Oh

for

fuck's

SAKE.

You wanna air dirty laundry? Let's air some fucking dirty laundry because if you're going to make me your fucking bogeyman, we're gonna see both fucking sides of the coin.

@intimidatingscones@ is butt-hurt because in response to this, which I saw as the archetypal "suffering beats success" diatribe about art, I posted a fucking Van Halen-grade Motivational Speech.

I was immediately muted ("The new user doesn't know about the ignore function, and is quite hurt that someone would be that mean!") and recieved this love-letter:

I don't know what got you so damn butthurt, but lay the fuck off the young writers. It took me seven years to write it because I was going to high school, through college, AND learning to write, all with severe dyslexia. It had to be rewritten A LOT because I was doing that oh so shameful thing called learning. Fucking get over yourself. You want me to yelp to the high heavens, well good job because nothing pisses me off more than one writer trying to shove their insecurities and deadlines up another writer's ass. If you're pissed that you sold out and I didn't then be pissed at yourself; don't go mucking up my parade.

If sympathy fucks are the worst kind, then gift my book to someone who will actually read it for enjoyment. I don't need shit from you.

To which I spent an hour crafting this response:

Well then.

1) I have no reason for knowing you're young.

2) I have no reason for caring you're young.

3) I have no reason for knowing you have dyslexia, severe or otherwise.

4) I have no reason for caring if you have dyslexia, severe or otherwise.

5) Writing isn't graded on a curve.

6) Writing isn't graded at all.

Wanna be a writer? Write. Don't make excuses. Want me to read your writing? Tell me why it's awesome, not why it's so hard for you. I mean you exactly zero ill will, now as then. I still have a great deal of sympathy despite the fact that you do not seem prepared to hear anything that isn't delivered in the tone of voice you require.

If your brony buddies asked you why they should read your book, would you tell them that it's an erudite exploration of self delivered through fantasy? Or would you tell them that you worked really hard on it? 'cuz even your friends need a compelling reason.

I've got scripts my wife hasn't read. That's not an insecurity thing, that's a "I don't think it's for you" thing. If your writing isn't for your friends, don't expect them to read it. Do expect, however, to have to fight for your readers, always and forever.

Helen Keller wrote a book. So did Christy Brown. Adversity's a bitch, don't get me wrong... but in the end, the only reason people read books is because they're entertaining. You can call that "selling out." I call it "putting food on my family."

It's a quote, by the way. "Barbaric YAWP." Walt Whitman - who, even though he was a conscientious objector, wandered around civil war battlefields ministering aid because he wasn't afraid to get dirty. Died at 72, lungs shriveled to the size of bananas, unable to walk for the past 20 years, having finished his "deathbed edition" of Leaves of Grass.

I doubt either Whitman nor Hemingway drew comfort from describing themselves as "failed."

PS: Read to the end.

Still muted, I received in response:

Bona Fortuna, Miselle Passer.

(Good luck, unfortunate little sparrow)

In short, to reward two solid hours of effort spent delivering honest, heart-felt, tailored advice to another writer, I got "fuck off and die" and "Latin insults are the best kind of insult."

I'm still muted. If I want to have a conversation with IntimidatingScones it's via PM, and that worked out oh so very fucking well.

So you know what? The problem here isn't the community. The problem here is that some people really want to be offended. She's got me on mute, so I can't say anything to her one way or the other, nice or mean.

But if you wanna keep talking backwards about the big bad boogeyman who, in fact, is one of the few people to actually make an effort (one writer to another) to address the core feelings rather than saying "there, there, it's noble to think that you suck" you might wanna get your facts straight and see just how much of a terrible person that boogeyman actually is.