Comment Hounds

[twasadark]

Please go read this rant about commenting and then make it a practice to comment on people's stories, k?  Pretty please?  Not only does it make authors feel good, but it encourages them to write and create and podfic and so on - fandom is so much fun that I want people to continue doing all these things .... don't you? 

*hugs flist* 

Comments

[kimmer1227.livejournal.com]

I've gotten much better with the commenting thing, but it took me a while to get there. I lurked around for so long, in my heart I still consider myself a lurker in disguise. It was very intimidating seeing all those very articulate thoughts, and I never knew what to say and felt totally inadequate, so I just never commented. It's no excuse, and it would have been easy to just say, "I liked it", but that's how it was.

I can look at things from a writers perspective now, but I'll always sympathize with the lurkers among us.

[twasadark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get it. It is intimidating for some people to comment, but believe me us writers would LOVE even a "Guh" or "I liked this" much more than nothing.

Lurkers are cool with me. :-) Lurkers who comment are even better, lol!

[cantarina]

I'm guilty as sin when it comes to leaving feedback on podfic posts; I think the trouble stems from the fact that I never listen to the recordings while I'm actually at a computer.

And honestly, it's nice to be reminded that creators like even short feedback! I tend to put too much on myself to leave a long comment, which can be really prohibitive :/

[twasadark.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, it is really hard to find the podfic posts sometimes. I've been guilty of forgetting where I found something myself. It makes the effort that the commenters go through all that much more treasured! :-)

[vamp-ress.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely. Word to all of that. I spent a few years only reading, that got caught up a little more in fandom and decided to be a good reviewer. And from the moment I started to post fic myself, I became an even better reviewer, because if you write yourself you realize how important feedback actually is. Even if it's only "I loved it".

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

True, dat.

I mean, I'm never all "Gimme feedback, bitches!" about my writing or podficcage because, yknow - kind of painfully British, over here. And I'm philosophical about the fact that the stuff that catches my imagination doesn't necessarily chime with what big bunches of people want to read - particularly given that I'm very fond of crossovers. It always makes it especially delightful to get feedback for something that I love which isn't particularly mainstream, whether a rare fandom or a minor character or whatever.

But, yes, the reason that I've made time to come back and get on with podficcing and thinking about writing again (after RL ate me for several months, and I sort of fell off the internet) was as a direct result of Cybel sending me a link to amplirecathon, and telling me people were saying nice stuff about my podfics.

And I was all "???!!!??? People! People actually listening to my recordings! Out there in the world!??!!" Which sounds stupid, actually, because obviously one knows it must be happening - but once you've released a podfic onto the aether it's gone, and unless people make the time to come and tell you that you've connected with them, you don't KNOW you have, and it feels very one-sided. Plus, initially I was making podfics just for myself, because my 'net connection was too crappy to upload them - so I still mostly think of it as a rather solitary & self-indulgent thing, in some ways. But reading complimentary things that people had to say about my podfics moving them/making them laugh/brightening their day etc gave me a wonderful little rush of fannish connection all over again, and put a huge smile on my face all that day. It made me feel like maybe I had something to offer the community, and I should get back into the loop.

Thus several massive podfics in the past month or so, as a direct result of feedback.

tl;dr: Feedback = &hearts

[twasadark.livejournal.com]

Feedback is love, isn't it? And as a means of paying it forward, have some:

I'm almost done listening to Someone You Might Have Been and I'm enjoying it SO much! You read so smoothly it almost seems effortless. HOW do you do that?? Especially during such a long piece? And you produce these epically long podfics so quickly! I'm in awe of you! It takes me FOREVER to do long podfics - probably because my allergies keep me from reading too many pages in one day.

Love you podfics! Thank you so much for taking the time to do them. They are GREATLY appreciated. &hearts &hearts &hearts

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

::blushes like a fire engine::

Aww, yay! Glad you're enjoying it! I SO enjoyed rereading that story - it just broke my heart, and put it back together again. Glad it worked for you!

::does Snoopy dance::

&hearts

[chiak.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty bad when it comes to commenting. I'm either already jumping to the next story or...yeah.

That said, I was perusing your audiofic list and did an excited dance and a somersault in my head when I saw that you read bigpink's "Red."

[twasadark.livejournal.com]

Haha! I'm glad you're excited about big pink's Red!! I must admit that I didn't read the whole thing, though. I just read two chapters - someone else did the rest. It's an utterly awesome story, though. One that I'll be listening to again!