One of the things I prided myself on, when I was writing and posting fanfiction, was that I always replied to reviews. Even if it was a smiley face emoji, I would send something back, or just say thanks.
I loved hearing from people how much they enjoyed the fic (or didn't). I used to post daily, at about the same time, and some comments from reviewers changed the story, and for the better. I suppose I treated them like beta readers. They gave me ideas for other fics, challenged me to write things to songs or certain pairings or whatever.
It inspired me to keep writing. We were all invested in getting to see the last chapter and 'the end'.
But then I had my bad tech period, lost my PC, lost my backups, and it was just all bad. And I got out of the habit of replying.
And like a lot of things, it seemed like a huge thing to start again. The pile grew. Where should I start? Should I go back and try to work out which one was the last thing I responded to? Would it look weird to reply now? Like that awful feeling when you 'like' a years old Instagram post, you know? [Thanks, ADHD brain.]
This week Ao3 sent a warning that they were experiencing some spam messages, and to check your account, and train it to ID the spam. Off I went to check, and I saw some comments in my in box and before I had really thought about it, I was chatting away to people, and they replied, and I suddenly realised the reviews were nearly a year old. EEK.
But you know what? It didn't seem to matter.
So I am just going to start where I am. And if people think it's weird for me to reply now, after all this time? Shrugs.
It's strange times for us all, right now.
Links:
Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/~mrstrentreznor
Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstrentreznor
FictionPad: https://fictionpad.com/author/mrstrentreznor/stories
