So I decided to clean up my FF.Net profile, removing the fics that I'm not happy with or am (at least in theory) planning on re-writing. But I know some people might still want access to the fics I'm removing, so I made a DropBox folder with all my fics as of 21 August 2016.

The link to the DropBox folder is here.

Here's the titles and summaries of the fics that are being removed:

 

Personally, I disagree with removing fics from ffn. I have one that I'm not really happy with, but since it was there for so many years and there are people who added it to their favourites, I leave it be.

That said you're removing my favourite fics of yours before you finished it (In Essence Divided). You monster.

 

I can understand the removal of most of these fics, but I question your removal of Alexandra Potter. I feel like that fic is a cut above the rest of what you are removing, though I must admit to having not read it for quite some time.

 

Going to have to agree with everyone else.

You only remove a fic if it's complete trash. I've only read Yes, Minister and Alexandra Potter, and neither are trash. I still like Alexandra Potter alot.

 

I think you'd be fine with keeping everything but Alexandra Potter.

More seriously, good idea to keep them still available to people who might want to revisit for whatever reason.

 

You know Taure this is kind of a pain having to create an account on dropbox just to download your wonderful fics. Is there anyway you could post them on something like google docs?

 

You don't have to create an account to download the files, it works just fine without one. Just close the window where you're asked to create an account and click on the story you want to view.

 

You could have created a dropbox account in the time it took you to make that post, its not exactly a difficult thing to do...

Also Taure, seeing this made me go back and reread Yes, Minister. Always good for chuckle!

 

Taure, you dingus, there were much better ways of going about this.

1. Leave the old stories and upload new ones for your revised versions
2. Just update the contents of your original stories as you go
3. Only delete your fics when you're already done with the rewrites so you can upload the new version immediately
4. Realise it's silly to get so strung-up on fanfiction you wrote when you were younger and just leave them the fuck alone

I understand feeling shitty at your past attempts at writing: you look back on it and it all seems so clumsy, so stupid, and you spot a million things you hate, all so obvious in hindsight. I understand wanting to wipe it off the face of the earth because you don't want people seeing your mistakes.

But this isn't the way. You've already written them and learned from them - people have already read them. You haven't gained anything from pulling them all off your profile - your fans have only lost something. Particularly since you haven't even written the revised versions you'd like to have yet.

It's not the same, but my mother wrote a book once, by hand on pages and pages of paper bound together. And then one day she hated herself, and she hated that book, enough to hurl it into the fireplace and reduce it to ashes. Maybe it wasn't any good, maybe it was... but I'd always wanted to read it. And she regretted it.

This isn't the same, Taure - you've got copies - but doesn't it snack of the same fruitless insecurities? You didn't gain anything here. You only made life more difficult on the people who love your writing.

 

I don't need to justify what I do with my property to anyone, but in any case, I've gained plenty from it.

 

I removed three fics from FFN at one point or another, so I understand where Taure is coming from. It's his prerogative to do what he wants with his fanfiction.

 

You do realize you're not entitled to a single word he writes?

In any case I haven't read these fics and I don't think I will, if Taure is planning to rewrite them. I can wait a year or two.

 

I'm with Drome in spirit but completely agree with Taure on doing whatever he feels like with things that he owns. It's his call entirely.


Edit:

I feel like people here take this sentiment a bit too far. Nobody is "entitled" sure, but when you have a fan base and have created an expectation, I think the fair thing to do to is to try to live up to it. IMO It applies especially strongly when you are making profit from something, so when GRRM or Rothfuss don't come out with books for years and their fans hit back by saying people shouldn't be entitled to it, that strikes me a bit too over the top.

Of course, none of this applies to this case as it's fan fiction and your point is actually somewhat valid here but just wanted to brain-dump my thoughts on this.

 

I am reminded of playing foursquare as a child. When one of the players got beat and didn't like it, he grabbed his ball and didn't allow anyone else to play anymore. He was completely allowed to do so, it was his ball, but that doesn't mean he wasn't being a royale twat either.


No Taure, you don't have to justify what you do with your property to anyone. That doesn't mean we aren't allowed to judge you when you act like a dick though. As Palindrome listed, there are other ways you could have done this without preventing your fans from rereading some of their favorite stories.

 

Entitled? That's a bit of an aggressive return to a post about the pitfalls of self-loathing, isn't it? Frankly, I haven't read anything Taure's written, and I'm not planning to - but I do care about his mental state.

In my experience - personal, and from what I've seen from others - people usually do this sort of thing when they're too caught up in disappointment with themselves that they stop seeing the bigger picture. Hating what you've made is a wretched spiral into obsessive perfectionism - trust me, I know that one all too well. If you get as stuck on everything needing to be perfect as I do, you'll realise that you never really get anywhere with things, never share your work with the world and never really enjoy having made it at all.

It's not a good place to be in. Maybe I was reaching when I applied the same thought processes to Taure, but if not then I don't mind sharing what I think I needed to know a long time ago: you should celebrate what you've done, not what you could do.

Anyway, this may all be irrelevant. If Taure says he's happy with it, then that's what matters. I hope you understand where I'm coming from when I talk about this, though. If you're a writer in a depressive spiral, it's important to recognise that and take a few steps back.

 

He didn't act like a dick and he didn't prevent fans from reading his stories - that's what the dropbox link is for. The problem I had is that I believed what he did didn't help him. That's why if Taure says he's happy with it, then that's that.

 

I've adjusted the file in the opening post to remove Alexandra Potter. That story was a mistake on so many different levels that the only recourse is absolute deletion. It cannot be fixed, it is broken on a fundamental level that simple a rewrite cannot undo. Attempting to fix structure, pacing, tone and characterization is completely pointless.

I should never have tried to bend my grand designs to fit the criticisms leveled at me when I was posting. The story suffered for it and I couldn't quite tell why. Never bend to populist rhetoric.

The rewrite is abandoned, the 27 chapters that were finished have been relegated to the trash.

Alexandra was an insufferable, unfixable cunt.

There is some good news, however. After continual goading from people on Reddit, I've decided to finish The One He Feared.

 

Unless this is a April fools joke I'm sorry to see that fic go. I enjoyed your original copy of it far more than once you started tweaking it removing the unique society you had been trying to portray.

I very much enjoyed the world building you had started, your portrayal of Diagon Ally and Hogsmead was very rich.

Would you be willing to post or PM the story notes like you did for Lords of Magic. One of the aspects I enjoyed in this fic and Santis is seeing when and how the protagonist develops, how advanced they are and what milestones they reach and when.

At what level was Alexandra going to be at 13, 15, 17?

Glad you are doing the one he feared, a more interesting story but with a more restrained world so far.