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alias_sqbrThis is something I find the need to refer to sometimes in conversations about other things, and having it in one place will hopefully help me avoid being all tl;dr elsewhere. It's a total ramble, sorry (This is like draft 4, I think using the creative part of brain to think about creativity causes a short circuit or something)
So: I'm weird. On the whole, given a choice between having something I'm quite proud of beta-ed, or not putting it online, I'd go for not putting it online.
When I'm inspired to make something I tend to work on it obsessively until it feels Finished or (more frustratingly) the Inspiration runs out, at which point I have HUGE issues editing it again. Incredibly minor stuff like one or two spelling mistakes is a general but not universal exception, but for example I had a story rejected from an archive for spelling errors like a month ago and still haven't gotten around to getting it fixed, I possibly never will.
I also sometimes just can't work any more on one particular part of work, which can cause issues when I skimp on preliminary work like research or pencilling and no matter how much time I spend polishing the finished product the initial flaws screw it up.
Having a work in an unFinished limbo seriously bothers me. If AO3 and DeviantArt had drafts where I could have something totally 100% uploaded but not visible that would help, because as pathetic as it sounds there have been a bunch of times when I waited before posting something and then felt stymied by having to decide on tags, a title, dealing with uploading problems etc. (This post for example was initially posted privately so I could check the html and choose tags etc and my brain would let me go to sleep. Hmm. Maybe I should post fic to dw instead of AO3...) I find challenges really, uh, challenging since there's that gap between creation and final posting, though sometimes the positive benefits outweigh the stress.
For some reason I find considering and applying edits from other people MUCH more difficult than proofreading(*) and editing something based on my own judgement. Partly I react defensively to criticism sometimes, but mostly it's just that the part of my brain that processes this stuff is incredibly inefficient, it's like writing upside down with my left hand. And paradoxically, while I have extreme trouble forcing myself to edit something, I often notice little things I want to edit for a week or so after posting something which means I'm never sure when something counts as "finished" enough to be beta-ed.
nb: non fiction like this post works differently, mainly because I can add paragraphs saying "EDIT: new idea, see *this comment*"
This is something I don't like about myself and have been poking at for as long as I can remember but while I'm better than I used to be there's only so much I can do. I had to constantly revise based on my supervisor's corrections during my Phd and while I did learn some proofreading etc skills what I mostly got was unending misery.
Making things worse, for the last few years I've had quite bad chronic fatigue syndrome which makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything my brain doesn't feel like doing.
I still like constructive criticism, since that can be useful for future works. But beta-ing assumes you will apply the corrections to this work, and when I for whatever quirk-of-my-brain reason Just Can't Edit This Work Any More I find the pressure to edit, and even the idea that I might HAVE to edit incredibly stressful.
Long works in progress are…weird, and work differently. Given my delicate snowflake artistic disposition they're always in imminent danger of me losing Inspiration, and in my experience I'm more likely to be waylaid by plot holes and character inconsistencies than feedback from betas/readers anyway (and in fact said feedback can help me avoid plot holes I hadn't seen coming etc, and I've gotten a lot out of the great beta-ing I've gotten on WiPs even if it sometimes took me five months to add in a spelling correction). But I try not to start long WiPs because of how stressful I find them overall (long WiPs currently bugging me to be finished: three. Nnng. But I want to know how they end!)
If I feel I have to ask for feedback or help from other people I will do so, but either I get Deeply Stressed about it or I get myself into a mindset where I'm ok not using the advice and maybe not finishing/publishing the piece.
One of the more common reasons given for The Importance Of Betas is that it hurts people to read bad spelling and inconsistent plots etc. While I do my best to avoid these issues their existence doesn't keep me up at night. If my bad spelling ruins a story of mine for someone that's a loss for both of us, but one we will both recover from! (Also I do have vague ideas for getting my works spellchecked etc better)
I do worry about issues of inadvertent racism, homophobia etc, and I have been pondering how best to avoid those issues without using betas, see my post Trying to avoid being That Fanfic Writer (or Artist). I got people to beta my last artwork for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
red_packet for cultural and geographical etc issues, and despite all the responses boiling down to at worst "That's great! Here's one minor easy to implement suggestion…" I still got really neurotic and freaked out about it and overall it ended up being Not Fun. It's an issue :/
(*)Hmm. Is there a broader term that also applies to art?
