Over 10 years of writing stories, it’s kinda bitter sweet to think how long I’ve been writing. From an excited young author writing stories that had thousands of reads and front paging the old website I wrote on to becoming an old writer who has experienced a lot and learnt a lot. It’s crazy how much this community has changed and left me behind, from people loving my slice of life writing style and loving the characters to now everything just being about lemons and short stories. It’s hard writing when you get left behind and forgotten and even harder knowing the community is shrinking, slowly disappearing as less and less people read stories. I remember seeing hundreds of comments a week on stories, people discussing characters, trying to guess the plots and story arcs and people talking about what they liked or didn’t like. I really have been around for a long time, maybe too long. I used to hate it when writers would either never finish a story or take months to update stuff, but as an old writer I get it. The views, the comments, the interactions dry up and so does your desire to write, you feel pointless, like there is no reason to keep going, you push through it and write anyway, writing thousands of words, checking every sentence all for it to amount to 30 reads and then you look at what’s popular and what’s recommended and just feel kinda hollow. None of it was worth the effort and it just drags you down and refuses to let go. I’m not going to abandon the few who still read my stories, but I hope it gives you some clarity and understanding as to why a lot of us long time writers just don’t work as much as the newer writers do. I know I’m not the only one who’s like this.
