This is harsh. It's not directed at you, because you have been kinder to me than I deserve.

The Problem Is Invisible, So It Doesn't Make Sense, So It Must Not Be Really Happening.*

-:- -:- -:-

This is the only way I know to keep this crap from building up and eating me up from the inside. Sometimes I just have to scream. This is me screaming.

I never set out to write for strangers.

When I was a kid, I wrote because there were always stories in my head. I couldn't finish them; there were too many stories, and too much blank paper, and I was a kid.

I wrote for my friends, when I had friends. When I had friends, I had friends who liked stories. Mostly the stories were fan fiction: The Mod Squad, The Partridge Family, other things I can't think of right now.

I didn't write much in high school, and no fan fiction. But I was still writing for my friends. Even when I had no friends, I was writing for my friends.

When I met Pat, I wrote for Pat.

For a long time, I didn't write at all, not on paper. There were stories, but they were stories Pat and I created together. Our life was a story we created together—a lot of stories, really. That's not a metaphor. With Pat, I've been everything I ever wanted to be.

Then, a friend at work brought in a zine.

There were stories to write.

For the first time, I wanted to write for a reason that wasn't about having friends. I wrote because if I wrote—and wrote well enough—I could have stories to read. I wrote because I was broke, and writing and getting trib copies was cheaper than buying zines.

That worked out great, and along with the zines, something unexpected happened: I got friends.

I don't do well with friends. I never have.

Eventually, one of my friends turned on another of my friends. Ugly stuff happened. Sides were taken**, and I was on the unpopular one, the one that left me out in the cold.

I wrote a whole novel in a fandom nobody else cared about, but there was always Pat, and she would go anywhere with me. There was always Pat, and there were always our stories together.

Onto a new fandom, one that wasn't new in the sense of just starting, just new for me. A lot of people had loved it, but they'd said all they had to say about it. But I kept writing, and my friends liked my stories. And Pat liked my stories.

Then the world ended: Pat died. Let me rephrase: worlds ended. All our worlds.

And people moved on.

They still liked my stories, but that was all. I wasn't a part of it.

"Please, just put down the stories and leave quietly."


I don't blame them; honestly, if I could get away from me, don't you think I would? But I can't.

And somehow, I'm an unreasonable bitch because I won't just hand over parts of myself.

If I wrote for strangers for money, that would be reasonable.

If I wrote for friends, to make them happy, that would be reasonable.

But I can't find a single thing that's reasonable about writing for strangers for nothing. If people wanted my stories, they should have pretended to like me.***

*Aaron Raz Link

**If two of your friends have a falling out and you drop one of them because you “don’t want to get involved,” you have chosen a side. Also, you're a coward.

***I have been accused of trying to replace Pat because I want someone to fucking talk to me when they like something I've written. This is like telling someone who has turned on a lamp that they're trying to replace the sun.


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