Update: Please Read!

A/N: What I've learned

Hello everyone!

I know it's been a long time since I've done anything on this account, and I've spent a considerable amount of time away from writing in general.

I've suffered from severe burn-out were just going on Wattpad reminded me of all the BS I had to deal with, and it made it really hard to remember the good times I've experienced on this site. I know there are good people, and my outlook on life has become less cynical, but I need to reassure myself of my life.

So where have I been?

Life. Just looked around trying to put my troubled mind at ease. I needed to understand why I made a writing account in the first place. It took me a long time, and I realized something.

I did it because it was fun.

I didn't care about what others thought of me and I still don't, but the problem was that I focused too much on my life as a writer instead of enjoying it. This is why I've gone over to new sites, joined new fandoms, and just indulged in the stuff people wrote: both original content and fanfics. It took me a long time, but I found that spark again.

This is why I'm updating this pseudo-blog.

I got curious and was in a writing mood recently, but Wattpad had updated and changed. My password was lost so I had to reset everything to make sure I didn't lose anything. Thank goodness I was able to resolve the issue.

But what had gotten my attention was the 400+ notifications on my profile and the dozen or so private messages when I logged in. I've severely underestimated how much people enjoy my stuff and their concern for my wellbeing.

So I just wanted to make everything clear that I am fine. I'm not homeless, suicidal, depressed, or dead - I just taking a long break to get my mind back in order. I just want to put people at ease.

I will admit there were times where I felt guilty that I didn't update anything in so long, but remember how I said earlier I was getting into other fandoms and reading other people's stuff? I found out that these content creators took long breaks too, and some of them didn't - and the results showed what happens when you don't take care of yourself.

One author of a webcomic series I read didn't take care of himself mentally-wise: he neglected his depression, he wouldn't take his panic attacks seriously, and he stressed himself so much trying to finish the finale of his work that he ended up with a hugely noticeable drop in quality. The writing got bad. Characters seemingly had no purpose. The themes of the story degraded. And so much more.

Another creator of a different comic series had severe self-esteem issues that made me VERY uncomfortable to comment on his work anymore. Imagine someone with so little self-esteem that if you were to try and compliment their work, they would think they are unworthy and call themselves and their work garbage - over and over and over again. And when you stop commenting so you don't see that type of uncomfortable response anymore, the creator decides he's not doing a good enough job with his content due to the lack of comments and then decides to stop updating. Only to return once again, and then repeat the cycle.

When seeing stuff like that, it would make me think, "Yeah, I need to get my mind in order before I continue." I only have one mind, and I wasn't going to let it break.

But that didn't mean I stopped imagining. I have some original stories planned out, and I'm honestly thinking about making it - I'm already making my own covers using Canva and photoshop.

So will I be updating stories again? Maybe. Life has gotten busy for me now. With the pandemic, personal life, and how I'm a college student now - free time isn't as available as I wanted it to be. And remember how I said Wattpad updated? Well, there were some formatting issues and some chapters I had pre-written had to be scrapped and done all over again; which is a good thing since I can just improve what I wanted to write.

But I'm making this update to put the people who sent me messages - and anyone who is curious and concerned about my status - at ease.