The last Reading Room is...

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Facets ii: Stolen Moments
by Maggie Hall
Suggested and hosted by byslantedlight. Find it at:
- the Circuit Archive
- The ProsLib Story Disc.

Reading Rooms Been and to Come

Fri 7th February - My Golden Afternoon with the Grim Reaper by PRZed, suggested and hosted by macklingirl.
Fri 14th February - Snowman with a Dark Coat by Castalia, suggested and hosted by gilda_elise
Fri 21st February - Holding Back the Flood by Lacey McBain, suggested by gilda_elise
Fri 28th February - In Balance with this Life by MauveMaz hosted by paris7am
Friday 6th March - Facets ii: Stolen Moments by Maggie Hall, suggested and hosted by byslantedlight
Friday 13th March -
Friday 20th March -
Friday 27th March -

Comments

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

thank you - I'm slightly horrified by 'the last Reading Room...' I've loved this so much - I hope we manage to stagger on, but if we don't, thank you to you for kicking us all up the bottom and into gear!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I was sad to write it, but despite my asking for more story suggestions and people to host, there's not been any for weeks. I added one more myself to see if that led to "No, let's not stop, here's another idea!" but you're the first person to even comment about it, so I guess everyone's just too busy/frantic/fed up (okay, maybe that last one's just me) to have time to come and think about it... I could do it all on my own, but quite honestly that's pretty depressing, and I just end up feeling lousy, so I think I'm going to avoid that... *g*

Well, it was nice while it lasted!

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

It's been a rough start to the year for all of us... I'm too flaky to offer to host one myself, and a bit muddled about suggesting authors who are still active online and therefore might not like their fics being discussed. Grrrr!

Maybe give it a few weeks and then have another go? There've been loads of people joining in with chatting, so it obviously is something everyone enjoys. But not pressuring you - I really really do appreciate how much you do to keep our fandom afloat, bless you.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think alot of people feel shy about it - I felt entirely shy about posting on lj for ages. I kinda got used to it thought... *g* And yeah (Part 2, the return of...), we'll see how it goes I guess... maybe we just need a break!

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

I'm way behind with my reading at the moment. There is so much of complicated things in RL at the moment that I'm happy when I'm able to read two pages in my German book I'm reading at the moment. And only very short things with the lads. I hope I'm up to the reading room in a few weeks. Maybe we should take a break till Easter?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Everyone seems to be struggling to fit in fandom and Pros these days - such a shame! We'll take a break, and see how it goes.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sometimes RL is a bitch.

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

Strange that things we love to do, must drop out, and all that shit... goes on and on and on.... :-()

I would host another story or two whenever you are in the mood to go on!
What about once a month? in our German LJ we really managed to do some Pros things each first Sunday of a month (even if just three of us keep it alive...).

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It's a shame the German lj and English ljs have become separate these days - although I totally understand that it must be nicer and easier to post and talk to each other in your own language, rather than having to translate all the time. I wish I knew German, so I could come and join in with you guys, but... *shakes head sadly* We could both about double the number of people joining in if we could work together again!

To be honest I'm not sure that once a month would end up being any easier to do, because I think it would be irregular enough that people would probably forget anyway (potentially including me). Or maybe I'm being pessimistic...

It's not that I'm not in a mood to go on, it's just that I didn't have anything to work with as a mod. Sure, I can come on the comm every month or so, after asking people every week to suggest stories/host and getting no answer. I can say "okay, we'll have to shut down if you don't volunteer" and people will jump in and say "I will, don't stop!" and then it'll go on for a while longer, and then the same thing will happen again. I feel like I'm forcing people to do something that they don't really want to do any more. If they did want to do it, then they'd be doing it, you know - they'd answer, and join in, and suggest stories and so on!

Paris7am has said she'll do a story next weekend, so if you want to do one or two after that then just let me know which one...

