04-06-03 @ 12:17 pm EDT

YIPPEE!! My third Awardicon, on SKEW! ^_^ (The others are on Manitou Island and "Sovereignty," for those keeping track...me...ha...) This is my first one that wasn't the result of a contest or an ongoing awards thing, so WOOT! (I'm still thinking that's some kind of happy/triumphant-type noise and not a vulgar sexual term, but if it is, I trust you'll let me know.)

The comments that came along with it got me to thinking. I've long disliked how I treat my own journal. Certainly, it's frustrating to feel that nobody is reading the entries, especially the ones the writer wants most to be read (for some odd reason, even when the titles aren't very leading, my ranty entries get more views than my regular or happy entries, or the entries I spend bizarre amounts of time on, like when I blather about mythology and such :) ). BUT...a journal is meant to be for the writer themselves. One should not care too much if people are reading their journal or not. If people ARE reading it, great! Why keep a public journal if not for it to be noticed, right? But if people aren't reading, it shouldn't matter. A journal is a personal thing, unlike the majority of other writing, and its owner should not take it so seriously.

I would like to be one of the people who no longer care if they don't know if somebody is watching or not, whether it concerns my writing or my journal. This isn't to say I want to disregard the comments I DO receive--I'll always appreciate those. I would just like to be able to be unconcerned when there are no comments. This INCLUDES when there are ratings without comments. Yesterday, a few things seriously, seriously got on my nerves and made me agonize no end. These were, of course, average and downright poor ratings without comments, three of those on my poll posted yesterday. (A two star, a 1.5, and a one, all without comments--most of the other ratings, ranging from 3-5, came with comments.) What went through my head was this...I tried to make both the poll and my entry as non-whiny as possible and to be friendly, so the ratings confused me. It boiled down to three possibilities: Did the users hate erotica? Are they people who automatically rate something down if it asks questions about the contents of somebody's port? or Is it just people being jerks? I vacillated between the first two, myself; told myself that I HAD been as polite in the poll as possible, and that any problems must have been perceptions on the part of the raters; etc. In short, I kept trying to justify and blow over something I have no clue about. But if you've read this journal before, you know me...always second-guessing, and a little niggling part of my brain insisting that the problem in fact lies with me. WAS I rude in the poll? Or whiny? Or something? Etc....I tried to update it to include a baffled apology to the three people I had somehow offended, but the character limit prohibited that. (500 characters! I think not! That thing is inaccurate...) And I didn't want to update my last entry again as I have it posted in my backups as is, so I will take the time right here to say that the posting of the poll was NOT meant to garner more attention for my writing; I truly am just interested in what others would do in my situation. When all is said and done, I will be the one making the final decision.

But anyway...this situation with the ratings bothered me...and bothered me. A three-star on one of said X-rated items, sans comment, bothered me even more. Not the rating, but the fact that there was no comment. I should say that the poll also got a three, but with a comment, and it bothered me not in the least because I know for some people, that's their average rating. Still, ratings without comments, especially ones lower than four, really dig at me.

But anyway again...I logged off with much anxiety, as the 2 star came immediately after the 1.5, and the 1 star came almost immediately after the 2 star...Skew itself garnered TWO NEW five-star ratings that same day, a record for my journal!...but it was the poor ratings that stuck with me. I kept having fears of checking my stats and finding more upon more upon more bad ratings without comments...I needn't say I've had experience with this really happening, in the past...and it just wore at me all night. I tried to distract myself, but the worry--"What did I do wrong?"--was always there. I tried to push it out of my mind, but any obsessional knows that that's the worst way to deal with an obsession. An obsession that's shoved out will ALWAYS shove its way back in.

Eventually the nagging feeling died away a little and the rest of the night went on. I logged back on last night to find another five-star for Skew (WOOT!), along with an Awardicon. Not to mention GPs, and thoughtful comments from others who had replied to my poll and commented on other items of mine. I just finished replying to all of them...*groan*...I hope I didn't sound like a parrot. Sometimes, responding to e-mail starts out easy...but I don't know what it is...I start to wear down fast, until I'm climbing all over my seat. I was literally sitting here with my head hanging over the arm of the chair. It's like I go all ADD or something all at once. I actually had to leave the room, drink some juice, talk to Ma, see what was on TV, blow on the cat's side like it was a baby's belly (phhhbbbbttttt!), let him sneeze in my face, argue about milk, go to the bathroom, come back to the computer, dangle over the chair some more, and threaten to surf off on another site before I could finish the last letter, which in fact was the very one THANKING this user for the Awardicon! There must be something wrong with my brain. I don't know what my problem is with e-mail, but it makes my brain frizz out somehow. I DID send out maybe fifteen or so of them at once.

