Does anyone care to do a quick-and-dirty beta for me this weekend?  I have this 14,000 word fic and the wonderful sparktastic, whom I'd asked for help, is moving this weekend and furthermore already tied up with doing the second beta on my long-ass fic.  As I told her, "it's just a short one!" to which she replied "14,000 words isn't short, you moron!"  So, yes, writing a novel in 2 1/2 weeks has apparently broken my word-count perception matrices or something.  It felt short when I wrote it!  And so did that 10,000 word one I posted last weekend.  Practically a drabble.  Really.  *bg*

If you're interested, let me know in the comments.  Mostly I need a scrub for typos, awkward wording, the usual.

I have 17 DW invite codes languishing here. Anyone want one? Comments are screened, leave me your email.

In other news -- as often happens when I've written something quite lengthy, I seem to have had about 12,000 extra words still pent up inside my head, so I've written two short(ish) coda fics that will be a fic-cy afterbirth. Ew, that image even grossed *me* out. Sorry about that. Meh, accurate analogy nonetheless.

It doesn't need saying at this point, especially as I've recently switched to DW-only commenting and I don't think I have more than 3 people crossing over from flist to Facebook, but please don't link comments to Facebook or Twitter.  I have disabled the option on my end so I promise I will offer the same courtesy.

Fic continues in beta's capable hands.  I hope to have something posted perhaps by the second week of September.

As you can probably tell from reading some of my earlier fic, I have not always been a beta-compliant writer.  Part of this is impatience; when I've finished something, I want to share it right away!  Another part of this is anxiety; it's difficult to hand something over, particularly something you've really worked long and hard on, and subject it to criticism right away.  I used to excuse my non-beta-ing ways by saying I was my own worst critic (which may still be true) but the truth is that a different set of eyes can always find something I may have missed, be it a plot point, a logical inconsistency, an out-of-character bit of dialogue.  And, heck, I've been lucky enough to find some betas who are the perfect balance of squee and critique.  While I do still tend to just hit the "post" button for shorter fic that I've thrown together in a matter of an hour or so, I am starting to quite like the feeling of confidence I get when I put a longer story through a proper editing and reviewing process: this really is the best it could be, take it or leave it.

That being said, though I've been called upon very occasionally to beta someone else's work, I don't think I have the specific skill set it takes.  I'm a truly myopic writer -- if someone's process doesn't match up with my process, I am often unable to work through the ways I would improve upon a given story.  (sparktastic could tell you all about my uselessness here, though I still try!)  So yes, betas FTW.  Lo, you are mighty and I am in awe of you, and owe you much homage, etc.

In conclusion, as a fandom oldtimer -- okay, seven years, I guess that's probably more like a fandom middle-ager at best -- I really encourage newer writers to seek out beta help.  It seems intimidating as hell for many of us, but I promise you that seven years from now, you'll be much happier when you look back at certain older stories.