There’s a Water Stain on the Ceiling

You know that bolt of fear you get when you see your little story stats box bearing a single digit number (i.e. 3, 9, 6)? It kind of makes you sick to your stomach. Makes you wanna vomit. Makes you tear up just a little, teensy, tiny bit because you know people have read your work and they just don’t seem to like it?

I’m getting that a lot these days.

As far as I know, the fanfiction world revolves on how many reviews you get. It’s how most people measure your writing ability. Never mind how verbose you are or how many complicated and foreign words you know… Because when they see your profile and scroll down to your story list… most of them stare at the numbers before looking at the summaries (trust me. that’s how it works). It’s disorienting, but that’s how it is. Doesn’t matter how many authors deny that either.

I’ve been losing a lot of alerts lately. 5, I think. And one person’s even removed me from their favorites list. It’s discouraging, actually… since I’m getting the impression that my stories are getting cliche’ and hopelessly predictable.

Which they sort of are.

I think my muse has left me. For good. I don’t even know if I can reach that 90 something alerts I previously had. Or regain the confidence to post my work (without having to go on a panic attack and start biting on my nails again) All I know is, I’m probably already following the trajectory path of my very own death spiral of doom. That’s how bad my writing is getting.

Huh. On second thought… It might have never been as good as I thought it was.

Now, if you’ll excuse me… I’ll continue staring at that water stain on the ceiling again.