The quality of my writing has always been a challenge for me. I just don't tolerate low quality from myself.
I don't care about scores or reader totals on here. I used to give a shit, but it's a broken metric that the web admin likes to perpetuate. It can be easily manipulated. If 20 people voted on a story with 10,000 views, not even 1% of the readers were counted. If half of those are the same pathetic troll who is pissed you wrote a story about some kink he personally is uncomfortable with - he thinks he is "punishing you" by down voting it.
He could have ignored it, because the codes told him ahead of time. Trolls can't do that though.
I write as I hear it in my head. I am southern, and I write like a person from the South in the United States was sitting across from you in the bar, telling you the story.
I had an editor which was helping me. I like to say he was a writing friend. We encouraged each other even though I don't enjoy his writing style, and he definitely didn't enjoy mine or my subject matter (For the most part)
On a recent occasion, he stole one of my stories and started to erase my style out of it. He showed it to me and that pretty much ended our friendship. I told him twice before, when I gave him a story, that I would be happy to give him some of my unfinished stories to continue, but not if he erased the essence of my writing out of them.
I like details. I live for the little details. I don't think it's prattle. I think it's storytelling. I am like Jerry Clower (if you remember him). It's how you tell the story, not that you mechanically told the events of the story.
I want you to hear the sounds, smell the smells, and see out of the character's eyes, or be a fly on the wall. I want you to be there with me as I tell it.
Unfortunately, the quality has gone downhill over the past few years. I have MS Word, Grammarly etc. I used to like to say that I could catch mistakes in other people's writing, but after six or seven times reading my own story, I just needed that extra help.
Even though my friend apologized, it's evident to me that our friendship hasn't survived, and his help stopped.
I can't find another writing friend to read my stories once before I publish and let me know where I fucked up. Trolls have been a constant source of negativity for me. They glom onto me because their own sad, pathetic lives are so empty that they need to pick on someone just trying their best (but failing) to produce good quality output. It's easy to be critical when you do nothing/provide no benefit to society.
"Hurr, go touch grass! all you did was hit enter on a prompt to make an image, hurr hurr, hurr,"
No motherfucker. I made hundreds of images, studied prompting, used Photoshop to edit and adjust, AI tools to alter faces, to make it consistent, keep consistent outfits as much as possible, caption it, upscale it, sharpen it, etc. If you think all you have to do is type what you want in once, and get the images that I make - you haven't made any yourself.
I am not Picasso, and I don't claim to be an artist, but my point is trolls like to diminish everything while adding nothing. Their greatest joy is taking away without adding. They are failures in everything they do, so they think that if they can stop you from writing, they can have some company as a failure. They are like that sad old muppet in the balcony of the muppet show whining and bitching, except their mommy pays their bills still.
Sadly, it's my inability to get one person to help me edit that's taken me down. What I write has obviously been popular enough some people would like me to continue but not enough anyone would help me except for my one friend and he stopped a few weeks ago.
AI is a tool, just like spell check, just like AI music. You can put in lyrics and out comes horse-shit slop. However, the REAL producers of some of the best AI music I've ever heard? They are like producers, and they are now able to produce the things they hear in their head that they couldn't have done without a studio before. I was able to transform my vision for the story into pictures. Now, my eyesight is failing, and I can't even caption the pictures without a spelling error.
The trolls can't beat me up any worse than I beat myself up. I want the quality of my output to be higher. I just can't do it without a partnership. That's what I need. If you are down, read my stories first. See if you can actually get into them. I write a lot of different settings/genre but mostly it's ENF/CMNF. Please shoot me a note on here.
They love to send me little nasty grams. I have learned to deal with them, but my biggest troll is me. I can't stand low-quality output, and I can't tolerate it from me. The story may be great, but the technical errors make it intolerable. The continuity errors when I call someone "Greg", but it was really "Peter".
AI can help, but lately they tightened the censorship so hard on those tools, that it's like trying to slide a finger into a Karen's asshole to get it to help you with continuity. She's going to scream and wiggle and not let you get near it.
I sent about a dozen editor requests. I see other people on here asking for beta readers. I guess that's what this request is but it's more like I want a writing buddy. I don't have to love your work, you don't have to love mine.
However, full disclosure, I am a fucking pervert. I like embaressed nude females, power exchange, and I don't censor myself. I like to write what I think would genuinely happen. I don't have a list of dos and don'ts that is taboo, beyond I don't do rape. I may lack the imagination to tell you what else I don't do, but if you read my stories, I like to take risks and explore things that go beyond sexuality. The sex is a byproduct of the real story.
I do have some stories where bad shit happens to good people. You can't make an omelet if you don't crack some eggs. However, in the end, even if it doesn't end how they hoped, it ends well.
It wouldn't be an Indiana Jones movie if the hero didn't take a punch and get dragged behind the plane before they finally overcome the obstacle, right?
However, most of my stories aren't about bad shit happening because too much of it happens in my real life.
If you are interested in helping me write, please shoot me a note. I don't do outside email. I just need someone to read it before I post and let me know if there is a problem. I can run it through ChatGPT myself.
I need more than that. My eyesight has reached a point now where the quality of my work has just slipped beyond the quality that I am comfortable with on my own.
I spent six hours on Sailor Moo right before Christmas to get one new chapter published (it was already written) and returned only to discover a shit ton of errors including to the captioned photo.
Until I find an ally, I can't see myself publishing.