I'm tired. My ego is sore. My emotions are tender, like a bruise that you can't help pressing to see if it still hurts. Depression hovers just on the other side of bewilderment. Why is my diary uninteresting?
I thought I wrote well. Perhaps I'm wrong. I thought it would be fun to take a subject and explore it in 500 words. Hone down the prose, don't rabbit on about my day, little essays with which to amuse people. Instead, I'm just boring. I don't understand why, except perhaps for my reluctance to really open up to strangers. I don't have an exciting life to write about. I have to rely on small incidents, stray thoughts, or the occasional news item for inspiration. I don't expect perfection, but I expect results.
I don't get much email about my diary, maybe one a week. I don't get picked for anyone's "best of" list. I don't get reviewed by Internet magazines. Periodically I get interviewed as the ring coordinator of Archipelago, sure, but my own diary has been reviewed precisely once, by Nigel Richardson. I asked the Gus to add a comment about my journal to his Other Journals list. I don't want to have to ask, okay? I feel the same way about web awards. If I have to ask, it's not as valuable. My problem, I guess. Hell, I had some pretty nasty email sent to me about me starting the Archipelago web ring, but no one said a word about my own diary even in the heat of hating me for being an upstart elitist web bitch.
So what's wrong with Aries Moon? For that matter, what's right with it? I do a diary because I love writing, and putting it on the web is a great way to get some exposure. But if I'm the only one who likes it, and right now I don't, then I'm not too sure what my reason for doing it is anymore. Creating graphics is enormously satisfying, and I tinker around a lot with the look of the pages, but I'll grant you it's not an amazing piece of HTML wizardry. I don't understand why I get so few emails about it, that's all. Is the audience really that passive, or is the audience simply not there?
Oh, the angst, the pain, the horror. God, I hate feeling self-pity like this. Still, it does hurt. I want to win things. I want to know my diary is first class. I want to think what I write makes a difference to someone's day. I want an audience. I want to hear the applause. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask if anyone cares. I've been doing this for seven months now. I've shown you my stuff.
Is anyone out there? Anyone at all?
