State of the Kenstaff

[kenstaff]

I have something to get off my chest.

I've written many stories over the past few years on this forum. A while ago, I reached an impasse of insecurity and at that time I needed reassurance that my time wasn't being wasted. I wanted reader feedback and didn't think it was too much to ask, since it would only take a moment for a reader to write something, after all the time and effort I put into writing what he had just read... yes, dare I say - I asked for it. Boy did I get it.


Needless to say, as a result of the negative reaction to my selfish needs - I subsequently also reacted negatively. I removed all my posts (including all comments and stories I ever wrote on this forum,) giving-up on it's members - neglecting the many people, who genuinely did enjoy the time I took to write.

My reasoning was that I felt my energy on this forum was being spent on ungrateful fans with only negative comments to vent, seemingly only at me - at a time I needed reassurance that my efforts were not being wasted. I didn't value the member comments in between the glaring angry ones - those that thanked me and softly encouraged me to continue.

As a Leo, I felt the need to withdraw and lick my wounds.

Now, I have to say thank you for all of you who provided me - even though it looked like I didn't notice - with positive feedback and encouragement.

I did notice.

I apologize that it took this long to appreciate your comments.

After the private requests I've received, I should also say here that again, I am very sorry that my frustrated self deleted all my old stories.

[LucidDreamer]

I am sorry that i never commented on your good stories. I know that we all need positive feedback now and again. I hope that someday your writing comes back to us.

[Chestman]

In general, for everyday life, people normally don't go through the trouble of saying anything unless they feel really strongly about it. Mostly they are from negative emotions. It's true, if you ever ask anywhere that does any sort of comment system or survey, about 80% of it will always be negative. Not because they were bad, but because the people who had positive reviews are much more reserved.

No matter how hard you try, you can never please everyone. That doesn't mean the people who you DO please doesn't matter. Just keep on doing what you like, and take all comments, good or bad, with a grain of salt.

[Kit Werecat]

I suppose you've noticed, that I've been pretty receptive to your current story, and I believe, when possible, I've tried to react favorably to your past ones.

I am a very private person with pretty good writing skills, but have conscientiously refrained from writing on this forum. Although my interests quite often coincide with this forum, it's only because it's the occasional coincidental trajectories of a writer here and my interests there, if that makes any sense at all. It's sort of like two rocks being thrown over a roof and by good fortune, hitting each other.

Your stories tend to "hit my rock" more than most on this forum - along with about two or three others here.

You are not unappreciated.

The only thing that has prevented me from PMing you. and asking offline to make an offer to compensate you for your complete story set is the fact that I am shy, tend to Lurk for a very long while, until something brings me out to be public.

I want you to know that your work is very well written, and you should be very proud of your efforts.

Please Take Heart.

Sincerely,

- Kit -

[kenstaff]

Thanks Kit very much appreciated. Feel free to throw your rock at me anytime.

[cutlerfan]

I can understand your feelings about posting stories. I have posted a few stories here. I got feedback, to a degree, on the first 3 that I posted. I posted a fourth and got nothing but negative comments. I realize this is because of an error in transferring the file from GoogleDocs. I don't know how but my double spaced story ended up one big block of words. Everyone complained that it was hard to read and I was crestfallen. By the time someone managed to transcribe and repost the story double spaced..I was very turned off to the idea of ever posting again. I felt that almost no one, apart from a few friends, had actually read the story. If we are so media obsessed that everything we are interested in has to be easy to read and neatly double spaced we will miss a lot of good stories. In the middle ages transcribing was a labor intensive process and only the rich could afford books. This is no longer the case with almost anyone able to blog or write or even publish their stories and books. So now we are apparently elitist snobs who have to have ever word custom formed to our tastes before we deem a story as acceptable to read. This does not bode well for our future. I expected more from this site..perhaps..too much. I hope you will continue to write whether or not you post anything here. I wish you well!

[CelticMuscle]

Originally Posted by kenstaff

I have something to get off my chest.

I've written many stories over the past few years on this forum. A while ago, I reached an impasse of insecurity and at that time I needed reassurance that my time wasn't being wasted. I wanted reader feedback and didn't think it was too much to ask, since it would only take a moment for a reader to write something, after all the time and effort I put into writing what he had just read... yes, dare I say - I asked for it. Boy did I get it.

