Look, people. Being a writer is not just about writing. It's about putting yourself out there and getting people to notice you and look at you and read you. It takes a lot of fucking work to do that, and the way that you do that online (or at least, the way I do it) is by making friends, posting at places, and leaving traces of yourself everywhere you possibly can. And that's what I did, for a very long time, and I still do it, though not as often and generally not as much.

Besides that, it's about dedication, and it's about focus and it's about not giving up no matter how bad you feel and no matter what some moron tells you about your work. You don't have inspiration? Too bad. Cry me a fucking river and get some. Yes, it's true, that sometimes inspiration strikes you divinely when you don't even expect it, and that's wonderful and that's beautiful, but a lot of the time all you can do is sit down and just write whatever's there. And if nothing's there, then you have to think about it and gnaw on it until it gets there, or it's not going to get done. And later you can go back and rewrite it when you do have inspiration, or you can show it to people who'll give you inspiration, and everything will be OK. The point is that you've got to keep going and you've got to keep your focus. I learned this only recently and have been putting into practice since then. Writing is enjoyable, yes. I love writing. But it's WORK, and that's just all there is to it. It's hard work to sit there and type up all I've hand written, editing as I go, and then post it into an html file and edit it again. Then I upload it and show whoever's on, and if they find a glaring mistake (which they often do) I edit some more. Then, weeks or months later, I EDIT IT AGAIN (I'm in the process of doing this with Clarity's beginnings, as a matter of fact).

I'm not saying I'm the pristine example of a good writer, no way, I'm not even saying I'm good. But damned if I don't work and I don't try and I don't do everything I can to get my stories done and get them read. I write almost every day, probably sometimes at the expense of a higher A in my classes (.__.;;), but you know, it gets done. And that's what you've got to do (get it done, not slack off in class XD;) and if you don't want to do it, that's dandy. But don't make ME feel guilty because I do.