoned comments, and 
his constructive discussion suggestion.  "Welcome to the Hellmouth", 
ho!

Dan

absent, cranky, unfocused, and probably doing more harm than good, 
but pissed off enough to not care&which, again, I feel is more a 
"problem" than a solution

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Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

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