I shall never understand LiveJournal...

[baratron]

Dear friends,

You make no sense! On Thursday, I posted about something very, very important to me - and received 4 comments. Yesterday, I posted about something incredibly annoying, yet trivial in the grand scheme of things - and received 7 comments.

Guys - I WROTE A BOOK! I know I've written books before - technically my MPhil thesis is one; but this is a novel, and I've wanted to Be A Writer for years. And now I am one! Maybe you think it doesn't count because I borrowed the plotline and characters from a video game. Well, lots of people borrow plotlines (a certain Terry Pratchett has been known to borrow liberally from a certain William Shakespeare), and I've taken perhaps all of 3,000 words from the game. The rest of it is mine.

Maybe you were waiting to congratulate me until I finished it completely? I dunno. I'm pretty proud to get to the end of the 50,000 words. Given that I'm feeling better and am likely to be back doing College work next week, I don't know how long the rest of it is going to take. A while. Certainly longer than another month.

...People are strange.

Comments

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

a. congratulations
b. trying to manage esa forms for certain people and
c. stay alive
d, been reading as when

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Seeing as you weren't one of the people who posted on entry 2 but not entry 1, I wasn't really moaning at you anyway :)

[mjl]

I didn't post on either, which I'm not sure makes it any better, but I did still have emails in my inbox to remind me to read them (I looked at the first post at the time but didn't read it all). I guess maybe people had more possibly helpful comments or related things to share regarding library books than about writing Elder Scrolls fiction? If LJ had a "Like" button...

Anyway, well done on writing (half) a book!

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I read it and was amazed and impressed and all that and ... I don't know why I didn't comment. Probably because I am crap at following through these days.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it! I absolutely love all your long posts, the travel blogs, the health updates, the theatre stuff you've been doing recently. Do I comment? No. What could I say? "I enjoyed reading this, thanks"? To something that's a few thousand words long?

Clearly we all suck, and all need more energy and/or spoons with which to make more of an effort :D

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Energy and spoons, yeah, that would help. Although if I had them would I be using them to find and keep a great job? Or would I embark on yet another fascinating distraction?

It totally made sense to me that you would have the spoons and follow-through for a great creative effort, because it works that way for me. That kind of energy comes from a different store than, you know, college and stuff. Like the theory of having a different stomach for ice cream.

[emperor]

I've long since given up trying to work out why some of my posts get ~0 comments and others get ~50.

[kshandra]

The Traveller Mailing List (to which my husband gridlore has belonged for as long as we've been on the Internet) often refers to the Black Hole of Quality. A carefully crafted post discussing the mechanics of interstellar trade will generate no discussion on-list, but get sucked into hard drives around the world for later use in campaigns. An off-the-cuff joke about Hivers doing the Macarena will set off a six-month-long flamefest.

[kshandra]

I didn't comment because I didn't read it, because I figured I didn't have sufficient context for it. But that doesn't excuse my lack of congratulations for writing the thing, and I apologize.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I've been writing the story in such a way for it to make sense to people who haven't played the game, or indeed any games in the series - I've put in as much explanation as I can, considering it's narrated by someone who lives in the Elder Scrolls universe. So I don't, for example, go into a lot of detail about religion in the universe - but I do give clues.

"Who is the Prince of Destruction?". Surely not a Daedric Prince? Life was complicated enough as a servant of the Nine Divines, our holy Aedric gods, without getting involved with the unholy Daedric gods-or-demons as well.

That tells a reader from our universe that there are "good" and "bad" gods, and which are which :)

Here's an excerpt in which I explain the races in the universe:

Now that I'd been off the road for a while and my eyes had adjusted to the smoke, I could see hastily-erected tents, and desperate people - apparently of all races. There were humans: Bretons, Imperials, Nords, and Redguards; elves: Altmer, Bosmer, and orcs; and even an Argonian or two wandering aimlessly around the makeshift camp. I couldn't see any Dunmer or Khajiit right that second, but really, did I need to see dark elves or feline folk in order to prove to myself that this was a disaster of great proportion?

I've done that sort of thing as much as possible without it seeming weird. The one thing I know I haven't explained is the relationship between Cyrodiil and Tamriel - that the story takes place in the province of Cyrodiil which is part of the continent of Tamriel, and the Emperor lives in Cyrodiil but is in charge of all Tamriel. And that was simply because I couldn't find a way to fit it in while still keeping the feel of an in-game book. I was going to write it as a footnote when the story's posted on Ao3.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

The posts that have historically gotten the most comments on my LJ have been trivial/funny/about cats. Important stuff rarely gets as many comments. I try not to take it personally.... there's reasons, stuff happens, and cats.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, I went back through my LJ (OH GOD I'VE BEEN USING LJ FOR OVER A DECADE AND I WAS SUCH AN IDIOT BACK THEN OH GOD THE EMBARRASSMENT) and found the post that has the most replies. It's about My Little Pony. (http://elynne.livejournal.com/594737.html) So there's that.

[trishpiglet.livejournal.com]

THIS
Also some people don't comment often but they are reading
I've had it said in person to me "Oh I liked your post about X" and it was only then I had any idea someone had seen it

[jinian.livejournal.com]

This stuff is really random because people's lives are random. Personally I have been working when not sleeping for what seems forever now. As I recall the library post appeared first thing in the morning for me, so I actually had a minute and an obvious response to give.

Anyway, congratulations on the 50K! And thanks for the postcard. It's much appreciated.

[nitoda]

THIS. I was guilty of commenting on the latter but not the former. Not sure how much was down to when I read them, but at least some of my reason for not posting to the first one was probably because I didn't feel I could offer you useful reading. I know nothing about the context, though, from what you later say, it might be useful having a naive reader to test drive it? I suspect though that I might find it difficult to follow. I certainly can't understand computer games. My mind tends to run on simpler plot lines these days. I notice much tv drama is written in a convoluted style that I find hard to understand and confusing. Either I'm getting old or things really were much simpler 20 years ago. Probably both. Still I could have recognised your achievement and applauded you for it. May I do so belatedly now? Well done!

[firecat]

Congratulations on writing a novel! I've been wrangling computer problems so I didn't see the post until today.

I think the post I made that got the most comments was the one where I posted a picture of my kidney stone...