passion and popularity

27th January 2012

Post reblogged from minor earth major sky with 104 notes

passion and popularity

That doesn’t mean it’s enough, every day, or even most days. I still get frustrated. I still get into the funk of but what if I’m just delusional and arrogant? I still worry that people would far rather I shut up and go away, because who cares about these women NPCs I’m writing about, especially when I pair them with more popular characters?

I worry that people resent me, or that they think I’m writing self-insert fanfiction using an NPC as a mask. I worry that I’ll disappoint the small but dedicated audience I’ve been fortunate enough to accumulate.

I worry that if I write too much, people will hate me, and that if I write too little, everybody will leave.

<33333333

This is another tangential point to the whole thing - the fact that a good many of us worry about all of these things when we’re writing for a fannish audience. I think it’s largely due to the fact that there are a whole lot of us who suffer from depression or some other kind of mental issue, because these are the kinds of thoughts that can pervade someone’s (my) entire life if I’m not careful.

In other words - you’re not alone, bb. These kinds of thoughts can suck all the life out of you. I wish there was an easy way around them, but I certainly haven’t found one yet. All we can do is keep pushing back against them, because there are moments when everything clicks and none of it matters any more. And those are the moments I live for. <3

It crops up in non-creative and non-fannish things all the time for me. I’m the poster child for that… impostor complex, or whatever people termed it - that endless feeling that any success you have is luck, and that deep down you’re a fraud, and eventually everybody else will know it to.

I’m lucky enough that sometimes I have moments where I can go, no, actually, I work hard and have had opportunity that’s allowed me to be where I am. Some is luck, some is privilege, but some is actual coolness.

I like who I am as a person, and yet I fear that I shouldn’t. It’s so, so twisted and nasty. But like you said, it’s just something you have to push back against. Find ways to make it easier, to give yourself space, to give yourself room to breathe… and I think I’m doing better. I feel like I’m doing better.

(And I hope that for anybody who’s ever or will ever come to me about similar feelings, I can do at least a little something to make you feel better, too.)

Tagged: meta fridays are for overthinking

Source: minorearth

serindrana

passion and popularity