Summer break

[prixmium]

It's been a little while since I was on this website. 

I started my new job on April 1 of this year at an international school in Tokyo. I had a couple of weeks before that to settle into my new apartment, but the moment I got moved in, I got sick for a few days. My body really does seem to just give in and give up every time I have a moment of peace from expectation and obligation. 

I am currently writing from my dad's house in Tennessee. It's the first time I've been back in over a year. I was nervous about coming through the airport, as outspoken as I am online about things that suck about the encroaching fascism in the US, but I should know that for the most part as a white woman, no one is really paying attention. 

My flight home ended up being delayed by 3 hours in total which cost me spending 12 extra hours in airports in total. Kinda sucked, but I dislike airports less than most people I've heard talk about it. 

My new job is night and day better than my job that I left, so I feel confident that I made the right decision there. It's a really lovely job most of the time, even though every job has its bullshit. The two things that are most difficult in this job: my direct-report boss is a True Believer in AI and as an English teacher this makes me want to pull my hair out and, because the international school is private and people choose their junior and senior high schools in Japan based on a variety of factors, June and July were just a blur of hardly ever getting a full weekend from my job. We get flex time at this job, though, so most of those events I got paid back in hours I could use. Means I have a few extra paid leave days left over after taking several during the month of August. I think they gave us 10 or so days off besides weekends, and I ended up taking 8 in total. 

And yet, I am stuck in this limbo of feeling of having too much free time and too little. 

While I am here, my dad and stepmom are planning to go out of town for a few days, since they never have a dog sitter. Maybe I'll start to have creative thought again in that quiet. My stepmom is old enough that she turns up the TV loud enough to bother me a little, but I want to sit in the den both as a social grace and because it's where the air conditioning is the coolest. 

I was hoping to get time and inspiration to write or otherwise do fandom interaction or contribution, but my last two fics have gotten next to no traffic or engagement. I did post them a few places, and I have at least one or two kudos, but it's just so lonely to get NO comments in spite of showing it to people. I feel like my greatest strength to make anything is writing, but no one bothers to act like fanfic authors are people offering them their ideas anymore. 

Even before that, I participated in a secret santa type exchange, and my recipient kind of ghosted the entire thing. 

I just really have... idk... a sense of lost competence? I've written over a hundred fics, and I know that it's a cultural shift, but I just... don't have whatever it takes to get people's attention anymore. 

Maybe I should post them here, since people actually treat people like people here, but I feel like it's hard to find the audience... anywhere... for any specific thing I write. 

Anyway, that's my current mope. And because of it, I lost steam on the few WIPs I had and can't think of anything new. 

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

So glad the new job is better. What fandom are you writing in right now?

[prixmium]

I've not really been consistent this year because I feel personally adrift and don't get much connection or community from it. The Secret Santa I mentioned was for Snowbaird from the Hunger Games prequel. Then I wrote a complete chapter fic for Dragon Age 2. And finally, I was trying to participate in a Trigun month thing in July but only did about three things at the beginning of the month.

[princessofgeeks]

Alas, I do not know anything about those fandoms, otherwise I would certainly read and give you a comment.

I think it's a great idea to post them here in addition to AO3 but then, I came from LJ so doing that seems ordinary to me.

Best of luck!

The amount of comments or feedback you get has zip to do with the quality of your writing. I know this from experience. Wishing you all the best.

[prixmium]

Thank you <3 And yeah, I dunno, I don't feel like I have a fandom communal "home" at the moment, so my attention drifts a lot.

I was also on LJ! I kinda went to tumblr around 2011 because everyone was. I tried to make a move here and to stave off going to tumblr, but at the time it felt like a losing game. It still does even though tumblr is less engaged, too.

Here, I guess, there are fewer people, but we at least feel like we should meet each other as people instead of just "feeds".

[princessofgeeks]

So many people went to Tumblr when the Russians took over LJ. I tried to understand Tumblr but I didn't like the way it forced you to use comments and the whole concept of reblogging was alien to me. I gave it a try but never warmed to it and have just stuck with DW since it was launched. Of course that means since I don't routinely read on Tumblr, I miss a lot of fannish stuff.

Fandom continues to grow and change. DW is kind of a backwater now but it's home.

[popkin16]

I'm REALLY glad this new job is better than the old one! You deserve to have something turn out well for you.

I've seen so many posts on tumblr about reader engagement - nobody is really leaving comments anymore, and more and more people are not writing because of it. I know what you mean though - I don't get a lot of engagement on my fics either, and they're never rec'd. I'm really sorry yours isn't getting much attention :( That's such a sucky feeling, but I've read some of your stuff and I know you're talented, with good ideas.

[prixmium]

Thank you <3

I know that there's a certain level of entitlement to wanting engagement, but I have also seen a lot of posts about how fanfiction is not supposed to be a content creator/viewer relationship. It is communal in nature. It is a form of conversation and media criticism and ~engagement~ itself. However, if one views it as content creation, it is still "for free" and I feel like there's a social contract that if you enjoy it, you should do something to make the person know that. And I am lucky that I get kudos emails quite a lot, but I still just feel like an idiot.

[popkin16]

It really is more communal, and I feel like fandom is slowly losing that aspect as new people join and want things THEIR way. They're not trying to learn the rules of fandom, but set new ones. Other social media sites aren't helping - they want to censor words like "rape", or think Ao3 should get an algorithm, and it's like NO. And kudos are nice, but you're not getting that interaction, those discussions.

[mxcatmoon]

It's good to hear from you! I'm glad things are going well (besides the fandom issues). I find it so much harder to engage with how things are these days as opposed to the LJ/Forum days, sadly. The current state of the world doesn't help, either.

[prixmium]

Yeah, I definitely understand. I read and watch stuff less except for low-energy engagement stuff like stories on Youtube, true crime or reddit reading. However, when I do find something I am into, I feel like I should always engage SOMEHOW by giving a short comment or bookmarking with a bit of a note, etc. I just miss reciprocity/community in general.

[mxcatmoon]

I watch a lot of YouTube videos now, too. Mostly true crime and mysteries. If you don't already watch them, I recommend Scary Mysteries and The Missing Enigma. The former has a lot of crime stories and the latter does excellent research, mostly on people who have gone missing.

[svgurl]

It's good to hear from you! That's great about the job being an improvement, though it is too bad about your boss being so pro AI. I can definitely see how that is frustrating. And I totally understand why you are nervous about the current environment. It is stressful.

I hope you're able to find inspiration and a more engaging audience. I know engagement all around seems like it is down and it is definitely a bummer, but fingers crossed that it turns around a little.