Incomplete or Cancelled? · 1:26pm Jan 8th, 2021
Blog Number 125: Anti-Ambiguity Edition
Not a long one today: I'm just trying to keep to a positive, productive mindset. In this particular case, wondering if my years-old "incomplete" works should be labelled "cancelled".
I can't decide!
By this, I'm talking about works from 2016 to 2018: anything before that I marked as "cancelled" long ago, helped by the fact that I tend not to care about my primitive juvenilia (defined as anything before my long gap of 2014-2015). Anything after that is complete anyway, because beyond that point I stuck to a very strict rule.
So 2016-2018: that's the range I'm talking about.
For "Cancelled"
See, given how difficult it has proven even to commit to current works, any chance of continuing old works seems so remote as to be negligible. Whereas they lurk at the back of my mind a lot, and I wonder if it'd be kinder to just unambiguously declare them null and void, and spare myself the uncertainty. I really don't like things being uncertain.
In addition, so far the only works I've successfully continued and completed after long months of stalling have been ones that were never published to begin with. Heck, that's why I make it a rule now never to publish anything that doesn't have at least a completed draft behind it.
For "Incomplete"
On the other hand, perhaps my optimism that this'll turn around will eventually be proven correct? After all, it was only a couple of years ago that I'd have said no abandoned work whatsoever was getting completed, including ones that were never published to begin with.
Yet since then, at least two fics that I'd assumed were getting nowhere have proven it can be done. The setback of 2018-2019 aside, I do feel I've been getting more competent over time. Furthermore, the downside to ruling a bunch of fics as cancelled is that a lot of people might abandon something and miss it getting picked up again later.
At the moment, I'm tilting more towards the "cancelled" option than the "incomplete", if only for the sake of closure, however pessimistic. But I've been sitting on this for months, so maybe a public consultation could sway me and decide the matter one way or the other.
I'd really appreciate some advice on this. I'll give it a few days for people to respond, and then see if I can come to a course of action based on what I read. But as it is, I'm stumped.
So... thoughts? 
Impossible Numbers, out.
Well, if you don't want to commit yourself, there's always the Hiatus tag! "Come back sometime, maybe, but definitely not now" kinda sounds like where you're at. And if you ever well and truly know you aren't coming back to them, you can always change them again to Canceled later on.
I've long wished that any "incomplete" story that hasn't updated in at least 6/8/12/X months would automatically be moved to "hiatus" until/unless it actually updated again, but I know there are good reasons for the site not to toy with how people want to represent their fics. Ah, well.
I’m gonna say think about the hiatus option too. That’s probably the best way to hang something up if you’re not certain you’re gonna continue it or not but you might come back to it if the urge arises. Cancelled is a very final term meaning it’s-over-it’s-done-not-coming-back. Don’t do that unless you’re 200% certain.
I only cancel my stories that I know for a fact I’m not coming back to. Everything else, even the stuff I haven’t touched for years, is on hiatus.
There’s not much need for me to dogpile the consensus answer but I’m here so I’m gonna do it anyway!
“Incomplete” is somewhat ambiguous, but tends to suggest it may become complete eventually. “Canceled” suggests “She’s dead, Jim.” “Hiatus” is the big shrug of uncertain fate, but it at least indicates that the author has deliberately put up the do-not-disturb sign.
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This. I have a story on hiatus that has been there for a year. I want to come back to it when I can draw together the inspiration and energy to complete it. Unfortunately, 2020 being what it was, I never got that together, but I still hope to do so, so it stays in hiatus. I am determined to finish it.
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Huh, "take a third option", apparently. Now I'm wondering why I overlooked "hiatus" in the first place...
I'll leave this query open for a few days (deliberately unspecific time frame), but at the moment, I get the feeling "hiatus" will prove the best candidate.