mayalaen:

It’s difficult for me to respond to comments on my fic, and I don’t
really know why. I feel like it’s one of those things where, if I could
just figure out WHY, I’d know how to get over it and just do it without
agonizing over it and overthinking it. When I’m not doing well mentally, I don’t even try to respond because I psych myself out of doing it.

So… questions to other writers:
How
do you feel about responding to comments?
How often do you do it?
Do you
try to mix up your responses, or do you just go with “Thanks!”
Do you sometimes go long periods without responding to any comments on a fic, then do a catch-up kind of thing?
If so, does this make it easier or harder to respond?
Do you have any kind of schedule, method, or the the like for responding to comments?
Do you think your mental and/or physical health plays a role in response time/content?

To Commenters: It’s not that I don’t like comments. Far from it. In fact, they encourage me to write more and it’s great to know that people are enjoying what I write. It’s also great to see what in particular people liked and what it meant to them.
I’m just an overthinking, over-analyzing dork 😀

I actually kind of hate responding to comments because I never know what to say other than “Thanks!” unless the comment is really speculative or the commenter is asking me questions. “I love this” and comments like that are great but I never know what to say other than “thank you and thanks for reading”. I just feel awkward about it. 

I try to respond once a week. I feel like having a lot of things to respond to at once makes me feel like I’ve actually accomplished something by getting a bunch over and done with. I do like to thank my readers for actually reading my work though, so if it’s not someone I regularly talk to on ao3 or tumblr I will always thank them in my reply. If we’ve talked frequently I’ll be less formal. (Same thing with when I comment, too I always thank the writer for writing what I’ve read.) 

And mental health does play a huge role in commenting. If I’m feeling really low I’m less likely to respond because I just don’t really have the mental energy to do it. If I’m anxious forget it. I’ll be way too nervous to respond in a decent way.