Archiving on AO3

[itsallovernow]

So as feldman and I continue to bask in our mutual adoration, and write this thing that I think is really fucking good (and may have a very limited audience, but fuck it, we're delighted), I've started thinking about archiving my Farscape stuff, and the sundries, up on AO3. Which is intimidating, not only because of the need to find it on here, on Leviathan, on wherever, format it, post it, proof it, etc. But also because, despite a vast amount of NOT WRITING that I've been doing, I'm a better writer now, or probably, I've got more confidence in my ability to write about something other than physical and emotional boning, and I'm a little...embarrassed, I guess, about the indulgences I allowed myself in a lot of those pieces.

So, the questions, for those of you who have undertaken the archiving process:
a) Worth it?
b) How hard is it - formatting-wise?
c) Did you do another editing pass? Did you retool the stories, or just archive them as is?

All thoughts are appreciated!

Comments

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Speaking selfishly, I am definitely in favor of people putting their stuff on AO3. It's a relief when PolyRecs is able to link to a story there, because I've got 99% certainty that the link is stable.

It's also fun to get random kudos on old stuff. I know people are always picking up Farscape for the first time or rewatching, and they'll go searching for fic.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Good advice! Thank you. I think I'm properly incentivized.

[cofax7]

I sort of did my archiving in phases, over several years, so it didn't seem like such a burden.

If your stuff is uploaded somewhere like Leviathan or one of the other archives, there's a chance you might be able to just import it. I can't guarantee the formatting won't go wonky, but that's always a risk. It's still FAR BETTER than formatting anything for FFN. You can do straight text or HTML with reasonable comfort that the archive won't strip all of your formatting away.

Although I do recall that hard returns are a problem, but if you have Word you know how to remove/replace them fairly easily.

Anyway, it was definitely worth it to have everything backed up somewhere I'm reasonably confident will outlive me.

And no, I didn't re-edit stuff. I did often note when stories were originally posted, though, to justify not editing them.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you:)

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I believe you can even do direct imports from LJ/Dreamwidth, though there's a little metadata cleanup, due to it not really being a fic archive site.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm determined to archive some of the better stuff.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, the two of you -- what a veritable combo! May I poke you for what you're writing?

And I think indulgence is good; it's just that some of my writing...isn't? I have archived some of my SGA fic, and keep thinking about more of it, and about of my BtVS and AtS fic. If I go forward I would not do a re-write.

I could wax philosophically about how the past is a different country where they do things differently, but there's a bunch of reasons: I am lazy and strapped for time; I may not be able to do the spirit of the show justice so long afterward; I could not fix what was wrong (or improvable) anyway even with effort.

You, of course, could totally make a different choice. :)

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I've decided to wade through and archive the bigger stuff, or stuff I was proud of then as is - as long as I'm not horrified now:)

And we just finished the draft of an MCU fic:)

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

I archived what I still liked, and let what I didn't slip into the ether. I'm glad I did both of those things.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

I will totally help you upload and format what you want to post, now or when we're chilling at IHW...

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

It's because you're the best:) Thank you!