I snap my statistics textbook shut and throw my arms back into a stretch; my joints pop back into place and I let out a sigh of contentment.

Finally, after two hours of reading and re-reading the same page—and doing all one-hundred-and-ten exercises—the information has sunk in, leaving a permanent dent in the pink lump that is my brain. An unexpected yawn escapes my mouth—which opens wide enough to fit a baby seal in it—and I rub my eyes. After recovering from this out-of-body-experience, I  look at the time on my wall-clock: 11:59 PM, it reads. 

Only a minute away from tomorrow, a new day, a new—12:00 PM. I want to cheer like it's the new year, but who am I kidding? I'm neither drunk off my ass nor on holiday—it's just another boring Monday morning, and I don't know what lies ahead. A battle with a Dragon? A search for the Holy Grail? A statistics test? Who knows. 

As I lean in to switch off my desk lamp, a strange sound crawls into my ear. I freeze in place, my hand suspended in the air, and use my heightened troll-senses to concentrate on the source of the disturbance. The more I wait, the clearer the sound becomes—it sounds like a strange combination between a donkey bray and a bawling baby. 

I'm probably hallucinating it, I think to myself as I stand up, but when the sound shows no sign of ceasing anytime soon, I start sweating bullets. Everybody is asleep at this time of night, and unless either one of my parents or—wait. In this fictional scenario, I'm a mature, responsible adult that pays her own bills and lived in her own apartment. Go figure.

This sounds a lot like one of those messed up Horror movies, where the protagonist finds themselves home alone and with some sort of demon-possessed doll in one of the rooms. My instincts as the idiotic movie character yell at me to go and investigate where the sound is coming from, but my brains as a real-life person tell me not to do so. At least not unarmed.

My hand shakes as I open the drawer of my desk, revealing the hilt of a knife. Wait, it's not the knife. I grab hold of the hilt and draw it out in one, clean movement, and it turns out that what I have in my hand isn't just any household knife. It's a motherfucking machete. You know, like the one from Crocodile Dundee.

 I whisper a curse in awe as I twist and turn it, admiring how sharp the onyx blade is. I bet that if the demon threw an orange at me right this instant, I'd be able to slice through that bitch without even having to swipe—my finger makes its way towards the blade, but I draw it back immediately. I'm being stupid. 

Feeling a thousand times safer—and not at all questioning myself how I got in possession of this machete—I get up from my chair and tip-toe towards the exit to my bedroom. I turn the knob and push the door open, revealing a sliver of the corridor. When nothing jumps at me, I tighten my grip on the machete and push it further until I could fit my entire body through the crack. The hallway is dark, eerie, and the sound has yet to stop. In fact, more voices have been added to it. The demon must be watching TV.

So I creep my way towards the living room, ignoring the stitch that has developed in my side, but when I reach the double doors, I stop. Throw the opaque glass, I can tell that the TV is, indeed, on. Although the images playing on the screen are nothing but a blur of colors, I can tell what the intruder is watching: a shitty Romance movie.

"Oh Hayden, I have waited so long for your return..." 

"I know, bitch. I could tell by the one-hundred messages, 20 voicemails, and carrier pigeon you sent me this morning—you have a serious problem."

"But darling, I only did it to show how much I loved—"

"Yeah, okay, I get it Samantha Mary-Sue McNaughty, you love my dick. Even though you're one crazy possessive bitch, your pussy game is strong, so just this once I'll—"

I can't take any more of this garbage, so with my heart hammering against my ribcage, I throw open the living room doors and raise my machete in the air, screaming  my famed battle cry.

But when the intruder swivels around on the couch, screaming from the fright, I stop in my tracks, almost tripping over the rug. It's you.

"What are you doing here and how the fuck did you get in?" I yell, heaving like I just ran a marathon. Even though the movie keeps playing in the background, I can't help but focus on you. You look like you just crawled out of a sewage—your hair looks like a forest of pubes, mascara is running down your cheeks, and your mouth is surrounded by an unidentifiable substance. I make sure to maintain my distance; ugliness is contagious. 

Your mouth opens and closes, and your eyes dart to the machete which I'm still wielding like a Viking. I also look at it, and lower it by my side, a fresh breeze rattles my pink pajamas, and I notice that one of the windows is open. That's how you got in. I make a mental note of calling someone to install metal window guards sometime during the week. The intruder didn't turn out to be either a robber or a demon, but I'm not taking any more chances. One brush with death was enough. 

After still not saying anything—Hayden and Samantha are going at it on the screen and I'm on the verge of stabbing myself with the machete—I turn on the light and thread towards the couch. I place the machete on the coffee table, and reach out to you, but you shy away like a wounded animal. 

"Damn, what happened to you?" I can't help but pity you, even though I'm still internally screaming about the break-in. Could've just texted me or something; I'm practically on my phone 24/7. 

You draw your legs up to your chin and bury your face in between them. Renewed sobs fill the air, and your body shakes like a leaf. I cringe. What do I do? Pat your back? Give you a piece of candy? I see a bucket of ice-cream on the coffee table, right beside the machete, and I immediately grab it. I take a seat on the other end of the sofa and start digging into the peanut-butter and chocolate-chip goodness as you continue to cry inconsolably. 

"So,"—I lick the spoon and smack my lips—"What happened? Did your partner dump you?"