Everyone has a moment like that (for me it came when I was rejected as membership secretary for a group I am a member of) and when that happened to me, I was doing the November novel writing challenge and came up with this as a result:

?Are you all right, my lad? You look a little less cheery than usual??

Captain Treville?s assessment of my frame of mind was, as ever, spot on. I was indeed feeling very much under par compared to normal. I nodded my head and explained what had been happening in recent weeks.

?Yes, sir? I replied, ?I am feeling a little less than my normal self and it all comes from felling, well, unappreciated!?

The Captain stopped walking and looked at me.

?But?? he said, and I held up my hand and sighed.

?May I sit down and explain?? I asked

The Captain nodded and we sat down on a bench alongside the River Seine near to where the Eiffel Tower would be constructed some two hundred and fifty years later.

?Captain? I said, ?When you made me a Lieutenant, I was genuinely shocked and pleased at the same time and I vowed from that moment I would do all I could, both here and back home, to help people. As part of that I asked to be considered as the organiser for an organisation I am a member of back home. The current person is overworked in my opinion, just as if you were asked to be Musketeer Captain, liaison to His Majesty, diplomatic secretary. However, when it came to the meeting I was not allowed to express my opinions and the person was appointed by acclamation more or less. Ever since I have had the biggest sense of not being appreciated that it is possible to have? and with that sighed.

The Captain put a friendly arm around my shoulder and said ?I do? and looked at me with a smile. ?Your work as a Lieutenant has been remarkable. You?ve managed to organise the files this organisation has, and believe me they have beaten several people in the past, into something resembling order. When His Majesty arrived to inspect some of the troops, completely out of the blue, you agreeing to act as his guide at a moment?s notice prevented a rather sticky mess and when you uncovered that Cardinal?s guardsman spying on us, well, what else can I say? I certainly appreciate you, lad, and I dare say a lot of the other Musketeers do as well!?

I nodded my head but still felt a little unsure.

?Is there something you would like to do?? asked the Captain

?As a matter of fact there is? I replied, ?Back home, we recently installed a piece entitled ?Remembering the Fallen?. As I am sure you know, war is something that I don?t think will ever go away completely and where I come from, we are about to commemorate the centenary of a war so big that at the time it was called ?The Great War?. That, plus reading some of the exploits of the corps over the years, including those who gave their lives, has made me think that we should remember those Musketeers who did die for their country and not only celebrate their deeds, but also remember them. I dare say that you have memories of fallen colleagues that still haunt you to this day??

The Captain nodded with an air of sadness.

?Yes? he replied, ?I have commanded thousands of Musketeers in my time and soldiers before that. Some of whom have gone on to great things and others, as you say, who have lost their lives in defence of their Majesties over the years. There is one person I especially remember. He?s still alive today, but what happened to him was worse than death? and with that he started to recall the events after the battle of St. Bartholomew some thirty years previously.

[JeffXeno]

Originally Posted by cutlerfan

I can understand your feelings about posting stories. I have posted a few stories here. I got feedback, to a degree, on the first 3 that I posted. I posted a fourth and got nothing but negative comments. I realize this is because of an error in transferring the file from GoogleDocs. I don't know how but my double spaced story ended up one big block of words. Everyone complained that it was hard to read and I was crestfallen. By the time someone managed to transcribe and repost the story double spaced..I was very turned off to the idea of ever posting again. I felt that almost no one, apart from a few friends, had actually read the story. If we are so media obsessed that everything we are interested in has to be easy to read and neatly double spaced we will miss a lot of good stories. In the middle ages transcribing was a labor intensive process and only the rich could afford books. This is no longer the case with almost anyone able to blog or write or even publish their stories and books. So now we are apparently elitist snobs who have to have ever word custom formed to our tastes before we deem a story as acceptable to read. This does not bode well for our future. I expected more from this site..perhaps..too much. I hope you will continue to write whether or not you post anything here. I wish you well!

Cutlerfan,

Your badly formatted story was a technical problem caused by trying to cut and paste from a general word processor into this text based bulletin board system. I certainly understand wanting to write in a better system than this system can provide, so the trick is to export your finished work to a text file, and then cut and paste from the text file to this system.

As far as I can tell double spaced lines is not a normal setting for this system. This system does support some HTML text control functions, like text color, bold text, italicizes text, and maybe a few others, but you have to set those specifics up after you cut and paste the story from a text file. There maybe word processors that can export to HTML that may work with this system, but you'd have to do some trial and error testing to see how that might work.

