I hate searching for stories...

[alaylith]

Long an stupid rant behind the cut, ignore if you want. Just need to let out my frustration.

I really, really, really hate to search for stories.

I save all stories that I read (and which I liked even if only a little) and sometimes I even sort them - for a while. Sometimes I wish to reread certain stories some weeks later and I am almost always able to find them.

But I really hate it if I want to read a story which is a bit older...

It took me now over three HOURS to find one story I really wanted to read again, but I already saved that one about a year ago. So the search began...

After searching everywhere I found a folder with other stories of which I was completely sure that I read them at the same time, so I continued to check the stories in the folder, but wasn't able to find the one I was looking for. Then I searched the other possible folders for stories saved at the same time (July 2010, so really a year ago), but had no luck either.

Then I went to FF.net and tried searching there - I looked over 60 pages of stories searching for the name of one of the main protagonists, because I was sure that the name was at least mentioned in the description.
60 pages later - no luck.

After that I went back to the folder, because that was the only possible place where the story could be. And I opened every damn story and looked at the first chapter hoping to find the story.

Halfway through the list I found a multichaptered story, which I already checked before, but I re-checked it and BAM! My story was part of this multichaptered story, but started at the second to last chapter of 9 (so my story is in truth only the end of another larger story consisting of several smaller ones). Now it was just damn luck and a nagging feeling that granted me to find my story again.

And now I am way too tired to even read it! ;( Already copied the story in an extra folder so I'll definetely find it again tomorrow and then I am going to read it right after I wake up.

I've got way too many fanstories saved and even if I sort my favourites I am very often not able to find them if I want to read them again (it's quite common for me to wish to re-read a story months or even years later).

There are two other stories I wanted to read recently, but was not able to find. One I fear I foolishely did not save, so I will never find that one again. The other I am pretty sure I know the author of, but she got so many stories I would have to read them all (because truthfully there is only one special scene which I want to read again...) and I already read those stories I was thinking contained this part over the last weeks with no luck.

And then there were so many other times when I wanted to read somethign and was not able to find it.

Anyone else got this problem? Wishing to read a story again and not able to find it?
Do you have a special sorting system for your fanstories and are you able to pull it through?

There are times when I do nothing but reading and I've got dozens of stories at the end without immediatly sorting them. This goes on for weeks and in the end I have hundreds of files and I always think that I am going to sort them later. I am still finding unsorted stories from about 10 years ago, so you can see how well "later turned out". ._.

Oh man, how I hate to search for stories - but I hate it so much more if I am unable to find the story, because then its going to haunt me for weeks/months or even years! ;_;

At least I found this little one and can read it tomorrow morning. Almost 4 hours not completely wasted at least. ^^