I like to pretend that I actually remember how I got into fandom, like it was some kind of epiphany that I found slash online. But I really kinda don't. I'm pretty sure I first started reading fanfic in 2003 by way of accidentally finding YYH and HP fandoms. It might have been earlier, but no later then spring of 2003 (because I remember being annoyed I'd not have access to wips that summer). It took me about a year to realize that if I want to be able to find it and read it again I'd better have a better system then haphazard local browser bookmarks (those were mostly wips anyway).
It was still the days of mailing lists and achieves (when I had a much better tolerance for marginal quality fic) that I started saving everything I read to .doc. And I have, in fact (when the number of saved files was way way less then the 9,500 it is now) reread my entire saved fic achieve more then once. Now that it contains ginormous works such as Saving Conner, I don't really think that'll ever happen again.
When I worked the night shift and had access to endless computer printing in undergrad I printed stories out to read them. I don't anymore because 1. expense, 2. at this point I have a laptop, 3. I don't have a job where I could read during anymore.
I got a delicious account in 2006, but I didn't really start using it as an complete redundancy backup/index for my saved fics until somewhere in 2008? I think.
During the last warnings go-round I started a fairly serious retagging project (I used to only do pairing, fandom, fic and slash/gen/het) which actually did change the way I saved stuff, because this is the point where I made absolutely sure that if I saved it to disk I saved it to delicious. I also started making a better folder/subfolder system to attempt to find things if I didn't have internet access.
So far I find the Vista/Microsoft Word 2007 tagging to be...not that useful. But I haven't made a very determined effort either.
I keep telling myself I'll go back and try to find my older fandom favorites in BTVS, HP and SV but that's extremely unlikely. (The bulk of the 9,500 fics saved to disk vs. 5,100 fic tag on Delicious discrepancy is in those fandoms).
I save all of my fics to two different computers, two different backup hard drives and about once a year burn to disk. (Given the amount of digital space I have, digital copies are FREE).
As a random observation, when I started reading fanfic I was a pretty hardcore het shipper (using fanfic as a proxy for my romance novel habit so I could spend that money on pretty non-fiction books instead). All of my saving fic habits didn't start until I switched to almost exclusively slash.
So, my 'system', as it stands now, if I like it enough to reread someday I save it to disk and delicious. If it's drabbles it only gets saved to a cumulative pairing/gen-fandom drabbles doc unless it's a really awesome one. They're just not worth the time/effort for redundancy.
*via metafandom delicious*
It was still the days of mailing lists and achieves (when I had a much better tolerance for marginal quality fic) that I started saving everything I read to .doc. And I have, in fact (when the number of saved files was way way less then the 9,500 it is now) reread my entire saved fic achieve more then once. Now that it contains ginormous works such as Saving Conner, I don't really think that'll ever happen again.
When I worked the night shift and had access to endless computer printing in undergrad I printed stories out to read them. I don't anymore because 1. expense, 2. at this point I have a laptop, 3. I don't have a job where I could read during anymore.
I got a delicious account in 2006, but I didn't really start using it as an complete redundancy backup/index for my saved fics until somewhere in 2008? I think.
During the last warnings go-round I started a fairly serious retagging project (I used to only do pairing, fandom, fic and slash/gen/het) which actually did change the way I saved stuff, because this is the point where I made absolutely sure that if I saved it to disk I saved it to delicious. I also started making a better folder/subfolder system to attempt to find things if I didn't have internet access.
So far I find the Vista/Microsoft Word 2007 tagging to be...not that useful. But I haven't made a very determined effort either.
I keep telling myself I'll go back and try to find my older fandom favorites in BTVS, HP and SV but that's extremely unlikely. (The bulk of the 9,500 fics saved to disk vs. 5,100 fic tag on Delicious discrepancy is in those fandoms).
I save all of my fics to two different computers, two different backup hard drives and about once a year burn to disk. (Given the amount of digital space I have, digital copies are FREE).
As a random observation, when I started reading fanfic I was a pretty hardcore het shipper (using fanfic as a proxy for my romance novel habit so I could spend that money on pretty non-fiction books instead). All of my saving fic habits didn't start until I switched to almost exclusively slash.
So, my 'system', as it stands now, if I like it enough to reread someday I save it to disk and delicious. If it's drabbles it only gets saved to a cumulative pairing/gen-fandom drabbles doc unless it's a really awesome one. They're just not worth the time/effort for redundancy.
Where my account lives.