(no subject)

[hope]

i am fond of finding discussions on lj through my site referalls. here's an interesting one about the zine (including my response).

sometimes i kinda wish my peer circle was more diverse so i could get all these diverse opinions on things. but then i guess the people i disagree with wouldn't really be in my peer circle.

erm.


there was an electrical fire in the house this morning, in the roof, that turned out to be in the heating duct. so we have no heating now, until monday when someone can come and look at it.  I'M COLD.

Comments

Re: (continued)

[azrhiaz.livejournal.com]

Since you mention it, the Valentines challenge was meant to be an exchange that would be fun and would help make up for the people who were disappointed in this year's Slasha-- several never got their fics. People requested what they wanted, and then got paired with people who I felt could write what was desired. I didn't request, single out, or in any other way "lean" on hobbit/man RPS pairings.
They turned out how they turned out-- which, in fact, included some really good manly-men fics.


but unfortunately a whole lot of people pulled out of contributing, and unfortunately most of them were the 'manly man' writers. and the rest of the (mostly not hobbit-exclusive) contributors went with writing what they were most interested in and comfortable with writing at that time, which is chiefly hobbit- (and orlando-) centric. it's not something i'm particularly happy with, but yeah, it does reflect the state of things as this is being created, which *is* something i'm happy with. i would have liked more variety, but it does represent the state of this particular facet of fandom at this particular time.

Well, I'm sorry they pulled out, then. But the whole point, without getting utterly wanktastic about it, is that a) I wouldn't have pulled out, b) I do think I qualified as a longstanding fandom author, c) I feel that I could have produced something that your "large target audience" would have enjoyed, and d) it hurt my feelings terribly not to be invited, especially since you *have* at some points intimated that it is composed of the best Lotrips authors.

Plain truth, and not requiring a thesis. My feelings were hurt, and I finally quit biting my tongue about it. It was hard to, considering my friendslist seems to mention the zine rather frequently. I hope you have fun with it, and I hope everyone else does, too. I'm afraid I won't.

Re: (continued)

[hope]

but in choosing contributors to invite, i wasn't looking at "longstanding fandom authors" to the fandom as a reason to invite. and i also wasn't solely looking at "what *i* liked and thus assumed everyone else would" - because i am a fan of your work, and i do recognise your lengthy contribution to fandom.

to tell you the truth, i did consider inviting you, but there are many, many wonderful writers in fandom, and unfortunately (yet again) the majority of people who agreed to contribute didn't tell me that they'd decided to pull out until past the deadline, when it was too late to fairly ask my second-round options. as i said, there are a lot of people in fandom who are excellent writers; my list of contributors didn't contain all of them by a long shot. i am a fan of your stuff, but despite your lengthy participation in fandom, i haven't seen your name gracing many of the recs lists, journals, etc, within which i researched for those who were most "acclaimed".

i'm sorry if it came across that i was saying they were the 'best' fandom writers - because that's not really my decision or declaration to make. of course i think they're excellent, otherwise i wouldn't have invited them, and i don't mean to hurt or offend people by seemingly overly praising them to the exclusion of others, but most of my fandom time in the past 6 months has been dedicated towards hand-feeding them praise and encouraging them as much as i can. and i'm pleased with the results, so of course i'm going to be excited about them. but their good-ness doesn't mean that no-one else is good.

like i said - someone has to make the decisions, and with so much diversity, of course not all of them are going to be popular. some people are going to be disappointed, and hurt, and angry, but i still stand by my belief that it would have been more worse for more people to have to turn down so many people if i'd opened it up for submissions. i had even asked the contributors to keep down their discussion of it in their own ljs from the very beginning, to avoid situations like this where people i was unable to invite feel so hard-done-by and excluded.

i'm sorry if this has turned into a 'thesis' again, but i suppose my response to your first comment wouldn't have been so long if i hadn't thought you were attacking the decisions i've made and making me feel like i have to defend and explain myself. i understand you're upset and i'm sorry that you feel that way, but i'm afraid it's something that just can't be avoided. like i've said many times in the past few hours - this is something that i've created with as much objectivity as i can safely inject into it. you're welcome to create your own zine that represents your take on things, that could no doubt contain a whole different collection of just as 'deserving' authors.