Writing Meme: "AL"

[loaded_march]

repna asked for "AL", which is: Talk about a review that made your day.


What review doesn't make my day?

Good or bad, short or long, gushing or simple, the fact that someone liked my story enough (or didn't) to take the time to leave a comment makes my damn day.  And, because I'm shy as fuck when it comes to leaving comments myself and I understand it's not easy to leave a comment, either, that I keep getting kudos for my fics?  That makes my damn day, too.

I get a kick out of posts where people have their own headcanon about a fic (see: anyone in the LM Hive Mind tag on Tumblr).  I'm blown away by people who leave thoughtful, educated, MFA-worthy literature breakdowns on a story (see, for example, anything by brunettepet).  Then there's people who come up with amazing meta about my fics that make me feel inadequate, because I don't put in half as much thought into my stories.

But what absolutely, 100% gets to me, are the comments made by people where they tell me something about themselves, or how the fic made them feel, or even how something in the story meant something important to them.

There are comments like that on Stop Watching.  There are comments like that on We Are All Diamonds.  Some of them have brought tears to my eyes, and for all of them, I don't know how to respond except to hope that the commenters know that my heart reaches out to them.  Those are the comments that I'll never forget, that talk to me about all the people who are going through the same thing but who never speak up, and that make me want to write more stories like Stop Watching and We Are All Diamonds, if for no other reason than they will know they're not alone, that people care about them, and that people will understand, at least a little bit, what they're going through.