Hello, everyone!

Writing something after such long time of absence leaves me with a strange feeling of dread that no one will actually remember me anymore. It's strange, it's difficult and in all, it feels new.

I know I've been on hiatus for, more or less, one and a half year now, not only from writing but also from AFF and K-pop in particular. There are different reasons why I left - being completely devoted to my work life was the biggest reason. I was too tired to sit down in front of the computer after 10 hours of work. Besides, I had to take care of myself in my free time. You don't even know how much energy the simple house chores, such as grocery shopping or cleaning up, take away from you. So at the end of the day, writing was the last thing my mind even thought of doing.

But then came the time when I learned how to balance my personal and professional life. I had more time to myself and often had a day with an empty schedule and nothing much to do. So I've tried to come back to writing. But there's a terrifying thing - it's very hard to come back to something you haven't done for a long time. I've never been a person who had it easy when it comes to writing. I think it always took me twice longer to come up with a chapter than others but I liked writing in general and once I got into the flow, I could write something that would satisfy me.

I couldn't do that now. I was struggling to come up with even one sentence that would make sense and didn't gross me out. So after a few miserable tries, I gave up. That was it for me - I didn't want to write anymore, I couldn't write anymore. I basically at writing, really. I knew there were people waiting for me to finish my stories and, although I wasn't planning on writing that final chapter with an apology for dropping them, I just didn't plan on finishing them, hoping they will just eventually forget about me and the stories. That's what actually happens - there are so many brilliant stories there that you hop from one to another if there's one that hasn't been updated in years.

So basically, I decided to stick to reading only. And that's exactly what pushed me back to writing.

I don't want to sound rude or full of myself since I also as a writer (if you can even call me one) but finding a nice story here... is almost impossible. I may sound like a picky reader but I'm not. All I ever wanted was a realism - stories with Baekhyun that didn't have a girl being called sweetheart by every male existing on this planet. Stories that had real situations and real characters I could root for. I didn't find any. When the story seemed good, suddenly all the guys were falling head over heels with the main protagonist. Or the characters were infantile with their speaking. Or they were just amazing at everything...

At this point, I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say anymore but the point is - please try harder, people. There is a thin line between creating a character for the sake of the story and creating a character for the sake of you. I know that every one of us wants to be someone else and writing gives you that power but the character in the story shouldn't be for you to make yourself feel better or achieve something you couldn't in a real life. At the end of the day, that's just a fake person in a fantasy world. And you are you, stuck in the real world with expectations and goals you pushed onto that non-existent character when it's you who should be fulfilling them, talents that you should develop by yourself.

Writing is great, it gives you the power to create the world you want. But it shouldn't be an escape from the real life.

And so, this went so off-topic, as always. As you can see from the title, I think I'm slowly, gradually, getting back from my almost two-year hiatus. It took me a few weeks of crying in front of an empty word document, cursing and throwing things but I finally wrote something I'm happy with and it's for Aporia fic nonetheless. Actually, to get me moving with my writing, I wrote something that was completely non-related to any fic I had ongoing here and I posted it on AFF under a different name so go ahead and look for it if you want, I'm curious if someone would be able to find it and recognize my style (if I even have one to begin with ha!). I hope to come back to all of you who waited and didn't forget me and I hope to come back for good this time. Wish me luck and stay creative!

Love,

Shainiak

PS. I'm sorry if I offended someone with this blog, it surely wasn't my intention.