Jeff

[JeffXeno]

Kenstaff,

I go through long periods when I don't read stories here, choosing to spend less time checking out new images and videos only. It just so happened that I got in a mood tonight, and read what I think is your most recent work, Meat Paul. I liked it quite a bit, and am looking forward to new chapters. Also remember, I'd imagine that any "Thank You" replies at the bottom of your post are people who are quickly acknologing they liked your work.

Keep up the good work,
Jeff

[cutlerfan]

Gee JeffXeno thanks for the backhanded support. I love having my work called "a badly formatted story.'

[Jaypat]

The problem with us writers is we tend to be terribly thin skinned. I just don’t think most people realize just how thin skinned we can be. It does take a lot of time and effort to write one of these stories, and the last thing you want is for someone to attack you for doing it. Especially since we all put a lot of ourselves into our stories; it’s almost a personal assault. And when we take offense, it’s almost never rational. As you can see one writer apparently became offended when someone pointed out a formatting error.

I had a teacher in high school who had the following rule for criticism. It’s the most effective way of offering criticism I have ever come across. For every negative comment you have for a writer, you have to offer him two positive comments about his story.
Most of the time, when making criticism, we tend to focus on the negative. There might have been ten things in the story we loved, but for some reason we only mention the one thing we didn’t, therefore giving the writer the impression that we didn’t like his story.

As for us writers, we need to develop a thicker skin. We need to realize that anytime someone comments on our stories, they are our cheering section. They want us to be the best writers we can be and they’re trying to help us do that, even when they tell us what they think is wrong with our story. It’s far better for a reader to tell us how they think our story can be improved then for them to say nothing at all—which is what happens most of the time.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here when I say most of the writers here are appreciated by most of the readers. So, we just need to keep writing and focus on the positive.

[iceman75]

Well, it's just good to know that you're back, I was a reader and commenter on your previous stories, I have loved your more recent stories as well. I guess I can see where you were coming from. I appreciate your stories greatly and I appreciate you as a person, thanks for posting your work and hope you continue to in the future.

[MonsterMash62]

Throwing in my two cents after what Jaypat said...

I actually think out of the two (positive comments and negative comments), the negative ones are generally more useful.

The negative ones, if intelligent, usually point you at what you can do to make your stories and writing better. The positive ones don't usually.

I mean, if everyone loves your story just the way it is, how are you ever going to improve on anything?

It's like in ToastMasters. Anyone here done ToastMasters? You give a speech and they usually sandwich your criticism: tell you something you did well, something you can improve upon, and then mention something else you did well. The positive is all well and good (and you do need to hear it sometimes), but the only real take-away, if you're trying to improve your ability to speak well to a group, are the things you need to work on.

Of course? if the positive is said along the lines of: "I really loved this particular thing you did/wrote/whatever. Do a lot more of that!!!" than that's another story. Almost like backhanded criticism.

At any rate, good to see any new or old writers back on here. A good approach might be to just ignore all negative criticism if it doesn't help you out.

[JeffXeno]

Originally Posted by cutlerfan

Gee JeffXeno thanks for the backhanded support. I love having my work called "a badly formatted story.'

I never read the story, and I was just responding to your own comments. My technical advice was not intended as a backhanded compliment, and I'm sorry you took it that way. I promise not to try to help ever again for fear of bruising your ever so delicate ego. So when you ask for comments on your stories, you're using the wrong word; what you mean is you want compliments. Now I understand.

I would also suggest to all writers, if you write the stories for yourself, and you like them, then what any anonymous user on the Internet says can be either accepted, or ignored, depending on if you think the comment is helpful. But if you are naturally thin skinned, then perhaps posting the stories to a public forum, and asking for comments may not be the best idea.

Jeff

P.S. Also notice that when I intend to insult someone, it's obvious.

[Kit Werecat]

Well Spoken, Jaypat.

And by the way, when I mentioned earlier that there were a selected few writers here on the forum that I feel connected with in like interests, I most certainly had you in mind, among with just a very few others.

Warmest Regards,

- Kit Werecat -

[GoldfishBW]

Hi Ken,

I don't think I ever posted any feedback on your stories. I want you to know that I've always been a fan of your stuff, and I was disappointed when it disappeared, and likewise I was thrilled when your stories started appearing again. There are so few writers who write stuff that I really enjoy, so I feel very lucky that you've started posting again. Hoping it will continue.

