I have been on this site for long reading, reviewing, writing and deleting stories. Needless to say, it has been one of the few enriching experiences of my life. It gave me the opportunity to make friends across borders, to strengthen my sense of belonging to a fandom, to map  my growth and decline as both a writer and a fan, and most importantly, it gave me anonymity and the freedom to write anything under the sky.

However, in recent times -- almost for the past one year -- I have felt my anonymity being compromised and consequently, my freedom to write being negotiated. When I first entered the site, one of my biggest aims was to make author friends; it was bigger than my aim of improving as a writer. And that aim was reached; the wish answered, for today I know a significant number of amazing authors and can proudly call them my friends. But friendship came with a deal, the content of which I hadn't considered seriously till today. Friendship is essentially driven by a give-and-take routine: you share some information, I share some information. And some times you end up sharing too much of yourself so much so that there is no difference between your authorial persona and the persona offline. This, of course, is a sign of a close friendship but it also marks the rise of accountability which in turn affects your fiction. Suddenly, what you write is not merely a story but a story which grows from some personal experience, an experience they feel entitled to. The situations that you talk of in your story are not mere imaginations but a representation of your 'real' life and as friends they (maybe) rightfully feel entitled to know the 'real' version. But it is exactly this sense of entitlement, this hunger for the 'real' version which has made me take my decision.

First of all, not all my experiences have any 'real' version. More than 50% of the stuff has been excreted by my overactive brain. Secondly, even if it were from 'real' experiences and emotions, I don't think anyone is entitled to pester me about where it has emerged from. The thing is I don't enjoy my anonymity as an author just because I can write anything I want and not be held accountable; I also enjoy it because it allows me to be whoever I want. I could be docile rat in real life but parade as some vicious snake or majestic eagle online and vice-versa. This constant drag, this facade, this attempt to create a story even out of my  existence on AFF makes anonymity so appealing. 

But, as I have mentioned, I have unconsciously started writing 'real' stories which tend to have too much of this amorphous 'real' me and surprisingly , have found myself unable to write it. It is not merely a writer's block; it's straight up writer's constipation. None of my writing satisfies me and by satisfy, I mean it doesn't make me enjoy writing it, and that is because I have no bloody 'real' self and I definitely don't have 'real' stories. The problem with this thirst for the 'real' is that it conflates it with 'fact' and concretizes it. The 'real' self with its 'real' emotions then becomes unchangeable and is forced to follow a set of patterns in order to prove nothing has a gone wrong. But in reality, whatever is 'real' is 'false' the very next moment. I can go to sleep liking a black pen and can wake up hating it and then go back to obsesssively loving it by lunch. 

Apart from this psychological hounding, the popularity of Fighting Perfection has ignited in me a search for a 'good' story. Addicted to the fame and love the story provided me with, I tried to reciprocate the story in my other writings trying really hard to breakdown human psyche in a traditional narratives. I was scared to experiment with genres because I somehow felt 'slice of life' was the genre for me. In addition, all that 'realness' made me attempt to write about stuff in my life that I wasn't comfortable with, stuff I hadn't reconciled myself with just to make a story more 'realistic'. I was literally inflicting violence on myself. I had forgotten that Fighting Perfection did not emerge as a product of years of research and careful character development but was an instantaneous reaction to a certain depressing incident. I had forgotten that I write not because I want to meet certain pre-determined standards but because I simply enjoy the act of writing and the act of having my writing read by someone, anyone. 

I have forgotten to be silly. Actually, I am almost afraid of being silly because being silly does not qualify as 'real', as 'slice of life', as 'serious' writing but I really really want to be silly. I want to write poor stories, terrible stories, horrendous stories and slowly build up to writing good ones. I want to start from scratch and for this very purpose, I have decided to keep this account dormant and delete my stories. I won't be deleting Fighting Perfection because it is still part of a contest but the rest I will. I have already put them on draft status. 

The second part of the decision is finding that 'scratch'. I need a new account however, my country has been conveniently banned from AFF from creating more accounts so as a final request, I would be eternally grateful if someone could create an account for me and send the new username and password via DM. If you want karma points for the same, I am more than willing to give them. So if you are kind enough to do this little task for me inform me via personal message. To be honest, I do have a spare account but I have a feeling this won't be the last time I shed a mask to wear a new one. 

Anyway, so this is a mid-way farewell. Maybe we'll meet as perfect strangers through some story or another.

Update: SkySailor has been immensely kind enough to create a new account for me! So off I go :)