Thank you, both Jill and Lisa, your praise means a lot. I've spent many years working on my writing to get to where I'm at now. And what you said did make me think, and we've been talking about it on the Discord since I mentioned it on there... A lot of the writing on BCTS is pretty bad, not all, there's some very good authors, but quite a bit.

Saying it's pretty bad isn't meant to be a criticism because it's balanced by the fact that so much of the writing is so honest. It's expressing things people, especially trans people, often don't get to express elsewhere. It's not writing a forum post or blog post, where you just want to get your point across. It's using creativity, often quite raw creativity, in whatever way that creativity applies to the author of the particular story.

So much commercial fiction doesn't have any "truth" to it. It's people writing to a market, people telling stories in the way they think stories are supposed to be told. BCTS (and I assume other places online, but here is where I've found and finally engaged with) are special because it allows a kind of expression that wouldn't be found elsewhere, especially for trans people. It might not even be allowed elsewhere, certainly not in "traditional" commercial spaces. I think it's a shame that a lot of the writing here doesn't have the quality of the really good traditionally published stories (although some stories are 100% at that level, sometimes better than that.) I think it's more of a shame that the traditionally published stories often don't have the level of honesty and pure expression that's displayed on BCTS.

And saying all that, authors who could manage the level of honesty from here, and the highest levels of writing of mainstream publication, and who found recognition in their lifetimes..? There might be less than 10,000 authors over the entirety of human history who are that good. (Just making up a number, but it's certainly not a lot of authors given the amount of people who have written.)

I'm happy with my writing now, I could continue to try to improve but for moment I'm just doing what I enjoy. And I am enjoying it. If you want to do the same, just enjoy writing, that's amazing. That's perfect. Keep doing it! People enjoying what they're doing and expressing their truth in creativity is a special thing. If you also want to write well then it takes a lot of work, really hard work, over years and years, and low points. None of it is "wrong." Just know there's something really special in the kind of expression that's taking place on BCTS, whether the writing is "technically" good or bad. I can't emphasise it enough, it's really, really special!

(And it should be noted, this is the fourth time I've tried to express what I've finally posted here. I wrote and deleted this message multiple times before and after I slept. That's what writing is. It's what expressing a real truth is. It's really bloody difficult at times!)