Hi All,
Not sure how many of you all remember me. It's been a very very long time since I was here. But I'm back. For good this time.
Let me start by saying that I hope that all of you are doing well in this unprecedented time. I hope that you are all finding a little bit of solace and comfort in this website, in these authors' stories, with everything that is going on in the world.
Secondly, I feel like I owe many of you an explanation as to what happened. I love to write. Writing on this website was the first time that I had ever let anyone see my works. It was something that I did for myself and I kept to myself. And the feedback that I got was...incredible. Finding that people liked my writing, that they liked my plots, that I was a decent writer was an amazing experience. But I wasn't prepared for the backlash. I love criticism, but I believe that it should come from a constructive standpoint. I believe that readers and authors alike on this website should try to uphold a sense of community instead of tearing each other down.
At the height of my writing, I was getting so many negative comments. People were sending me direct messages and saying terrible things about me personally. I was a college student, living on her own for the first time, navigating so many things in life. When the critiques that I was getting were no longer about my work but about myself and my life, it started infecting my psyche. I second guessed every single thing that I did, both in my writing and outside of it.
Writing had always been for me. It wasn't for someone else. It was my escape from the world, my safety blanket. And I felt like people were tearing at it, trying to rip it apart. What I felt was a piece of myself that I was sharing with the world was somehow not good enough. And then to top it off, people started stealing my plots and my stories. It was just too much.
So I left.
I disappeared. I went on hiatus. I actually stopped writing. I decided that I was clearly not good enough (even though the good reviews and comments I received far outweighed the negative; I couldn't get the negative out of my head). I took all my stories down. I deleted them off of my computer. I ran away and hid.
For three years, I've been hiding. I let all my stories float around in my head but refused to put them down on paper. Until I realized, recently, that I was letting people win. Writing, whether it's perfect or not, is a gift. All of us kids that had these wild imaginations have gifts to share with the world; and when the trolls of world break us, they take away another rainbow beam from the world. I refuse to let my shine by dimmed by others.
So I'm back. I will NOT be reposting the Twilight stories that I had up. I'm not 100% sure what I'll do with them. But I will be reposting something, anything. I will be getting back into writing and those who follow me can expect to see new works from me starting Monday.
I wish you all the very best during these crazy times. If there is ever anything I can do to help a fellow reader or fellow author, please do not hesitate to message me.
Best wishes,
M. Michelon