Because you can never answer enough surveys

This one gacked from Jemima.

Firstly, how do you feel about feedback? Do you live for it, ignore it, think it's nice but not essential?

The first year or so when I was writing and not posting to ASC, I could pretty much count my feedbackers on one hand. Of course, I didn't know any better, so it didn't really bother me. So that's really the attitude I have these days: I was writing without feedback and I'll continue to write without feedback. I consider feedback to be the icing on the cake - a treat, but not something that ought to be expected or required to keep writing. And pack rat that I am, I have almost every piece of FB ever sent to me saved and I do reread them and feel warm and fuzzy all over again.

If 27 people tell me my story is great, but then it's beaten in a contest by a story I consider to be a total piece of crap, does that mean the feedback has been meaningless?

No, not at all. Of course, an opinion is an opinion and my tastes in fic run very differently than most. Contests are contests and few contests, I have to say are meaningful. Especially when you have 80 million of them, all being run, entered and won by the same people over and over again. I have great respect for the ASC Awards because even though you do have friends for voting for friends, you also have to justify why you're voting for that story/author. That's a meaningful measure of why a fic is good - some thought goes into it. I give more credence to feedback than I do to contests (other than ASC of course, which is a feedbacked-based contest).

I agree with Jemima when she says that contests are the bane of the fanfic world. And for the very reasons she states (and at the risk of sounding petty), I don't enter contests that aren't ASC as it's frustrating for me - not because I personally want to win, but because 9 times out of 10, I don't agree with the results. When certain people, who are acknowledged to be universally superior in fandom yet somehow don't even place in a contest, there's just no way to justify that outcome. It's for that reason I would place much more value on feedback and little, if any, on the outcomes of a contest.

How many of you writers *know* when you've written something good, regardless of whether you get feedback on it?

When it feels right. I don't like the majority of my work most of the time, but there are a few that I have a soft spot for. To me "good" means that I felt something during the writing process and I didn't have to force anything to come through or the dialogue flows smoothly and there is some meaningful character development. Some of the stories that I consider my best have received very little feedback, if any at all, but that doesn't change my opinion of those stories. Something happened while I was writing the stories, and that is always an awesome feeling that you can't push away.

How many of you try to do something different with each story you write?

Not with each story, but with a good number of them. I like to experiment and I'm never sure how it's going to be taken. I remember when I met Liz this summer, she told me about 80 million times that "The Absinthe Heart" was good and I believed her because I was actually standing in front of her so I knew she wasn't just placating me to keep me from sending "Demons" to her.

In general, while I adore experimenting and stretching as a writing, I am really uncertain when I decide to redefine the way a story is told in terms of character and style. Trying new things keeps things fresh and exciting. Not to mention, it's always an incredible rush when something does work. I wouldn't consider myself a stylist like say Kelly or Liz Barr, but I'd like to think that one day I could get there and that means being unafraid to take risks. (There you have it, Seema's secret ambition is to grow up to be a Kelly or a Liz Barr).

How many of you have a billion ideas and use only a fraction of them in your stories?

Nah, I never have a problem with too many ideas. I just farm them out to others ::grin::. I have quite a few ideas and I write most of them if I think it's something I can do. But there are certain ideas that other authors would just do so much better than I would. In that case, I am more than happy to give the idea up to a new home. Unfortunately, now that means that "It's all Seema's fault" is a standard header on ASC.

And how many of you sometimes think readers are a bunch of morons who wouldn't know a good story if they fell over it?

Oh man, talk about a harsh question!

I think it comes down to why people read fanfic. Most of the attraction is romance. As long as the reader's favorite two characters are romantically involved, the fic is awesome. That's all that's required (and I believe most readers require good grammar, spelling and punctuation as well). People want to extend the characters beyond what's seen on screen and plot and character development usually takes a backseat to romance.

That's not to say romance stories are ungood. They're fluffy indulgence, satisfy the reader's desire, and there's not much to think critically about as long as A and B are together at the end of the fic. It's important to differentiate between satisfaction and critical analysis in other words, why versus the how of fanfic. We've got English classes for the critical analysis and when it comes to fanfic, most people just set their brain on automatic pilot because they're looking for an escape and there is nothing wrong with that motivation for reading.

However, it does also explain why there are such differing opinions on what a quality effort entails and that's probably where the frustration comes from how does one author of middling quality get so much attention while the Fic Goddess gets virtually ignored by the masses.