Er...what was this entry about?

Hm...oh yeah! I remember now. Sometime BEFORE all this e-mail stuff, I noticed that...the poor ratings of the day before...they weren't bothering me anymore. The previous day I had literally had to bite my tongue not to post a bitchy entry about them, as is my habit; I always get over them eventually, don't I? It's just that I usually end up blowing up first, feeling very stupid, and THEN getting over them. I didn't get the chance to this time, and...by the time I came back I didn't really care to blow up anymore. I had an AWARDICON! and some new GPs and a bunch of friendly e-mails instead. This is what I hate about myself and my journal, how I so easily overlook the ton of good because of a bit of bad. You wouldn't be able to tell it from most of my entries in this thing, but for the most part my experience on Writing.com has been positive, not negative. The anonymous poor ratings are few compared to the good ratings, especially those with comments or advice.

I think I'm starting to lose track of this entry. o_O Must finish before brain frizzes out again.

Anyway...writing about it, bringing the bad ratings up again, brings up the negative feelings as well, as I sit here and worry whether I should even be posting this--"What if one of those raters sees this and decides to ding Skew? Or something else? What if somebody else sees it and thinks I'm whining?" etc....but I have gotten so damned sidetracked on this entry that those feelings are fading now too. What am I even trying to say anymore? I think I'm forgetting. >_< After all this babble, my point is this: I'm tired of the actions of others determining how I feel for the rest of the day. I'm tired of something as simple as little purple pixels determining whether I will feel happy or sad for hours to come. Little purple pixels--or a lack thereof, I should say--given by people who chose not to comment, and thus, by my very reasoning, don't matter. (I'm really of the mind that if you give a bad rating and can't honestly come up with one word of why it stinks, your opinion really doesn't matter.) I wish for the attitude of the people around here who get bad ratings and shrug them off, fall back on their good ratings and helpful comments, and keep on writing. I'm willing to bet that they DO still get a little niggling feeling of doubt in themselves whenever they get a poor rating...but they can brush that feeling off and be more secure in themselves than that.

New paragraph which I should have started ages ago!!

I want to be secure enough in my writing--of course it has to be good for others to an extent, but why must I doubt myself all the time no matter how many good or bad ratings I may get?--that I can get ANY old rating, with or without a comment, and take it with a grain of salt--appreciate the good ones, shrug off the useless ones. (There ARE some bad ratings that are useful...it's just that I don't get very many.) I want to be able to read someone's opinion of my writing and take away from it what I find useful, leave what I don't, without sitting and agonizing over who's REALLY right and who's REALLY wrong. I AM the writer...I can and will make mistakes, but there are just some things that only I can do right. In the end I'll usually end up keeping things as I want them, myself, so why let what others think bother me so much?

For the most part, why be so hysterical about what others think? I know I'm not the best...but I can't be the worst. So many people have told me otherwise, repeatedly; why do I keep doubting not only myself, but them?

Bla bla...none of this entry is to say that you will never hear more complaining from me in here, or elsewhere. Wish I could say otherwise. :( Basically I'm just outlining the way I WANT to be, but am not sure how to be. I have no clue how others have reached that blissful state where they can let negativity roll off their backs. There are times I'd give almost anything to be that way. It would save me a lot of obsessing for no point, that's for sure.

THIS is what I would like the future to be for Skew, and for myself. To just shrug, maybe make a comment or even post ONE entry, one mild entry that is not so histrionic as my others have been, and then to let it all go. To let this actually be a JOURNAL, instead of a long list of complaints interspersed with the occasional journal entry.

I think then Skew might deserve the Awardicon more, though I'm certainly not complaining about THAT! I just feel as if I should work harder to have earned it. I guess it's part of wanting to improve as a writer, AND as a person whose emotions govern her actions and her words far too much.

Really wish I could say this will be that Skew from now on, but I won't make a promise I might not be able to keep... >_< Maybe I should work harder toward not being so overly emotional, though I'm not exactly sure how. I know it would be a lot of work, and often I'd rather just give up than invest time and energy in something like that. Often it's easier to be comfortable in your misery than uncomfortable in something that might make you happy.

Anyway, yes, I have now truly lost track of this here entry, and I have to leave it now without proofreading. ENJOY TYPOS! Tar...