So: I'm weird. On the whole, given a choice between having something I'm quite proud of beta-ed, or not putting it online, I'd go for not putting it online.
When I'm inspired to make something I tend to work on it obsessively until it feels Finished or (more frustratingly) the Inspiration runs out, at which point I have HUGE issues editing it again. Incredibly minor stuff like one or two spelling mistakes is a general but not universal exception, but for example I had a story rejected from an archive for spelling errors like a month ago and still haven't gotten around to getting it fixed, I possibly never will.
I also sometimes just can't work any more on one particular part of work, which can cause issues when I skimp on preliminary work like research or pencilling and no matter how much time I spend polishing the finished product the initial flaws screw it up.
Having a work in an unFinished limbo seriously bothers me. If AO3 and DeviantArt had drafts where I could have something totally 100% uploaded but not visible that would help, because as pathetic as it sounds there have been a bunch of times when I waited before posting something and then felt stymied by having to decide on tags, a title, dealing with uploading problems etc. (This post for example was initially posted privately so I could check the html and choose tags etc and my brain would let me go to sleep. Hmm. Maybe I should post fic to dw instead of AO3...) I find challenges really, uh, challenging since there's that gap between creation and final posting, though sometimes the positive benefits outweigh the stress.
For some reason I find considering and applying edits from other people MUCH more difficult than proofreading(*) and editing something based on my own judgement. Partly I react defensively to criticism sometimes, but mostly it's just that the part of my brain that processes this stuff is incredibly inefficient, it's like writing upside down with my left hand. And paradoxically, while I have extreme trouble forcing myself to edit something, I often notice little things I want to edit for a week or so after posting something which means I'm never sure when something counts as "finished" enough to be beta-ed.
nb: non fiction like this post works differently, mainly because I can add paragraphs saying "EDIT: new idea, see *this comment*"
This is something I don't like about myself and have been poking at for as long as I can remember but while I'm better than I used to be there's only so much I can do. I had to constantly revise based on my supervisor's corrections during my Phd and while I did learn some proofreading etc skills what I mostly got was unending misery.
Making things worse, for the last few years I've had quite bad chronic fatigue syndrome which makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything my brain doesn't feel like doing.
I still like constructive criticism, since that can be useful for future works. But beta-ing assumes you will apply the corrections to this work, and when I for whatever quirk-of-my-brain reason Just Can't Edit This Work Any More I find the pressure to edit, and even the idea that I might HAVE to edit incredibly stressful.
Long works in progress are…weird, and work differently. Given my delicate snowflake artistic disposition they're always in imminent danger of me losing Inspiration, and in my experience I'm more likely to be waylaid by plot holes and character inconsistencies than feedback from betas/readers anyway (and in fact said feedback can help me avoid plot holes I hadn't seen coming etc, and I've gotten a lot out of the great beta-ing I've gotten on WiPs even if it sometimes took me five months to add in a spelling correction). But I try not to start long WiPs because of how stressful I find them overall (long WiPs currently bugging me to be finished: three. Nnng. But I want to know how they end!)
If I feel I have to ask for feedback or help from other people I will do so, but either I get Deeply Stressed about it or I get myself into a mindset where I'm ok not using the advice and maybe not finishing/publishing the piece.
One of the more common reasons given for The Importance Of Betas is that it hurts people to read bad spelling and inconsistent plots etc. While I do my best to avoid these issues their existence doesn't keep me up at night. If my bad spelling ruins a story of mine for someone that's a loss for both of us, but one we will both recover from! (Also I do have vague ideas for getting my works spellchecked etc better)
I do worry about issues of inadvertent racism, homophobia etc, and I have been pondering how best to avoid those issues without using betas, see my post Trying to avoid being That Fanfic Writer (or Artist). I got people to beta my last artwork for
red_packet for cultural and geographical etc issues, and despite all the responses boiling down to at worst "That's great! Here's one minor easy to implement suggestion…" I still got really neurotic and freaked out about it and overall it ended up being Not Fun. It's an issue :/(*)Hmm. Is there a broader term that also applies to art?