Thanks.

-Brad

[umlerian49]

Take heart, kenstaff; there are far, far more kindly and appreciative readers on this forum than rude ones. Some people don't understand how intensely personal this kind of writing this is, and how courageous one must be to put a work of fiction you love like your own child out for the approval of kindly and cretin alike. The stories offered up on this forum are gifts to the readers, and anyone that doesn't understand that and is petty enough to express otherwise is not worthy of a second thought.

[cutlerfan]

@JeffXeno..you're right I should be less thin skinned. I have some good reasons to be very emotional right now but that does not excuse my sarcasm in my response to you. I'm sorry. I hope you will accept my apology.

[nnnrg]

Hey, Cutlerfan -

I've rescued a few of those stories that appear to have been transformed into solid, massive, immobile blocks of over-muscled text so crammed together that the grace, beauty and power of the story is hidden behind a flabby presentation.

I've even had my own work defaced by a bad text entry widget many times.

It's an objective statement, "badly formatted" - it's not a declaration about the quality of the story, merely its presentation, which is seldom intentional. I do know one or two guys who don't understand the use of the space key, the caps button, and the newline, but you're not one of them.

[cutlerfan]

I realized that Nnnrg..I'm just not in a happy place about life issues right now so I am irritable.

[kenstaff]

Originally Posted by MonsterMash62

Throwing in my two cents after what Jaypat said...

I actually think out of the two (positive comments and negative comments), the negative ones are generally more useful.

I agree... if they refer to something that I also agree with. Not if they argue against what I want to write about.

[Maverick0095875]

will you be posting your older stories to a blog in the future or even on like metabods? im just a loyal quite lover of your work

[kenstaff]

Originally Posted by Maverick0095875

will you be posting your older stories to a blog in the future or even on like metabods? im just a loyal quite lover of your work

As I said at the end of this post...

"After the private requests I've received, I should also say here that again, I am very sorry that my frustrated self deleted all my old stories."

[The Pecman]

This is one of the problems with doing anything on the net: you open yourself up to criticism (good and bad). And writing is one of the most personal thing you do, since you can sometimes put raw emotion and personality out there for everybody to see.

I think you have to develop a bit of a thick skin and learn from the good and bad. Not every criticism is right, and neither is every compliment. But I have to confess, on the rare criticisms I've received, some of them have been useful. My take is, if somebody misunderstood something I wrote or misinterpreted it in some way, maybe there's others who'd feel the same way. If it forces me to rewrite the story and make it a little more clear, or solve a very real plot or character issue, what the hell.

It does help to have a small circle of friends who'll help you shape and proofread the story into something with fewer mistakes, once it goes online. Do consider reposting your old stories if you have the time. And PM me if you need help with formatting. It's actually pretty easy on this site.

[JeffXeno]

Originally Posted by The Pecman

This is one of the problems with doing anything on the net: you open yourself up to criticism (good and bad). And writing is one of the most personal thing you do, since you can sometimes put raw emotion and personality out there for everybody to see.

This is why I didn't finish the one and only story I posted here. I wasn't prepared to post my personal fantasies and fetishes for all to share. I highly suspect, and even know from what others have said they like, that many guys here share my fantasies and fetishes, but I just wasn't comfortable making them available to the Internet. Because I that, when I do read a story I really like, I do understand the time, effort, and risk people go through when they post their work, and I do very much appreciate it.

Originally Posted by The Pecman

It does help to have a small circle of friends who'll help you shape and proofread the story into something with fewer mistakes, once it goes online. Do consider reposting your old stories if you have the time. And PM me if you need help with formatting. It's actually pretty easy on this site.

I was a prolific writer in my career, writing technical proposals, and product comparisons so that management could decide where we would go with our IT systems. For me at least, I usually cannot successfully proof read my own work. When I try to proof my own work, I usually read what I meant to type, and not what I actually typed. I'll read it multiple times, and read right over my errors multiple times. Having someone you trust help proof read your work is probably the single best thing you can do to improve your work before it is posted.

Jeff

[The Pecman]

Originally Posted by JeffXeno

Having someone you trust help proof read your work is probably the single best thing you can do to improve your work before it is posted.

I agree. Another great technique is to read the work out loud, since that way, you'll know very quickly if the dialogue is stilted or sounds unnatural. It's a little embarrassing, but just wait until you're alone and lock the door, then try it.