[bodiegirl.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say, I’m kind of new to livejournal and fanfic and haven’t got the slightest about many things around here... Apart from RL getting a fair share of our time, sometimes it’s just, you know, in my case, not wanting to intrude on things you’re not particularly familiar with. What, for example, if I suggest a work that’s new to me but already been discussed to death by others? I’m in awe of the work you’re doing for the fandom because I for one wouldn’t know where to start.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

If it helps, I made a post the other day listing all the stories we've had in Reading Room before (https://ci5hq.livejournal.com/364070.html). Although there's also different people around now to when we started, so they might want to discuss a story that's been discussed by others before anyway! You can also look at the tags list (CI5hq Index in the left-hand sidebar) and then under title or author to see if there are posts for particular stories before. Sometimes they'll be rec posts for other challenges or just because someone wanted to write about them, and some might be Reading Room, but it might give you an idea. Plus, if we really had done a particular story to death, or discussed it recently or something, I'd just let you know in a reply. *g*

Sorry if it seems that things are ending just when you want to read them, though! I guess the thing is that with so few of us around in general (scattered to other forums and fandoms etc. over the last few years), if everyone wants to just read and isn't able to join in, then it leaves those of us who are trying to get people/discussions/Pros joy together with nothing to work with. To be honest it's pretty discouraging to be posting into a silent void. Which is all a way of saying - please do join in with anything that anyone's posting about Pros, because to be honest they'll love having someone to talk to, and love the lads with, and it's what keeps Pros fandom (any fandom!) going! *g*

[bodiegirl.livejournal.com]

You're perfectly right and I agree with you about the different and new people around... me being one! ;)

If anything I feel like I've got to much work to do to even try and catch up with the lot of you people since there are so many different places, communities, archives and blogs (and yep, the scattered to other forums thing might be one of the problems) and tons of material to read but thank god for that! I'm not complaining ;)

It's just that you've been a star in giving directions and doing a great job all around and seeing you calling it a day... what to say? Let's keep in touch?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well thanks, that's really nice of you to say! I'm not calling it a day in general though - only to Reading Room itself. I'll still be mod of various Pros comms over here, and no doubt I'll still post things now and then, and hope to get people joining in. It's just the continuation of Reading Room that seemed vague. But it's stopped and then come back before too, several times.

And that said, I've had two people volunteer to host stories now, so it can go on for a couple of weeks, anyway...

It's such a shame that fandom has split into so many separate places - it was so simple and easy to keep up when I first found Pros fandom! We had three Pros archives, where you could easily find things and that were updated regularly - Circuit Archive, the Hatstand, and ProsLib - now only ProsLib is updated. We had comms on Yahoo and Livejournal, so you didn't have to search all over the world to find Pros - it was either around here, or it could be tracked down easily via people here who posted about it. The Pros_newsletter does a good job of rounding up as much as she can, but I think it's the rest of us who have become scattered, rather than being one generally happy and creative community... And I know I just don't have time to try and catch up at all the forums that everyone else has chosen to move to...

On the bright side, there's all the hundreds (thousands, surely!) of stories and posts for new fans to find and enjoy reading - even if there's so much less interaction.

But we'll be around for a bit longer, anyway... *g*

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

I just read a story this morning that would be fun to discuss: "The Secrets Beneath," by Sally Fell, at the Circuit Archive at http://www.thecircuitarchive.com/tca/archive/15/thesecrets.html
It was originally published in Secret Agent Men 4 in 2004.

My work hours are too likely to shift for me to host it, and it is 224 K, so it's rather long and AU as well.

Maybe we ought to have drabble weeks!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's one of my favourite Pros stories! It is rather long though. We could perhaps do it in the summer (cos it's a summer-y one, I always think *g*), and give people a month's notice - sort of a special episode... *g*

Drabble weeks might be quite fun, though - I like it! *g* Except that alot of what people have called drabbles aren't really drabbles (telling whole story in a 100 words) they're more snapshots (which are cool although in a different way...) Maybe Ficlet and Drabble weeks! Let's see how much cheering up we need by next Friday :s