No, seriously, I am not recovered enough to deal with wank. So I'm begging of you do not commit the wankage in my journal plz plz plz kthnx.

I've noticed that comments to my recent fics have been fewer than normal. I brought this up a while ago, like maybe a year ago, and some of you conspiracy theorists out there suggested there was a deep dark plot to prevent people from commenting on my fic because I post it at IJ or maybe just because of me personally. I didn't believe that then and I don't believe it now; I can't imagine more than a tiny handful of people would allow themselves to be dictated to in that way. So please, let us not to go there, and again with the plz plz plz kthnx. :)

I know sometimes I'm a pain in the ass about not wanting to get into discussions about my fic process, because it makes it harder for me to write, and I don't want it to be hard, I want it to be joyous and creative and fun. And I know some of you love the give and take with authors, and so maybe you just stopped commenting to me because of I don't do that.

Also, I know in the last year I haven't been as good about replying to comments as I used to be. I'm not just saying this because it's a convenient excuse, but because it's the truth: I didn't really let myself realize how much of my life was being eaten up by taking care of my mother after she became ill, and I just gradually cut a lot of things out of my life without really acknowledging it to myself. Good fandom etiquette was one of the first things to go, and I just couldn't put all the pieces of what was happening in my life together and so, I never quite realized that. And I'm sorry.

Also, while I know a lot of you have moved on from QAF and fandom is smaller and the show is four years in the past etc etc etc, I still have tons of people on LJ friending me every day, presumably to read my fic, since that's all I really post here. And every time I post a fic, I get at least a thousand above-baseline hits to my journal. Sometimes it's many more than that -- my series gets between 3-4000 new hits when I update it. And yet... fewer than a hundred comments.

I know there is no disclaimer that I can put on this that won't make it seem like I'm begging for comments, and I just hate authors who beg for comments. But when I started writing again after my mother died, it meant a lot to me to find that creativity was still there, and that I still wanted to do it, and it sort of makes me sad to not hear from my readers as much as I used to when I post fic.

If you don't read my fic or don't like my fic, then that's fine... but if you do read it and like it, if you're one of those thousand people who clicked over without saying anything, please know that even though I don't usually ask for comments in my author's notes, I do love getting them, and I promise not to be quite as much of a pain in the ass as I may have been before, and I will respond.

No, honestly. I swear it!

And if you're a new fan and weren't sure of "commenting ettiquette" and don't generally comment on fics you like, whether mine or anyone else's, whether in QAF fandom or any other, please know that most authors love comments, even if it's just a fast "Really liked this, thanks!" The pay scale for writing fan fic is very low... most fic writers get paid in love. It's always good to give them some. :)

Love,

Xie

This was my entry to the "Weather/Vacation" challenge at qaf_challenges . It was beta'd by testdog65 , and it's about a very, very hot post-513 day in Pittsburgh.

If pool!sex offends you, definitely don't read it. And if you like it, I'd love to hear from you! I've had a long horrible year and getting back to writing has been a wonderful feeling... knowing you're reading makes it better!

( Heat Wave, by Xie... )

I noticed that I had quite a lot of QAF fic related to the holiday season, which I'm defining as Halloween through New Year's Day. I decided to create a master list to link to from my fic index page. Nothing new here. :)