That's the end of the good news.
I have a bill of 55.73 due tomorrow. I don't have that. I have $4.36.
Earlier today my mother mentioned the taxes. That's $646.95 due on the 18th. Of course I don't have that. Way past due on the insurance, $270ish. $60 due on the 19th and 20th. Nothing I can do there. A bit more than $20 due on the 27th.
Two credit cards I previously paid off completely are now maxed out because the bills are always more than the money I have for the month. As near as I can tell the SSA didn't even notice my attempt to get them to realize I don't have the mystical magical income they think I have, so I'm going to have to get all that documentation shit together again and mail it to them and then wait for an eternity to hear what they've decided.
And I don't even think finances are what bother me the most.
I don't remember the last time I got a good night's sleep. My computer is acting up again. For a while I had no email and it was like the world disappeared. If I go outside I feel like I'm going die, and every breath turns my mouth to dust.
I end up trapped in the one room in my house with an air conditioner. Because being sedentary is really what I fucking need right now.
I want to write, as in fiction, yet I'm increasingly of the opinion that it's not fucking worth it.
Lets look at my last story posts:
- No comments
- No comments
- Two comments, one of them me
- No comments
- One comment
- No comments
- One comment
- No comments
- Three comments one of them me
- No comments
- No comments
- No comments
And then we're back to the last time I had a fucking concussion.
Other than me three people made a grand total of five comments on four stories.
Quick and dirty, and thus probably inaccurate, word count. I wrote thirty two thousand words of story. That was enough to provoke four responses and one follow up.
Except, this isn't even about that really. It's not like theres some ideal comment to word-count ratio. No, it's about the eight out of twelve stories that no one gave enough of a shit about to say anything. It's about those twenty five and a half thousand words.
It's about them because they're my usual. I write. I post. It doesn't matter.
I didn't start Stealing Commas for me. Yeah, it's for me now. It's my primary way of interacting with the world in fact, but it started because people wanted to read what I wrote and so wanted it to all be stored in one place.
It felt good to be wanted. It felt good for people to care about my writing.
But now...
I can tell myself that the lurkers still like me. I can tell myself that people are reading, and they probably don't hate it, But it's hard to feel it when the standard response to what I have to say is resounding silence. I can look at the stats, too. I might not be able to separate the spam from the real stuff, but I can certainly recognize patterns and most of the traffic is really fucking obvious spam.
I can tell myself that the lurkers still like me. I can tell myself that people are reading, and they probably don't hate it, But it's hard to feel it when the standard response to what I have to say is resounding silence. I can look at the stats, too. I might not be able to separate the spam from the real stuff, but I can certainly recognize patterns and most of the traffic is really fucking obvious spam.
Add one or maybe two people to the three that have made comments since I had the concussion, and that might be everyone who reads this crap.
And that's when the bottom really drops out.
This place was basically my one success. The one thing I wasn't a failure at. If I'm failing at it too, maybe I deserve to get kicked out of my house when I can't pay my bills.
I just had a birthday. I looked back at my life. Thought of the years passed, and couldn't really come up with much in the way of anything I accomplished.
If people cared about my characters ... that would be something at least. They did once. I don't feel it anymore. I'm even letting down the fictional people in my life.
"I can tell myself that people are reading"
ReplyDeleteo/
This lurker supports you in email, but this lurker hasn't had time to read the story posts yet.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I don't comment much, I do like your stories though!
ReplyDeleteI'm really behind, I haven't made time to read your stuff in a while. I'll bump you up the priority list.
ReplyDeleteI skip some stories. I comment when I have something to say. I rarely have anything to say. I can try to force myself to say things more often.
ReplyDeleteAlso there are my issues with comments, I guess I tend to project them. Most writers seem to be like you. I'm not and here's the problem. I understand that need, yet I *don't* understand. I was always afraid of getting comments on my stories. And on my photos. Could take me several minutes to open the comment. Another several minutes to read it. There was a kudos-like option on that site with photos, but the standart message wasn't just "X liked your photo", it was some longish text that said "I liked", not "X liked", and with the exclamation point even, and I wasn't even sure if I should thank them in return - they probably just pushed the button, they probably don't really want to talk to me, or do they?.. I can talk for hours, really, but not when I feel ambushed, and that felt like an ambush. I'd prefer standart messages to be less personalised. I might be the only one. I don't know.
And many other people don't seem to have that panic, they seem to have the opposite of that panic, and I know it, but it's just so weird, and I need to remember it, I know.
I'm sorry.
---Redcrow
You don't need to be sorry. I guess this goes for everyone, but other people didn't say "sorry." There's nothing you did wrong.
DeleteThe post here was very much raw emotion; it's feelings given words. When I don't get feedback I default to feeling like no one cares. It's not accurate and I wish I didn't, but that's what happens.
Other people can help a lot because the downward feeling spiral feeds off of silence and others can break that silence, and something like, "Commenting to say I've read it, just so you know I did, so you do not just write into the void." is really helpful, BUT...
But but but, in the end how I feel is my problem, and it's not something you should feel sorry about. As a reader, as a commenter, you're doing great. And I really appreciate the fact you read my stuff.
I'm here and reading some things, although not everything. I'll try to remember to comment more when I do read, though, because I understand the feeling of nobody actually caring when you throw things out into the aether.
ReplyDelete