Troublesome Vexes, Troublesome Woes, and Inverarity's State of the LJ

[inverarity]

Nice fan composition by zephyranthia here. Thanks, zephyranthia!

Who are you people? Why are you here?

I have about 140 people who have friended me right now. I don't know most of you at all. This is fine — as I say in my user info, there is no need to ask permission to friend or defriend me, and I have yet to ever post anything f-locked. I usually check out the LJs of people who have friended me now and then, but I don't usually friend back unless I actually know you. (For some arbitrary Internet value of "know.")

But I do wonder who y'all are. I know some of the folks who have friended me have almost certainly abandoned LiveJournal long since. But I'd guess there are least a few dozen of you who are still reading my entries but have never commented here. You are not required to, of course. But if you would indulge my idle curiosity by answering this poll, I'd really appreciate it. (Yes, I did a similar poll some time back.)

The other questions are because now and then I think I might like to start blogging about more than writing and book reviews and fan stuff, but then I decide the time and mental energy it would take to mostly say stuff other people say better, and ban idiots, would aggravate me. One or two trolls can be enormously draining. Hence there is a trade-off between being quiet and unbothered or having a more active commentariat and periodic flamewars.

Lastly, LiveJournal seems to be in a death spiral. More and more people talk about abandoning it. I confess I am not entirely sure why, since it's still just as free and functional as every other blogging network out there, and I'm sorry but tumblr and twitter just confuse me. But who can fathom the ways of the Internet, which decides that Myspace shall become So Last Decade while Facebook shall prosper? So when I ponder the possibility of doing more "blogging," I also ponder the possibility of moving off of LiveJournal.

I probably won't do any of those things, because I'm lazy and it would be time I'm not spending on writing. But please answer my poll anyway!

[Poll #1887616]

Comments

[surlygrl.livejournal.com]

This journal came up in a Google search for Thomas Pynchon I did a few months ago. I thought I might be interested in reading your book reviews. I'm a LiveJournaler foreverer.

[crinklebat.livejournal.com]

I don't care whether you blog about other topics or not, so I didn't answer that one. I would not get annoyed if you didn't, and I don't mind if you don't. I found your LJ through the Alexandra Quick books and occasionally find your book reviews to be of interest.

[phys2b.livejournal.com]

I found your Alexandra Quick series on mugglenet and started checking your blog for updates. Your book reviews are also great and I was part of the 1001 books group but have only reviewed one book. :(

[momofquacker.livejournal.com]

I don;t care what you post about, really. If it is something I am not interested in, I don;t read it, no big deal. But I enjoy seeing how your mind works at times (ok, i sound stalkerish...)

And yeah, I pretty much don;t use LJ anymore.. mostly a psychological thing for me... i used it up until a real bad point in my life, I stopped using it to give myself space, and just can;t bring myself back to it. may end up just creating a whole new journal, start fresh, but I just don't know if it would be worth it.

[kimberlite8.livejournal.com]

I discovered you via bookish and very much look forward to your book reviews. You are a superior reader. I don't necessarily agree with your criticism, but good criticism does not depend on agreement merely that ideas be presented in a rational fashion. Your review of Heinlein is fantastic.

I am not a Harry Potter fan so I don't read your fanfiction.

I'm on tumblr and livejournal. The tumblr format encourages punditry and reblogging sends your message to a large audience. But it is terrible for multi-person discussion. There's a great deal of dog-piling, false information, and in general the audience is immature and thoughtless. It is however a space for creativity and humor and most of fandom has migrated there.

If you decide to blog about other subjects, I'm sure I won't find it objectionable. I trust you will have something intelligent to say on matters outside of books and HP fandom.

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

when i started using lj no one read mine and i shall continue using it as long as it and i both live, even if i did end up the last non russian speaker on it xP

[conuly]

Definitely Alexandra Quick for me.

As far as LJ goes, thats probably partially the normal gloom and doom, partially the normal new shiny, and a huge dose of "LJ staff fucking up as usual" which has been remarkably consistent through several different sets of owners. Every time LJ tries a new stunt, more people defect. Trouble is, they don't all defect to the same place.

And also, don't forget, nobody stays active in fandom forever, or in any group. But as more people become less active, newer people are choosing to use another platform, resulting in a net loss of activity here.

[cheddartrek.livejournal.com]

Heh, I think your "Would you like me to blog about other topics?" question needs a fourth answer for "I don't really care either way."

I started coming here because I was impressed by your AQ stories and your response to trolling on DLP. These days I come back because of your insights on writing original fiction and your book reviews. (AQ is good but it's one good fanfiction among many -- your book reviews and comments about the process and frustrations of writing original fiction are more unique and I enjoy them greatly).

I'd probably enjoy other things you blogged about as well. Same as I enjoy reading AQ and updates about your fanfiction. But if you chose not to blog about other things it wouldn't bother me overmuch either.

I don't really use LJ. I created an account here years ago when I was following Fernwithy's fanfictions (Shifts was the primary one). Later I followed mike_smith and his hilarious chapter-by-chapter reviews of Harry Potter. But that's about it.

If I start a blog it would likely be wordpress I think... but I'm not sure. I've heard good things about other ones as well.

