What I wish I was like and what I always wonder about

I've always wondered if I can even write a good, well-knit story. In the past, friends I've made in the early days of being a writer on and off Fimfic have told me I'm too hard on myself. True, I know I am. It's because I don't want to suck. Even if it's for a hobby and it's not serious, I don't want to suck.

If the term ''Grammar Nazi'' still has any meaning, albeit, with some controversy for the second word, it still applies to me. Never could get over it. Maybe that was my biggest issue with myself, not knowing what I was doing, but it's one of those things you learn without one proper way to learn, so it will come with trial and error. Suppose that's the way most things are learned, regardless.

I do want to write still. My ideas have run out, that's my downfall. I wonder if I can write a story that isn't MLP-based. I want to try writing a Fallout fanfic, maybe do a reading of it. I'm reluctant to waste time on that, but it's made me curious. Few will be interested and fewer will care enough to give it a read. At least, that's what I think.

You see, I am the type of person who can't stand to get things wrong. Grammatically, factually, canon, structurally, characteristically, historically, etc. To get it wrong drives me insane. I am a guy who does his research. I've written for MLP for so long that it's basically all I know. I can't think about writing anything in real life because the reason I write is to escape reality, so writing in reality defeats the purpose to me. I'm saying that despite writing a novel in real life. Granted, it is fictional, but a lot of it relates to real life enough that it's a mood killer for me.

MLP doesn't interest me at all these days. It was interesting circa Season 3, but by time it surpassed that point, it sucked. Rainbow achieved her childhood dream which was more fun to watch on her journey to achieving it, Fluttershy apparently but not officially announced to be married to Discord (or at least in a relationship with him), Rarity is a prolific seamstress, Twilight is now Celestia-sized and ruler of Equestria, Pinkie is married and has a daughter and Applejack is said and heavily implied to be in a relationship with Rainbow Dash.

I hate stories where you see protagonists grow up to the point where the focus is put on their kids or their family. It takes away the focus from the protagonist you're supposed to be watching the journey of. However, that's not what this is about.

I might give it a go one day. I asked before if anything I ever did as a writer or personality on here through the years made an impact to anybody who's followed me or read my work/read my blogs and hardly anybody responded. I'm not quite sure how to take that, but I guess it's fine. I specified very clearly it makes little to no difference to me at all. No, that isn't a cynical remark, either. That's me being true as always.

Having written MLP for so long, I don't know anything else. I can't sit down and write in another world that isn't Equestria because I've spent too long in a world of ponies doing nothing but learning how to write stories about them. It's a mindset I can't switch off, and it is pretty distracting. I may not be the only one with this issue, but it's there, and that is enough for me to notice it. It's like that one very bright lightbulb that you stare at and the moisture evaporates from your eyes and makes them dry, cracked and exhausted, and all you want to do because that's what your brain is telling you to do in order to make them moist again.

I don't like writing and thinking that I'm something I'm not. I never claimed to be anything. I'm simply a guy doing this for a distraction. I always think of myself and what I was like in the older days when the fandom was still very young and going strong, all the hype and excitement people were having, aspiring authors collabing and PM'ing each other with advice and sharing their work. So many good memories of those days through my head each day and I wonder what kind of work I'd be putting out there if I still had that same motivation and energy and ingenuity as back then, like most people I worked with and had long, in-depth conversations with. That all meant something.

I don't give myself enough credit where it's due. I couldn't even form a coherent sentence when I was in school. It was embarrassing. I didn't think I'd ever be able to teach myself how to write like I do now. I'm a two-finger typist, more or less. Hand-coordination is all over the place, never took time to learn or care about learning to adapt my fingers to a keyboard. ''Left hands stays this side, right hand goes that side,'' whatever. That's boring IT guy stuff. I'm a nerd, but my typing skills never got much better than my writing skills, and my writing skills were pretty awful. Which begs why I was taught to write in cursive. Maybe they thought it would help me clean up my writing a bit? Maybe being taught to jumble my words together might somehow make them clearer? Pfft. Nope. It made it worse.

Quite a lot of people have told me they always thought I was older than I was in actuality simply judging from the way my writing was structured. Touching and humbling, but that did genuinely make me smile. It surprised me, but I refuse to have an ego to fill over it. That's one thing I'll never allow myself to have as a writer, and I'm frankly sick of the stereotype that all writers are egotistical snobs who act like they belong to a higher class than they are worthy of. Part of me doesn't want to write over fear of becoming that, and, simply put, it gives some writers a very bad name.

I have never put myself in that place, as I've said. It's self-indulgent and I find it personally to be the wrong attitude, because it simply is the wrong attitude to have. I never expected to get half the comments full of compliments that I did when I first began writing and in the time where my standards got higher. My standards are about the only thing that I've kept high, not much else. There are far more writers out there who have an amazing way with words and an obvious natural talent at writing who deserve far more credibility and notoriety than I do. I don't see myself as great, but I don't see myself as terrible either. In comparison to those authors, I still look like a newbie. I find it funny.

October this year will mark my eighth anniversary on Fimfiction. Crazy, right? Time has flown by since then! I think in all the time that has passed up until this point, this is the most I've ever spoken about myself and truly given myself some of the credit many of you have told me I should give myself for my work.

I may do other things outside of Fimfic, such as story readings and posting random updates with only my voice for comedic reasons, but the truth is I very hardly speak at all outside of those two things. I'm very quiet, reserved and shy as a person and actively disengage myself from making any new friends at all. I have my own reasons for living my life that way, but you should know what you hear online isn't at all what I'm like in real life. Quite a few people would be surprised how boring and quiet my life really is, despite how much heartache and rage I post about my family life. Nothing is perfect, of course, but it's what you make of it, or so I'm told.

I already feel like I've dishonoured my personal rule of not being self-indulgent by being exactly self-indulgent with this blog and explaining a few curiosities, so I think this is the best place to close this up. I don't know if this was of any particular interest to anybody out there who has read my work and/or follows me, but if you were ever curious, you now have an answer. Not a whole one about everything, but still an answer.

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Peace and love,

- FireRain