Hey guys, it's kinda been like 8 years since this story was posted and 6 since I updated? Quick update, I'm 21 now, I was 12 when I posted this (it was posted before my birthday that year). I'd like to think I've improved greatly but I can only tell you from grades of academic papers since I don't publish any of my fictional writing. And I wanted to talk about that, and kind of leave this story as a testament to something I think is important.

I know this a general conscious nowadays, but I still want to say it because I do think sometimes, we forget that our experience and knowledge is not always universal.

Be kind to young, inexperienced writers.

I had a sort of blast from my past recently and everything made sense why I don't post my writing. I wrote this, self admittedly not good, fanfic when I was 12. And I posted it. It's the kind of stuff you'd expect from someone just getting into writing, honestly the quality isn't much better than My Immortal, truly. It's more grounded in reality and the world it was set in (iirc), but grammar, spelling, and such wasn't good. It only had a few chapters because one of the early chapters got a review that was really harsh (it's not hard to find on here because there's not a lot of reviews, but don't go find it and hate on the person, if the account is even still active, that's not what I'm about). The general idea was, you're a bad writer, your grammar and spelling are bad, but the closing statement was "Your writing sucks, and you need to fix it pronto! Gosh, you're writing makes my eyes want to bleed! So, go fix this story.".

The story has a couple more chapters I had already written before getting this review, and some hollow promises of updates, I think I even promised a re-write in the last update, but I still have that on my computer, and it got like 5 lines in before I gave up again, none of it ever came to anything. I never wrote another word of this story after that. I just couldn't, I felt like a huge failure. And while I have dozens of backlogged stories on my computer, one other has seen the light of day and it was a one shot with a premise inspired by some Tumblr posts.

When I look at some stories from the same time, several I remember starting around the same time with the intention of posting once this one was complete, I laugh at my inexperience, I chuckle at simple mistakes, but I don't feel bad. When I think about this story, and the few times I've brought myself to look at the chapters of it, I cringe, and I feel shame. I thought this story was really good at the time and looking back with the knowledge I possess now I can objectively say it would need a lot of improvement before I would consider it passable.

The difference is, if someone had approached it being constructive, rather than cruel, maybe I would have actually learned from it, improved. Maybe, I would have finished this story and it would have been better and maybe I'd still be posting other things to this day. But I'm not, one person's words were so damaging at such a young age that I have hardly posted another word.

Now, I have a fear that if I ever post something I think is good, I'm wrong, and everyone will hate it, and I'll get more comments like these. And I know, you can't expect everyone to love your work, and people are cruel, but that was a big blow at a fragile age. I'm not saying don't leave critiques, I'm saying be constructive, not cruel because you could so easily be the reason a young writer's creativity is completely snuffed out, or their ability to share their passion is gone.

Thanks for reading this, if anyone ever does. I probably won't ever know, this account has been long abandoned, and I've moved to reading on other sites, but I just want people to remember to be kind. Have a lovely day, and I hope you find success in all endeavors.