On Downloading Fic

[quietmoon]

I never used to download fic — honestly, I'd hear about it, and wonder why people went to such great lengths when they could just bookmark it or add it to their favourites or something. Twelve years in fandom later, I have very much learned my lesson. orz

So I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to go about doing this? On cataloguing and stuff, I was thinking maybe making an excel spreadsheet to help with navigation and general safety-netting for my terrible memory, but I haven't gotten any further than that thought lol. Also, any recommendations on archiving from FFn.net and LJ? I'm browsing myself for any information I can find, but everything I've seen so far is from 2012 and I didn't know if any better methods have cropped up since then. Instapaper seems to be promising? I don't know.

I bought a very cute Ravage USB and I thought I could save it on there (as well as to the cloud). When I went to find it, though, I found it... and the detached tail. Seems my cats got to her before I did. I now have a very cute tailless 32GB Ravage.

Anyway, if you have any helpful links lying around, please do toss them my way. :3 I'd love to hear any stray thoughts on archiving fic in general, too. I haven't put much here because I don't really know what I have to add beyond 'websites crash, fics disappear, i have been burned but it has shown me the light' lol.

Comments

Re: reading

[oldtoadwoman]

A couple of friends are very much in the camp of "If you read to the end, you must leave a comment," and... that kind of just taught me to bail on a story really close to the end. Like if the plot feels as resolved as it's likely to get and all that's left is the prologue or a sex scene, my brain will go, "If I stop reading now, I don't have to leave a comment." (Trying to leave an insincere positive comment on something that was "meh" stresses me out because I then project that insincerity onto every positive comment I've ever read. I've really grown to hate the if-you-don't-comment-you're-a-bad-fan guilt, mainly from the perspective of an insecure writer who is sure that everyone secretly hates my writing.)

I wish there were a way to just mark a story finished or not without having to bookmark it. I suppose I could just bookmark everything I read, but... I'm lazy and it feels too late to start a new system. I think if I were to start a brand-new system, I could bookmark stories and tag them as "started reading 5/09/2020" or "bookmarking to read later" and update them to "finished reading 5/13/2020" but... knowing me, I'd still mess up the system somehow.

Re: reading

[quietmoon]

Oh, dear. I think there's a middle ground to be found that respects the readers right to their own response, but also the writer who would certainly love feedback. I used to try and comment on everything I read — it just resulted in me not reading as much lol. When I finally decided that it was okay to leave kudos, that was enough, it made me feel way better, and I ended up feeling much more okay with leaving shorter comments too. Everyone has their own comfort zone, and I'm sorry you've been pushed out of yours. :( I hope you find it easier someday to put the pressure out of your mind!

hhhh of course I understand why a writer might do that (why are we writers so sensitive, ACK) but it's definitely not true! And I think you make a very good point; commenting should be encouraged and welcomed, but not forced or pressured into. Part of the magic of comments is that they did it because they wanted to.

Organising fic reading is frustrating bc u know you've missed so many before starting. *sigh*