Alright, spill. Which one of you did this? I know it was one of my readers. I mean it has to be. Normally, I don't go scrolling around blogs like this one because I want to stay away from negativity, especially when it comes to writing. But today, I just got curious and I ended up scrolling through this one while I was on the EXO tag. And I found this post! Okay, well, whoever it was who submitted this, you have no idea how surprised and excited I got when I saw this. I think you're amazing, anonymous-submitter! I especially like the quardruple-D smiley face at the end. 

Anyway, just thought that maybe I would take a little time to address some of the posts I saw on this blog. Although it comes off as pretty hateful and negative, I think that some of the confessions on this Tumblr are true, as well. Aside from posting and blogging, I actually spend a very minimal time on AFF so I actually don't have many complaints. Although it does bother me when other writers spam my wall or inbox with advertisements and I get extremely turned off by writers who manipulate the font size, color, style, and alignment too much. I am also not entirely convinced that the "Most Upvoted Story of the Week" is always exactly deserving of that place at the forefront of the site. But I'm happy with the readers and subscribers I get, so I'm not that bothered by it. It seems that a lot of people get annoyed with it, though, or at least from what I see on this AFF Confessions Tumblog. 

Something that really caught my attention on AFF, though, was the amount of really young writers on the site. I'm talking 12-15 year-olds. I think it's great that young kids want to try their hands at writing; writing is pretty dope-tastic and all, but I do agree that 12-13 year old girls writing is a little uncomfortable. I mean, I'm 19 and even I'm uncomfortable writing . I mean, I read some M-rated fics and some writers can pull it off well, and hey, kudos to them, but if you're twelve-years old, I think you need to stick to a fanfic genre that's more appropriate for your age, or at least save that writing for when you're more informed. On a sidenote, dang, I wrote my first fanfic when I was twelve, too. It was for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and then I took a break between 14-17 years old when I focused on original stories and poems. Then I was back to fanfics when I got into Kpop. So yeah, short history lesson there.

It was a bit sad scrolling through the Tumblog and seeing a lot of writers being called out in not-so-nice ways. A couple I saw on there were ErisChaotica, dbskgirl4ever, Goddess, kfanfiction, and others. And like I said, I spend a very minimal time on AFF so I actually don't even know these writers (although I follow kfanfiction on tumblr and she's awesome, just saying) but as an amateur writer myself, I know that this kind of thing can be really disheartening. Most writers don't always crave popularity; what they do crave is feedback and constructive criticism. I guess I'm fortunate that I didn't get called out in such a way. But you guys, you know, if you ever have a problem with me, you can come over here and tell me about it and not go on Tumblogs like this and confess it anonymously. You know, things like "your author's note is too long", "you tagged this story as 'myungsoo' but he was only in it for one paragraph", or "your blog posts are meaningless" or even bigger things like the quality of my writing, topics I talk about, or touchy material in my stories. Seriously. Like... I am okay with that.

Writing and posting stuff online since I was 12, I understood that when I joined AFF that there would be a lot of picky readers and that I would have to deal with people who might not like what I write. I mean, this is the Internet after all and people shoot you when you dare to have opinions. Does anyone know that author, Alex Flinn? She wrote that book Beastly and it got turned into a movie with that chick from High School Musical? I read Beastly when I was 13 or 14 and I absolutely loved it; it was a modern fairy tale with a fresh twist and I was so into it. So when Flinn's next book came out, A Kiss in Time, I was really excited to read it. But instead, I was painfully underwhelmed and I didn't think that it was as good as Beastly. And I decided to send Miss Alex Flinn an email telling her that although I loved her first book to death, I didn't really like her second book and that I thought the ending could have been so much more epic and that the male character was boring and blah blah blah. And I waited, and days later, I got her reply: "Dear Emma, I'm glad you liked Beastly. Sorry you didn't like the second book. Best regards, Alex Flinn." 

Although I was a little bit disappointed that she didn't seem to pay as much attention to her reply as I did in my email, I think I learned a lesson about receiving criticism. I learned that when someone doesn't like what I write, read their comments and concerns carefully, take what you can and learn what you can from it, and then just apologize. That's what I always keep in mind while I write for AFF. Thankfully, I haven't gotten any negative comments from people here, but I have gotten a few on Tumblr, but I try to stay classy and calm when handling negative things. What I find is that people who bash are generally very stubborn and they already have their minds made up about what they think of you and what you write. So why waste your time trying to change them? This is what you've got, so just apologize, fix it later, or find a way to make it work. I guess, in a way, this is also how I try to live my life when I face problems. 

I think one challenge for me is trying to maintain a balance between being an AFF writer and just being a fellow AFF user. Because as I writer, I know that if I spend too much time interacting with readers, eventually, my writing is going to change in order to adapt to what AFF readers want to read. And even though it seems like a nice idea, that's not what writing should be. My writing should express what I want to express. Yet at the same time, I know that if I try to stay too distant from readers, I might be perceived as pretentious or arrogant. #AFFwriterproblems

For me, one thing I'm not keen on with AFF is the amount of "Writing Guide" fics. I mean, yeah, I've been through a couple of them just out of curiosity. But what I don't like about a few select writing guide fics is how pretentious the writers are. I mean, I would be more willing to read their instructions and go along with them if they earned my trust by using a friendly, approachable sort of tone. But what I regret to find in most writing guide fics is that writers just use them to rant about how awful the writers on AFF are and point out their flaws or make fun of other people's mistakes. And if you were really trying to help those writers, you wouldn't be approaching the writing-guide project in such a way. I've been approached by some people asking me to make a writing guide fic, but I've always said no because I don't want to turn into one of those. Like seriously, most (if not all) of those Writing Guide authors don't even have writing credentials, and they use pretty arrogant tones for people who don't have writing credentials. If an author really wants trustworthy advice, they should consult a real writer or get a book about it. I use Schaum's Quick Guide to Writing Stories by Margaret Lucke or novel-writing-help.com. At least the people who write those use amiable tones and have a BA in English and/or creative writing. 

With that, I also have itty-bitty problems with review shops. I've had my stories reviewed before and only because I was craving the kind of feedback that I don't get from commenters and readers. But what bothers me is that some review shops' scoring cards also take into account the story's "appearance". Like... why does my graphic poster (or lack thereof) affect the score of my story? I want my story reviewed, not the graphics. That's the same thing as judging a book by its cover. Well, yeah, by all means, if the font is so heavily-manipulated that you can't even read the damn story, then go ahead and dock points, but if you're giving me a 0/10 for appearance because I haven't messed with the font at all and I have no background or poster, then I seriously have a problem with you. 

Oh my goodness, know what else I don't really like? When authors have character maps or describe the characters in the foreword/description of the story. The whole point of writing a story about a character is using your writing skills to introduce that character to a reader without actually telling them who they are. Like, haven't you all heard of that writing rule, "show, don't tell"? Like, seriously, if you're just going to tell me who your character is and what happens to them, I may as well save myself some time and not read your story at all. I would much rather meet a character in a story than read a character map.

Well, anyway, I guess this is the end of this post for now. To the person who submitted this confession to AFF Confessions on Tumblr, you're pretty awesome, no lie <3 Also, I love you and you now hold a very dear place in my heart. This is so damn flattering, you have no idea. Kthxbai