[spellchecker2.livejournal.com]

I answered "Yes, I wish you talked about other things" but I really meant "I'm not sure until I see what you blog about." I set up an LJ account to be part of the 1001 Books project but I don't use it otherwise.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

"Would you like me to blog about other topics?"
Actually, I don't mind either way. I'm sure there'd be other interesting things you might blog about and I can always skip a post I'm not interested in. I'm here for the fics, though and while I like the reviews as well, I'd probably just shrug and go on reading, if you decided to stop doing them. It would be very much the same for me with other topics as well.

"How do you feel about LiveJournal?"
My friends have mostly disappeared, we had to move our RPG because half of the players suddenly couldn't log in anymore, my journal and many that I used to comment on suddenly lost the quote button which was one of my favourite functions, I have no idea what the next surprise change might be and I don't like changes.

"and I'm sorry but tumblr and twitter just confuse me"
I tried twitter, but left again. It's probably neat, if you want to post from your phone, but I don't and I'd judge it to be completely useless for your purposes as it's designed for very short posts. You couldn't do a thorough book review there.
Tumblr confuses me as well, though I admit I haven't done more than glance at it. I didn't like the look of it and didn't bother to try finding out more.
My place of retreat is Dreamwidth. Once you've created an account there you can simply import your posts, icons, etc. from LJ and it works and looks almost exactly like LJ used to as well so there isn't much to be confused about either. The only downside I've found so far is that most of my friends aren't there, but then they aren't here on tumblr or on twitter either.

[elfin-archer.livejournal.com]

I arrived at your journal via the Hogwarts Houses Divided story on FF.n. It was a brilliant piece of writing, and I am very interested to read more.

I haven't been on your journal very long, but I am intrigued by the book reviews!

[ebilgatoloco.livejournal.com]

Most of fandom has abandoned LJ, I think, for Tumblr [IDK how they make it work over there] or DreamWidth. But since I no longer care or participate about fandom, I'll probably stay on LJ until it implodes on itself.

I've considered moving to DW or Blogger or even going back to Xanga >.> But no. I actually like LJ.

[clandiagonality.livejournal.com]

I follow you for AQ updates and the AQTC reread project, 90% of the time. But I find you're book reviews really useful and fun to read.
(I've never used LiveJournal up until I created an account just to follow Inverarity and Alexandra Quick. Honest. I'm a huge AQ fan.)

[uneko.livejournal.com]

I came for Alexandra, I stayed for the book reviews :) You seem like a wonderful person, and I would happily continue to read and absorb whatever you post about <3

as for Livejournal... I visit a few tiems a day. I don't post.. I'm not much of a blogger and never have been... but I have a few people who I watch on Livejournal who post enertaining posts.

I've thought about RSSing, but I've never quite figured out HOW to do that thing in a satisfactory way... it's also kinda risky, personally, because I could spend... HOURS... wasting time with that sort of thing if I"m not careful. Which brings me to tumblr. I have a tumblr. I read a lot of people's posts. Tumblr is a REALY awesome medium.. because it gives anyone the ability to, with one click, favorite a post to look at again later and show appreciation, or reblog a post so that people who watch them can see and appreciate what you saw as well. .. REALLY cool. The problem is that it's so easy to end up watching a bunch of people who repost pictures of gifs or adorable cats and your "friend list" (dashboard) scrolls on forever and ever and you wish you could unwatch them but LOOK AT THAT KITTY SO CUTE and "well yeah I agree with women's rights so how can I be annoyed at those 15 posts about women's rights?

Honestly, I'd say give it a try. just don't give up live journal. I"ll never see your posts if you post exclusively on tumblr <3 Too many kittens!

[serbitchalot.livejournal.com]

I followed your LJ even when I didn't have one myself, because you posted little goodies and tidbits about Alexandra quick the fan in me couldn't do without. Trying to reconnect with some old forum friends had me making my LJ account anew, and following you with it was just kind of a given.

I definitely like your book reviews, too, though. They've come in handy when looking for gifts for my bookish friends, since you dip further into the genre pool than I dare tread.

As for other stuff, well... I like that you solidified my opinion of self-publishing, but I feel like 'other stuff' is the author/blogger's own business. They're free to post it, and I'm free to read or not read it at my discretion. It mostly depends on whether other stuff you're interested in matches other stuff I'm interested in. But, like I said, it's your business, and it's not my place to say what you should do with it.

[boot-lace.livejournal.com]

I went from Hogwarts Houses Divided (Mugglenet) to AQ (Mugglenet) to here. At first I skipped the book reviews, but now I come here as much for them as for AQ, if not more. I really like the variety and breadth of the types of books, and I've read (and loved) more than one book that I might not have even heard of if not for this blog!

For question #3 I answered, "No, because I don't want to disagree with you." Not that I'd stop coming here if you did! (And yes, I know it'd be completely my choice whether to read or not.) The only reason I put that was because sometimes, when I've read author interviews, the writer says something that to me is absolutely whackadoomy crazy or offensive or both, and thereafter whenever I read their work I can't fully enjoy it because one eye is always looking at it suspiciously in light of what they said in the interview. Sometimes less is more.

(Of course, nothing you've written so far has led me to believe I'd find you crazy or rude--but I've thought that before, too.)

But as others have said, I could just not read anything that's not a review or AQ...

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know that sinking feeling when you discover that an author you really like... is a jerk.

I've had a couple of people go batshit crazy on me because they didn't like my views, but they are... not nice people.