04-05-05 @ 9:58 am EDT

Hm. Now I am really not sure WHAT to do.

You see...today I got bored and...went to FictionPress.com, the former Fanfiction.net. >_< Yes...THE Fanfiction.net...the same guys I have been bitching about for years now, ever since the stupid setup of their edit/upload page prevented me from updating or even deleting parts of my story, Manitou Island. I got all the way up to Part 102 before I could not edit it anymore--they include all the edit fields for EVERY chapter on the same page, meaning, it refused to ever load properly. Fields would be blank and unusable, or completely missing; even scrolling down the page resulted in errors. The problem COULD have been easily solved...by the webmaster breaking the page up into more than one!

I e-mailed tech support, at every single damn address they had on the site, for YEARS trying to get a response. The site changed names, they banned adult fics, yet nobody ever bothered responding to any of my e-mails. Out of frustration I decided to simply do the one thing that made sense. I stopped posting...ANYTHING...on the site. In effect, I boycotted it. I never even went back to visit it short of once or twice when I tried the upload page again, without luck. Any reviews I got (and I did somehow continue to get a few on other stories), came to my e-mail address. So I never went back. I saw no reason to, if they cared so damn little about their users that they couldn't even tweak the page layout a tad to help them update their stories!

Well...I just went back there today. Figured out my e-mail and password and logged in on the first try (go figure). Changed my e-mail address since it's had that dumb outdated "tehuti_88@2die4.com" one for ages. Changed my profile a bit and...clicked on the edit/upload page, then on "Manitou Island." And...

All the edit fields loaded. They're all there, plain as day. It LOOKS (I don't know for sure because I haven't TRIED it) like I could edit or add to it again, should I choose. (Now that I've said that, it probably doesn't.)

I don't know for how many chapters, though. This story is 110, and RTMI is more than that, and still going. I'm guessing it's the change to WinXP that made it work, since it's not the browser (IE6); I tried downloading the new browser when it first started acting up--no luck. I do not know how many edit fields it will allow on the page, though. But at least I can access my story...which means...I can add to it, edit it, or delete it.

And I'm not sure what I want to do. :/

* If I choose to add to it, then it's obvious why--readers! That story has 97 reviews on it there--mostly short silly things, but still...that's more than I have gotten ANYWHERE ELSE on ANYTHING of mine--even here. Thing is, most if not all of those readers are long gone. Still, I could add the remaining eight chapters, and start on the sequel, and add more of my writing which isn't even on the site yet.

* If I choose to edit it, I could delete SOME of the chapters and post them as a new story, just in case the edit fields become troublesome again down the line--a thing I had considered before, but couldn't do because 1. I couldn't even delete anything! and 2. posting separate chapters is AGAINST SITE RULES, even though my numerous e-mails to tech support begged to know whether I would be allowed since the page WOULDN'T LET ME EDIT. (I was screwed either way!) They never bothered answering me on THAT, either. (They DID show up to delete one of my stories which broke a rule, and to ban me from the site for a few days, but they can't answer my pleading e-mails for help! How great is that?)

* Or I could DELETE the entire thing...but not to get rid of it...rather, to start completely afresh. I could delete ALL of my fics and start all over from the top. BUT, I don't know if they have any new irritating restrictions since I last left (upload limits?--story number limits?)...and if I did this, I would lose all the reviews I have. Which is a lot. Go figure that the crappiest site I uploaded to, is the one where I got the most attention. -_-

There's also no guarantee that I would GAIN any more readers this time around, either. Remember my early days at WC? Readers up the wazoo. Now? Barely any. Things have changed on the Web.

So I really do not know what to do. I MIGHT have a chance to try afresh there, but who knows if it will work, and who knows if it will be worthwhile. Should I post what I have left and leave what's already there, up? Should I edit it (which when I think of it serves little point)? Or should I save my reviews to disk, delete everything, and start anew? :/

I probably shouldn't have gone back. Number one, I will probably mess up the stupid page again just as I start to gain hope, and number two...um...what was number two? Crap! >_< Well, whatever number two was, it was equally irritating and uncertain! Bleh! Oh well, number two probably was, I wouldn't likely gain readers there, either! Plus, even though I'm itching to at least try, I AM still very sore about their total ignoring of me. The thought of breaking my self-imposed boycott is galling, even if it is in the interests of entertaining people and getting some attention.