You shake your head—at least I think you do, it's hard to tell—so I go back to the mental drawing board. It's not a relationship problem, so why were you watching a Romance movie? It makes no sense. These movies are made for people with broken hearts. 

"Are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to call the cops?" I say, fed up with all this waiting. I'm tired, salty, and I want to go to bed. 

"Okay, okay," you whisper, your voice as scratchy as a bunch of nails against a blackboard. You wiped away your tears with the sleeve of your nasty-looking sweater and sniffle. Still waiting. "I've told you about that new book I'm writing, right?"

Well, you tell me a lot of things, but I don't always listen. I nod.

"Well,"—you sniffle again then turn your body so that you're facing me completely—"For a while now, I've been having a hard time writing it...because... I feel like it's stupid and I'm wasting my time."

No, I'm listening. I stick another spoonful of ice-cream in my mouth and say, "Why is that?"

Your eyes flit away for a moment. "Because that's what my friends...family, and boyfriend told me. I've always been afraid to show them my writing because I'm not very good, but because I got writer's block I thought it would be helpful if I bounced ideas off them. But they all told me that everything I said was dumb and cliché...and that I'm just wasting my time on things that will do nothing for my future."

I have to put the bucket of ice-cream back on the table because of how shocked I am at this confession. The blood in my veins is starting to bubble up with salt, but by the look on your face, I can tell that you aren't finished. You scratch your forearm and let out a breath. 

"I just...I don't know. I keep telling myself that what they say isn't true—all the feedback I've been getting on Wattpad is positive, but I can't help but think that maybe...they're right? Like, I've mostly been doing read for reads, take part in book clubs, get involved in the community, but I've never really gotten any criticism for my writing. Not any real criticism, I guess." You shrug. "I just suck. I'm thinking of quitting altogether and—"

My hand flies up to your mouth, and your eyes widen. "I don't want to hear another word," I say, my eyes burning with rage.

-:-

This topic has been inadvertently brought to my attention by a new Wattpad friend I made recently. I wasn't asked to rant about it, but because they confided in me about a situation similar to this, I thought it wouls be important for me to talk about this here. 

There's nothing that bothers me more than when someone says, "You suck at ___ stop doing it," especially when that person was entrusted with something very personal, like a secret hobby, for example (unless you're collecting dead rats or something. I'm the first in line to tell you to stop).

Unfortunately, in the 21st century, people are still judged for wanting to do something artistic, be it writing, photography, art, whatever. There is the misconception that someone who invests their time in non-science/math related subjects is a moron, a slacker, and won't get anywhere in life, and I think that's absolute BS. My family has always supported me and my writing—I don't want to be a writer, but it's something I've been doing ever since I was a kid. In fact, I had the luxury of being encouraged to do 'artistic' hobbies, such as art, playing an instrument, and writing.

Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to say, "My mom loves my stories. She reads them all the time and even helps me edit!"(my mother's first language isn't English, so I can't say that either, but at least she listens to me reading them out loud). Instead, and I notice this a lot on the site, they're forced to create anonymous accounts to showcase their writing, ensuring that none of the people they know in the real-world finds out about their passion. 

Heavens forbid that their secret is discovered—they will get taunted,  treated like dumpsters, and in some cases, forced to close their accounts. I've heard about these things happening, and I hate it. How many bad things could you be doing in place of writing? You could be doing hard drugs, vandalizing buildings, bullying kids at school, but instead, you prefer to write stories about your favorite band or imaginary friend. Writing is a form of therapy. It helps you take a break from the stress of the day, to recollect your thoughts and escape from a horrid reality—even if only for a couple of hours.

Additionally, I don't understand what people gain from belittling others. Is your life so boring that can only get a kick out of making others feel like shit? Here you are, showing your friend your creation, your baby, the piece of writing you slaved over for the past year, and all you get is a laugh in your face and maybe even a spitball. 

Excuse me, but who the hell do you think you are? What gives you the right to tell someone to stop writing? I don't care whether you're a New York bestselling author, or a fairy godmother, destroying someone's work just for the sake of being an asshole doesn't make you cool or funny. It just makes you an asshole.

Many bestselling authors initially had their works rejected by publishers, because their ideas were "hopeless" or unpublishable.

1. JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was rejected 12 times before getting published.

2. William Golding's Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times before getting published. 

3. Stephen King's Carrie was rejected 30 times before getting published. 

4. Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind was rejected 38 times before getting published. 

5. Rudyard Kipling, the author of The Jungle Book, was told that he didn't know how to use the English language.

The list goes on, but do you realise what would've happened if all these authors would've given up after their first rejection letter? Today's world just wouldn't be the same. 

Now I'm not saying that everyone who writes wants to see their work turned into the next big movie franchise—that's not the message I'm trying to get across. Bottom-line is: if someone is making you feel bad about your writing, and all everything they say is with the intention of putting you down and making you feel inadequate, then cut that toxicity out of your life. There is an entire community out here  open to giving you constructive feedback, so don't feel like you're alone. Because you're not.

So keep your head up, your crown is falling.

🍟🍟🍟

Is there something that you're itching to complain about, but have the good sense not to do so on a public forum? I can do it for you! Feel free to PM me with the topic you want me to rant about, and I won't think twice before adding it here. I'll be waiting!