Just curious. Does it depends on reviews? Hits? Weekly schedule?

I TRY to update "currently working on" type stories once a week or every two weeks at the outside. I don't update based on reviews, but I admit that more reviews tends to encourage me to update faster. Lets not talk about how long it's been since I've ACTUALLY updated anything.. hehehe

I try to update weekly with short drabble or oneshots. I find it terribly difficult to do that with chapter fics, simply because of the workload. I consider anything between 2500 to 3000 words a oneshot. Anything in excess of 3500+ words is how long I do a chapter for. Since I edit after posting to fix mistakes, updates for chapter-fics take longer, more than a week.

I did try to do weekly updates for a chapter fic, and after a month I burned out with writer's block. It became less about fun and more about just getting the chapter out. I wasn't able to write creatively for weeks afterwards. And even now though I'd like the continue that series (I did finish the chapter-fic) I'm reluctant to return to it.

I put way too much creative energy into it at 35000+ words with 8 chapters over too short a period. Around 2 weeks to a month. It was worse than doing back to back assignments at Uni.

So I don't do that anymore.

It was a very unpleasant experience.

~ Pyre

Please let us all remember that it is against the rules of this site to hold updates for reviews or any other stated reason. It's quite all right to encourage reviews by saying that they feed your creativity, or asking for feedback in the form of what your readers did or didn't like, but deliberately withholding updates is a no-no.

Carry on!

~~Wiccan~~

I update my chapter fic every other month which probably is way too seldom in my readers' opinions. This is because my stories are not finished and I update them as I go.

I also have to divide my writing my time between another chapter fic and a weekly drabble (plus the occasional one shot or original story).

I try to write routinely, 500 words 5 days a week but similar to Pyre, sometimes it starts feeling more like a chore and I need to have some days off from writing and time for myself or it becomes more stressful than it is fun for me.

I try to comfort myself with the fact that even though my updates might be scarce, at least they are regular.

I'm the type of writer to update as I go, so an update could take from a couple of weeks to months to years. The years one is mostly because I get distracted by other stories I'm working on, so on average it's usually weeks to months. And that because I have no life and currently no job, so I have the time.

I'm still over on ff.net so if someone looked at my profile they'd see me posting not just Inuyasha stories, but Sailor Moon and Harry Potter stories as well. Recently I've been doing a lot of Sailor Moon oneshots while I work on my chapter stories just because the ideas are there and to give readers something to read in the meantime.

I've learned through experience that for me it's impossible to update every week or even every month because it takes me too long to get chapters written up. The only time I managed to update every week was with two of my short Inuyasha stories, and that was because I forced myself to thoroughly outline every chapter of the story before I posted the first chapter. Usually I have a general idea of how I want the story to go and just go from there, being surprised by what happens in a chapter when I write it just like everyone else is when they read it.

As for the reviews aspect..I don't do it for reviews. I write my stories for myself and for those who happen to like them when I decide to share them. If they leave a review then I appreciate it, but it doesn't make me update any slower or faster. Nor do I let bad reviews stop me from continuing a story. I just ignore what they have to say because it's not constructive criticism, it's just a mean opinion.

Lone saiyan woman wrote:
Just curious. Does it depend on reviews? Hits? Weekly schedule?

A review encourages me/ remindsme that I have a story... lol I really don't have a schedule which probably isn't the best method. Some writers hold on to chapters for a while before releasing, but I find I get too excited and post it as soon as I type the last period. To give myself a loose deadline I try to say, "Okay Kendra, update at least once a month."

I just came back to the site in March after a 2.5 year hiatus due to RL... so I'm making up for lost time. I've added 17 chapters to Legal Jargon (rated MA) in 4 months out of guilt lol. Since it's been well received since its return and nobody has cursed me out I find myself updating once or twice a week with a disclaimer saying, "I'll get what I can get to you when I can." Then I get side bared with other one shots and what not... sigh. Woe is me.

A true schedule only makes me a slave to the writing, and I do this as a hobby/ pleasure. Making schedules and hard deadlines makes it feel like work and I have enough of that IRL with papers and my dissertation which have real deadlines to stress over.

I post when I not only feel like writing, but when I remember that I have unfinished things. Then, I look at what feelings I can invoke for those writings. If I'm not able to write the dark scene for one, I may be able to write the silly scene for another. I tend to be busy doing something always.

Sometimes I write, sometimes and do crafts, sometimes work has flooded me so much that my creativity is only with writing lesson plans and how to make the classroom environment continue to be happy, healthy, and always a place of learning.

So, how long a leave between updates very. Just know that, at some point, I will try to finish a piece. Sometimes, it is a good thing to leave and come back. I just found out that I have an incomplete story that I don't even remember writing. I now remember after reading it through, and can come up with more ideas and correct some errors that I may have caught along the way. It can bring new perspective and tell me if I want to continue it on the same path I had before, or if the writing itself shows a better path for the story.