I've fallen off the boards a bit too, sadly.
1. Warcraft came out with an expansion in August. I got sucked back into the game pretty severely, as it was the best one out of the last couple of expansions. That took me (nightly) until about Thanksgiving.
2. Everyone was sick for pretty much all of November. First it was the girls, then me, then my husband, then me again. I was usually heading to bed early or at least too out of it to read or write much.
3. The holidays happened.
4. My kids stopped napping Father's Day weekend. It's been great - I can do more without having to worry about getting home in time for naps. But I miss those couple hours of reading and writing time.
5. My muse has hit a wall. I have too many projects in various stages of completion. It's just hard to concentrate on fics right now. Even reading them. I know a huge part of that hiatus my muse is on is from the quietness on the boards. It's hard to be motivated when the feedback isn't there.
6. I'm a bit burnt out. After rewatching the show for the first time in years back in 2010 or 2011, I've been steadily reading and writing. It's not that I don't have an interest anymore, I'm just...I don't know. Tired. Not of reading and writing. Just...having a hard time getting a handle on the things I want to write. Also, my husband is back to doing (voluntary, thank God!) overtime. So twice a week it's just me with the kids (now 3, almost 3.5 years) from before they get up until they are going to bed. And every Saturday morning until noon. I'm just physically exhausted most nights. (In a good way, but still tired!)
As for the feedback stuff:
I love feedback of any kind, so long as it's constructive. It's depressing to get no feedback at all. But it's also not helpful (and this is not a problem here, but on fanfiction.net, which I also post my stories on) to get "Good story" or "I didn't like it." Particularly when it's the only feedback on a, say, 20 part story.
I don't take offense to negative feedback. I think questions and concerns can better my writing, and, in fact, I have, on a number of occasions, taken those negative criticisms and altered my story prior to sending it to the archive. It's always a great thing to know that something needs clarification or doesn't sound in character enough, so that I can fix it and learn from my mistakes.
I'll admit, straight up, I don't read unfinished stories, with the very rare exception. A Part 1/? is my signal to stay away until I see it change to Part X/37, for example. I've gotten burnt too many times (again, on fanfiction.net) where the author just never finishes the story or takes months to post each update. Likewise, I am never comfortable posting a story until I am completely done writing, or within the last chapter or two, and even that's rare. I prefer to be 100% done with a story before posting anything.
All of this being said, I'm hoping to find my inspiration again soon and become much more active. That and maybe rewatch the series again to aid my muse in new fic ideas.
