I just wrote the best story I've ever written.
At least that's what it felt like. I was about to embark on a new adventure, on writing weekly during the course of a full year for a creative project a Newgrounder recently initiated, where users contributed their stories; users voted on which choices would continue the story. I had one chapter written, around ten pages of relatively large text (as it should be to be readable in screen-reader format), three potential alternatives and a a plethora of ideas for the future expansion of the story. But, the 'publisher' just wasn't having it, he just wasn't digging it, he barked at me and told me the story was dumb, didn't make-sense and seemed to have been written by an amateur.
I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting something along the lines of Holy shit this is fucking awesome. The idea is new. The plot's just bubbling with subtle references to a distant future utopia, new scenarios and sceneries and an intriguing cast of characters! There's an insane amount of potential for this to evolve.
Maybe not exactly along those lines, but I was expecting something positive. Because as of yet, I've only ever received positive response on my work. I doubt my talent all the same, I'm scared of feedback, I stall as long as I possibly can before I open up any textual analysis I'm sent and read it (this applies to work I have high expectations of myself, not the things I spew out in surges of inspiration and don't expect to be that great - like the poetry you can currently find on this site)... but that feedback it's usually surprisingly positive and my ego gets a short-lived boost that spurs me to keep writing.
That didn't happen this time. But... I'm still writing? Actually more so now than I was before I received this negative response. And I'm still really confident about my idea, about the scenario I mapped out. I'm even confident about how I mapped it out. It came to me like an epiphany, an idea that hovered above all others, to an author - a great invention - an incentive for further creative thought (as if I'd made a computer), and it held a new strain of creation, a new world just waiting to be described and detailed.
Maybe it was too big a world to be detailed. Maybe that's what brought it crashing down.
Or maybe that user I shall not name is an asshole with no sense for story-telling (he doesn't write himself, does he?), maybe this just isn't his type of story, maybe it isn't a type of story most people would appreciate, maybe I actually fucked up on introducing the plot; maybe I could've written something better. I don't know. I know I'm taking this too personally and if the receiver of my rage is reading - yes, you - know that this is just my form of venting, it's your call and I respect it but fucking hell I hate it. I'm not used to failure. To grow though, I need to be. Through the mind of a wise man: we need to place ourselves in situations we are uncomfortable so that we improve as human beings
.
I wasn't expecting this to be such a situation. But it was, and I've improved. Even if it's harsh critique I'll take it to heart.
I'll keep writing the story anyway, that's why I'm not detailing the plotline here. I believe in it, and in a way it's good I was denied this task since this gives me more free time to invest in my current projects, and no potential worries of how my schedule might pan out during summer, and most of all: it gave me a preview of what I am most likely going to be getting a lot of as an aspiring author: refusals, denial, adversity and mistrust. Getting recognized is, and should be, a battle.