seethingheathen | Here we go.

I promised

goodtwin a good rant, so here it is.

Edit: Amends have been made over in the community, but I still stand by my rant.

If You Can't Take the Crit, Get the Fuck Out of Fandom.
by Sonja.

Not everyone can write a great story. That is a fact of life. If we could all do that, we'd all be famous authors with hundreds of books on best-seller lists and not writing smut on the internet. We are, for the most part, amateurs. Amateurs who post things on the internet because the things we like to write about could not ethically be published in a book. Even if they could, most of us are lacking the skills to write a publishable novel. Fanfiction is an amateur's genre, and there is no shame in being an amateur.

With the internet came instant global publishing capabilities, so now those of us who will never hope to be actual published authors have a way to write for the masses and receive feedback. In a lot of cases, the feedback is positive, because the story is good. Not great, but good. There are a few absolutely brilliant pieces floating around cyber space, but they are few and far between, let's face it.

Sometimes, the feedback is not so positive. This is a fact of life. Not everyone likes everything, and some people vocalise their distaste. As human beings, we like to be accepted and praised, and we are emotionally damaged to a degree when people criticise us. It is normal to feel hurt when someone insults you. But, at the same time, we must be accepting of the fact that there will be people who say hurtful things. We must also realise that as internet smut writers, we have such a wide potential audience, that there will always be at least one person with something negative to say. It's a hazard of the genre. Not everyone can write a believeable romance or smut scene.

I get a little bit nervous whenever I go to post a fic, because I know that some people may not like it. Thankfully, I've never really gotten a bad review, but I know this is merely because those who don't like my stories don't tell me they don't. I'm lucky no one's ripped the pish out of me yet. Some people aren't that lucky, and that's too bad. But it's the way life goes, so deal. It's fanfiction, not literature.

The bottom line is this: if you can't stand the fact that someone out there may have the bollox to tell you they don't like your work, don't publicise it. Plain and simple. Anyone whose fics get the piss taken out of them on