Much ado about nothing

Someone has taken it upon themselves to work through my fanfic over the last few days and tell me anonymously how much they hate it. If they'd put a name to their comments I might be more inclined to reply to them personally. But not much more. Most of my fiction was written quite a while ago and doesn't necessarily reflect where I'm up to now, emotionally or otherwise. I don't regard arguing about the way I depicted fictional characters over twelve months ago as being very important in the vast scheme of things. In fact, if anyone out there wants to expose themselves to the character-building experience of ploughing through fiction they don't care for, I'd suggest they go for Proust, Joyce or maybe a few medieval romances - then at least they'd learn something worth knowing.

I stopped writing fiction because I felt I'd nothing to say about the characters in that particular way any more. (Meta is another matter, I'm more than happy to get into that kind of debate). I don't feel that the stories up on catsfiction  give you a particularly accurate picture of the person I am now and the time may come when I close the site, but if it's giving anyone pleasure it seems a pity to do that just yet. Just like the dreadful 15 year old novel I have shoved away in a drawer somewhere, my fanfiction oevre has a certain historical interest to me that (barely) outweighs the embarrassment I feel about the quality of some of it. That's all. I think what I'm trying to say is don't assume that it's as important to me as it is to you if you happen to be spending hours hating on it at the moment.

I actually find it quite helpful to be trolled from time to time. When I first became active online a good while ago, I was very naive and if I've been away a while I can still slip back into some of those bad habits. It's helpful to be kept on the alert and to learn how to keep this kind of stuff in proportion and handle it sensibly and with dignity.

Anyway, catsfiction  has gone friends-only for a while, partly because I'd like to try and sniff this person out for my own satisfaction. I don't want anyone to rush over there and leap into the fray on either side because that would be giving an anonymous troll the attention they obviously want and don't deserve. Meanwhile, if you happen to have a problem with not being able to read my fiction (unlikely but not impossible, I'm sure everyone is getting on just fine without it), feel free to ask me to friend you, but in view of the aforementioned, if I've never heard of you before, I'll be watching a little more carefully than I normally would.

I hope everyone understands.

A thought

I will miss my son when he goes back to college. I think I might miss his new Christmas presents even more. His Kindle, for example, I deeply covert. He is reading one of his favourites on it, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and this quotation leaped out at me and shouted: "Time Lord Victorious":

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no-one else has the right to do so. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

Oh yes. The Time Lord is the only one who is capable of loathing himself, because loathing means judgement, and no other species has that right.

So much for the Kindle. I'm afraid I wouldn't mind his new headphones either. I listened to Vale Decem on them just now. Oh. My. God.