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real talk: i keep opening my wips and then doing nothing with them. it's like, intellectually i know i'll get good feedback. but i'm still grappling with all this self-doubt and equivocation on what's actually worth my time.
i just don't know how to choose what to work on. i'm constantly striving to vary the style and tone of what i write because i'm trying to challenge myself. but then i find it so difficult to get back into the mindset of a particular fic because they're all so different.
i know i should write what makes me happy. but i hold myself to such a high standard (and without a consistent beta reader because everybody always seems too busy for me) that i don't even know what happy means for me.
is it creative satisfaction? is it getting good feedback from established authors? is it big numbers and good ratios? is it finishing off a story so i don't have to think about it anymore and can say it's done? is it being the best author for my rpf rarepair? i don't know anymore
i've always been terrible at time management and even worse at managing personal projects. and i've never been good at social interaction in any context, but being told someone was afraid to interact with me on tumblr because of a "reputation" set me back a whole fucking lot
it was easier thinking nobody cared about what i said than to know people were talking behind my back and that everything is a popularity contest. it's hard to find that motivation again when you've become terrified of what people think of you
i just want to have a good fandom experience again. but i'm so scared of fucking things up. i'm scared of having another experience where it feels like i'm back in high school and nothing i say will change what people think of me. that it just makes things worse.
you know, i try really hard to be positive all the time but i've found that i frequently got judged on my worst moments. and then i get scared of making mistakes. and then my worst fears are realized when i see people paying just as much attention to small interactions.
i guess i don't want to have another self-fulfilling prophecy, but i also can't stand not being honest with myself or trying to re-center the truth to fit my personal narrative.
so i apologize in advance if my autistic tendencies get the better of me. i'm trying my best to be healthy and stay off social media when i'm upset and log off when something angers me. but please keep in mind that i use fandom to escape the soul-crushing reality we live in.
more often than not i don't mask because masking takes energy. i can be supportive insofar as i can be enthusiastic. otherwise i don't say anything. i need fandom because real life is boring as fuck and ordinary people bore me to tears. i need fandom to be about fictional content
not popularity contests, not ethical dilemmas, and certainly not social media etiquette. i need the humor and the problematic stuff and the sexual content that fills the hole reality left in me. i want to forget reality exists. reality hurt me.
i need to be gross and funny and weird; and then support other people who are also gross and funny and weird because i want to see more of that shit that makes me forget all the terrible intrusive thoughts about bad memories and feeling like less than a whole person.
i know i'm a good person and fucking brilliant and i love so much about myself. but i don't want to have to prove that to everyone every 5 seconds. i just want to have fun and not care about what other people think. it's the only way i've managed to survive.
anyway this thread was entirely too long and rambly but i needed to put it all out there. this is pretty everything that's bothering me right now but talking about it too much makes it worse. but not saying anything at all ends up being an emotional burden that ebbs at my psyche.
compromise: say it once, do it unfiltered, cry a lot, and move on. let's keep going.
