It's Been A While… · 7:35am Aug 2nd, 2014
It's been a while since I've had just posted a normal blog post, coming from me to you, where I've not tagged some story, advertized some fic, or blabbed on about what of the many fics I'm working on. In this blog, I just wanted to talk a bit about myself, because I feel I don't really do that very often.
About five weeks ago, I published a story called Telling 'Shy, and it was an important story to me because it holds quite a personal message for me. It started off as just some silly idea to contribute to a ship I'm somewhat fond of, but it warped itself into something a lot more serious, and a lot more powerful. It stopped really being about the ship itself, but rather the friendship that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy shared. I wouldn't consider the friendship I share with any of my friends to be similar to Rainbow's and Fluttershy's, by any stretch, but I do feel that friendship is a powerful thing.
Who'd have guessed, eh? Friendship is magic, and all. The point of the story was that I love my friends a lot. They mean the world to me. People have commented on some of the friendships I share with my friends with such things as "You're like a married couple!" and "Do you two always act like this around each other?". In particular, I refer to my closest friend. Him and I go way back. We come from very different walks of life and we share so little in common, but we've stuck by each other always.
I remember back when I was thirteen. That was when we became best friends. I used to bully him. It pains me to admit it, but I did. I had a group of friends, and we used to pick on him. I was really tagging along, but I was still at fault. Then one day, I couldn't stand it anymore. We went out, and we pushed him too far. He burst into tears right in front of us. A thirteen year-old boy pushed to tears in front of his peers. Something inside of me snapped, and I told my group of friends that this wasn't cool. I took him back to his house, and spent the rest of the evening hanging with him instead. I enjoyed myself a lot more, and never regretted the decision.
Five years later, and here I am. I still can't believe I would ever bully someone. Given who I am today, it pains me to think I'd ever hurt anyone. But hey, that's life. I learned a lot from it. It's not 'given who I am' because it made me who I am. It's that friendship that inspired me to write about Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash like that. We're as close as peaches, and I swear if I didn't know he was straight, he'd be gay. And Telling 'Shy was a story that barely took a baby step towards showing the full extent of that. He reads all my stories, but this one was written for him. If you read the author's note, you'll see why.
Written with my best friend in mind—the kind of friendship where everyone swears to God you're a married couple.
Because really, sometimes the line between friendship and relationship becomes so blurred that you're just like, "Man, I love you—
—No homo."
Truth.
So it kind of saddened me when I went down to see him a few weeks ago, and found out that he hadn't read the story. I didn't feel like bluntly telling him what was in the author's note. I was hoping he'd give it a read soon enough.
But then he started talking about how he didn't want to be a part of the fandom anymore. It was for a variety of reasons, of course. Mostly the usual: Hasbro, the shame with his other friends, bronies being given a bad name, etc. I didn't really think much of it at the time. It's his life, and if he prefers World of Warcraft over My Little Pony, then that is fine by me. We're still hoping to cruise round London Comic Con in October.
However… as I was getting the train back home, I realized that it was putting a damper on my mood. To excarberate that issue, I was isolated in the middle of nowhere on my own. Two weeks of looking after my pets while my mother goes on holiday. Two weeks alone. It gave me a lot of time to think, mostly while talking aloud, and the more I thought, the more I thought why I had even bothered to write 4500 words if the one person I wanted to read it didn't see it. I honestly don't mind if you 325 followers read it or not, nor whether the rest of Fimfiction gave it a chance or tossed it a downvote. All I cared about was this one friend catching a glimpse of the world through my eyes.
But he didn't. And he's not going to.
Which kind of made me question why I'm even on Fimfiction at all. If my writing wasn't being read by the people I wanted to read it, what was the point? In case any of you ever thought otherwise, I was never interested in 'getting famous'. There's a reason why I spend most of my time running ten groups, rather than pumping out a fic every week like SS&E or whoever else is particularly prolific (Honestly I don't really read much in the way of big authors. I read My Little Dashie and thought it was alright. That's about it). I enjoy my writing because I usually put far more thought in than is necessary, and it probably goes straight over my friend's head anyway.
It just bummed me out that anything I wrote now wasn't really written for anyone. I wouldn't say I was depressed, per se… more that I stopped eating, went nocturnal, ceased productivity, only really wrote about 1000 words of worthwhile material and generally felt pretty lonely. I love talking to people and meeting new people, but here? Here, in the middle of nowhere, I have to stare at a computer screen in order to get any social contact. I thought I would write more. I was hoping I would write more. Here was my one chance to get some writing done, but instead I was just sitting around doing nothing useful and feeling miserable while doing it.
That was up until about a week ago. I decided to go for a run. I tend to do that when I'm feeling like this. Go for a run, have a shower, and then hopefully go out partying. Actually, that reminds me. I might see if I can go out partying tonight. It's only a forty-five minute walk across a valley to the nearest bus stop, after all. But I digress, a week ago, I decided to change my attitude. I decided to change who I'm writing my stories for. I decided to write it for everyone. For me, for you, for Fimfiction. I want to push myself to write something that's groundbreaking, even if it's only groundbreaking for me. And I want to push myself to write something that others will enjoy and find inspiring.
Since then, I've felt much, much better.
Just in case anyone was interested in me. 
Well that was quite the insightful blog post
It's always good to just talk about things like this. It helps to open yourself up to others, even if it's only on the internet
That was amazing.
That an insigthsul blogpost; also thanks alot for sharing your talent with us.
if I didn't knew who you're talking about I would be completely lost with this blog post. But I do know, and I feel really bad for knowing he didn't cared for reading something like that fic of yours, and the Goddesses know that I saw how much insight you put on Tellin 'Shy.
I guess that, in the end, after we mature as writers, we all end up perceiving we do this more to test and push our own limits than trying to impress x group of people or y specific person.
And it really brings a smile to me that you decided to write for everyone and to push you to the best you can and beyond, because the Goddesses also know how I love your works.
Just as a reminder: "Everyone needs to land sometime."
Let's keep groundbreakin' things old chap.
I know that feeling. "Why am I doing this?" is something that comes up a lot as a writer, for writing in general and not just fanfics. I generally think of it as an obligation to create, which doesn't necessarily make me feel better, but it does get things done. These days I try to see it as if I brighten just one person's day with what I've done, then it wasn't time wasted. I try.
If it helps, my thought process while writing the Mirror Fidelity series was "Why am I doing this? Everyone's going to hate this." "Yeah, but I bet Vexy will read it." "Good enough for me."
Wait...you weren't born a nocturnal creature of the night?
This explains everything! How you can actually socialise and stuff!
Please teach me your ways oh great day walker!