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“When you write, do you ever feel self conscious about it? Do you feel like maybe you are giving away too much? People go through all sorts of changes in their life. If you are the same person at 20,30 and 40, you are doing it wrong. Do you feel like there are lines that shouldn't be crossed? Can you go too far? Maybe you should.” Okay, wow. Absolutely interesting questions! I think I’ll always feel self conscious about writing. I suppose it’s largely a product of my upbringing, where your success/worth was measured by your financial success, in which case, as a writer, I’m not even close to making the grade as an abysmal failure. On the other hand, I don’t measure my success as a writer by that benchmark, because, realistically, we’re not all going to be Names Who Earn Millions. The vast majority of published writers aren’t getting rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and lots have day jobs. What matters more, for me, anyway, is that I get past the self conscious part and put my words out there, for people to read. So, yes, I feel self conscious, every damned time, but I do it anyway. Now, do I give away too much? I don’t know. I’ve never looked at my writing as some sort of peek into my soul. Given some of what I’ve written, I actually hope it’s not the case, but then again, if any darkness comes out only in my writing, that might not be such a bad thing. I am most assuredly not the same person I was at 20, or 30, or even 40. In my case, this is a good thing. When it comes to writing, I’m not sure I can say there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. I believe it is the role of art, including writing, to expose the truths about us, and I don’t think you do that by not crossing lines. It doesn’t mean we need to go out and imitate what we read, or write, for that matter, but if what we write opens someone’s eyes, it’s not a bad thing. Can it go too far? Of course, if we decide to live some of the things we write. Absolutely. But as far as the writing of those line-crossing words goes, I think we should do it. It is imperative in some cases for us to do it, to expose the darkness and bring it into the open.

I decided to finally create a review replies forum for my original stories. I’d thought about it on and off for ages but now here it is. I don’t have any new stories uploaded, and I’m not going to backdate this to the start of my stories, so I’m just going to include the reviews to my last two stories.

Hi! I saw this thread on Gay Authors .org in the forums and I found it really interesting so I wanted to bring it to AFF! I'm not sure If I did this properly cause I couldn't wait for the admins to answer me! So sorry if I fucked up! Clovey said to blame her so...blame her! Anyway these are the questions asked in the thread: “When you write, do you ever feel self conscious about it? Do you feel like maybe you are giving away too much? People go through all sorts of changes in their life. If you are the same person at 20,30 and 40, you are doing it wrong. Do you feel like there are lines that shouldn't be crossed? Can you go too far? Maybe you should.” Let me know what you think and how you would answer these questions. Link to the original: https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/42868-exposing-yourself-in-text/#comment-696825

When you write, do you ever feel self conscious about it? Do you feel like maybe you are giving away too much? Yes. Dreams, mannerisms, fetishes, biases, those things of the mind, you can’t help but let those out onto the paper, because the work is a product of your mind. Sure, you can deliberately write from a different POV, write a different form of smut, still, your personality will bleed into the prose. It can’t be helped. Having a pen name helps, really helps, in letting me let loose, to separate fiction from reality when I hit that submit button. Crossing Lines? Lines are made to be crossed - DP

There’s no such thing as leaving anyone too many reviews. lol

For Chaos Delayed It’s the only story I’ve ever written based on a movie, and it was written at the prompting of someone. I wasn’t really sure how it would turn out, so I’m glad you enjoyed it!

For Ripples SPOILER WARNING I’m glad you enjoyed this story. It’s one of my favourites. I deliberately didn’t put too many clues in the story as to what was going to happen, because I wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible. I also deliberately left much of it up to the reader to interpret just what the hell happened. I don’t always do that, but it was important to me for this story.

I like getting credit for encouraging people. Blame counts as credit! As for the questions, I definitely always feel self-conscious about my writing, though not necessarily for the same reasons as the topic on the original post. Personally, I think the last time I actually felt like I was exposing myself, was the first time I ever wrote smut. People made fun of my story on the forum I posted it on (it was god awful, but thanks to their mocking I avoided posting smut for another year after that.) But other than that one time, I can’t say I’ve ever actually felt like I was exposing myself… But I have felt like I’ve been at the reader’s mercy. They sound like one in the same, but for some reason they’re entirely different issues in my head. Like, I’m afraid people won’t like what I wrote or they’ll ridicule it, but I’m never worried about what they’ll think the content says about me as a person? I don’t feel like I’m giving too much. Sometimes I worry I’m not giving enough of myself. Those are usually the times I’ll delete the entirety of a chapter a dozen times and rewrite. That’s part of the reason I don’t post things often. Spend too much time agonizing over every little word, wondering how I can thrust more personality into it, and I never post until I’m sure. Sometimes I don’t even write until I’m sure. Definitely something I personally need to overcome. Not going to touch the changes topic. I think you already addressed it perfectly. Can lines be crossed? Fuck yes. Some lines need to be crossed. Some lines shouldn’t be crossed. My personal lines, content-wise, are with stories with minors. That’s something I won’t likely cross, but don’t fault others for crossing it. And there are lines I don’t think -anyone- should cross. Like using a story as a platform to advocate or support the oppression/abuse or the removal of basic human rights from individuals or whole groups of people. If your story makes a whole group of people in general feel attacked, or unsafe, or fearing for their lives, I’d definitely say that’s crossing a line that should not be crossed.