Instantaneous De-Motivation · 4:51am Jun 30th, 2017
I've never gone from "hell yeah, I love working on this" to "fuck this story" as quickly as I have with Nothing Without Me.
I'm not canning it or anything. In fact, I'm working on a chapter right now. It's just incredible how quickly a handful of people can take something I felt genuinely proud of, something I thought was good enough to share with you all, and immediately invalidate it. Like, I was so excited to put out NWM that I stopped working on S.E.X.Y., The Many Sparkle Interpretation, A Made Mare, and a real novel that I could someday make a career off of, I put all of that on hold just to get the idea out. And people like it, so I really don't know what the fuck I'm complaining about. NWM, rating-wise, has fucking decimated my expectations. But, a few negative comments and one irritating PM later, and I suddenly feel like shit about the whole thing. And I hate to sound whiny or bitchy or thin-skinned, I really, really do. But I have a habit of keeping these things close to my chest, letting 'em fester, and I don't know if that's healthy. So that means you guys get to hear me bitch and moan for a bit.
Truth be told, I doubt this blog will make it to morning before getting deleted. This was just me venting in the only way I can.
Well, I hope you feel better.
Doucheweasels have the remarkable ability to sour one's mood in record time. They can fuck off, this is your slice of entertainment that you are providing for free, so it's not like they get any say in it.
But I feel ya. Keep on soldiering on.
I'll parrot what Kai said, there's not much I can do to help you out, I just hope your mood may improve in time.
If there's one thing I really like about the community on this site, it's that people who click on these blogs tend to understand how emotions work, so you won't get people whining at you to toughen up or whatever. This is essentially a hobby after all (if this was professional and something you were paid to do, then it'd be another story), so people won't mind if you vent, as long as you don't attack anyone specific. I know I definitely have a few motivation killers on this site (mainly people who take their head canons and fanon as canon and treat everyone who disagrees as idiots and those fanboys who can't comprehend not liking something that they like and attack you over it) and letting it fester never really helps. I usually just rant to my little brother or best friend, or sometimes type out something cathartic and delete it (whether a "story" or comment). Letting it fester tends to sour me on the next few fics/episodes I see and generally assume worse of people on the site. Hope it blows over or that venting helped.
I'm sorry to tell you this (and you've probably heard it before), but there'll always be people that don't like what you do. It's imposible to please everyone. You have to learn to ignore or deal with it or else you'll just never be happy with what you do and your works. If you put effort into it and feel proud of it, what does it matter what people think? If you are unsure, then trust me and everyone else who read and put a like in NWM; the story is good so far and there really is people interested in seeing more of your work
Honestly, the majority speak for itself. It's an amazing story that completely broke your expectations and that is something you should be proud of. There are always going to be those people who will down vote and or say negative things, but I completely agree with JackDragen.
If it is something that you enjoy making and the idea sits well with the community, then keep doing what you are doing. Taking criticism is one thing, but negative feedback that don't prove how or why they dislike it means they really have no idea how well the idea sits. I enjoyed the simple introduction of Raven and her Miss Pauling esque character (as Miss Pauling is a personal favorite character of mine) and I would really love to see more of her life as "royal princess sitter".
Always will be a few complainers. I think the fact it has over 170 likes already and quickly shot to close to the top of the hot stories and featured stories speaks for itself that it has a strongly positive reception. Know what my most popular story I wrote has for likes? 10 likes
The thing that irritates me most is when a downvote shows up on a story and whoever left it doesn't bother to explain why and you're just like, "HOW DO I MAKE YOU HAPPY?"
It might actually be tied with that person who sends an irritating PM, because then you're like, "HOW DO I MAKE YOU LEAVE?"
If I've learned nothing else from my time here, it's that the one thing you will never find when you try to make sense of the actions of readers is Bigfoot.
You just need to find a way to ignore the neigh sayers and do it for yourself. If you like it ,awesome others will too. If they don't like it . buck um you can never please everyone. But just judging from the non dickish comments people like what you write. Don't let a couple of twits stop you.
I thought 'Nothing Without Me' was good.
The minor character of choice was likeable, and your world-building was engaging.
I'm sure I left a positive comment - definitely fav'd and upvoted.
I have no idea what these negative jerks could have picked on.
If it's any comfort, I rather liked it. I've always got the impression that Celestia dresses like a mad parrot and talks like a plate of beans working it's way out of a cows digestive system. I also liked Raven, she reminds me of a senior civil servant I used to know, who used to go on constantly about how his minister would cock things up without him there to restrain exuberance.
Oh look I'm the irritating PM guy!
I gave your story a like and will give it a fave later. So honestly it's not that I didn't like it. So no need to feel bad about yourself.
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No. This was not the point of this blog. I don't want to whine my way to likes and favorites. If you didn't like it then, don't pretend to like it now just to make me feel better, because that makes me feel unquantifiably worse.
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I literally apologized.
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All right. But honestly, you are a good writer. No need to beat your self up. The rest of the world already does a good enough job at that. (It does the same to me sometimes. And honestly, it's not like anyone explains their down-votes to me. So I sort of stopped caring and concentrated on writing the ideas I liked.)
So write with confidence, and try to live a bit more everyday.
man, if don't don't feel the motivation of doing something related to your hobby then take a small break. Love your stories, characters, and writing, we would all love to see you give 100% for the next chapter, even if that means it'll go on a hiatus.