What is one thing you would change about yourself?
I’ve never noticed these WordPress prompts before. I’ll accept a writing prompt, if it actually helps me write.
There are lots of things I’d like to change about myself. One would be to become more self-sufficient, less needing of external approval. I hate the concept of performing for the approval of some faceless, ill-defined hypothetical audience out there. It’s bad enough to hand control of your actions and self-esteem over to someone who does not have your best intentions in mind; so much worse to make up a judgey, spiteful audience that disregards you unless you’re producing something “useful” or “important.”
I’d like to return to writing because it was fun to me, for me, by myself. The best moment of writing was the first time I created a shrink fetish short story, about some heavy metal girl in town. She was short and shy and sexy in overt, unsubtle ways, and I was new and unknowing and exploring everything. When I bothered to write down some notes, then actually sit at a word processor and write out a full story about us…
In the story, she rebuked her boyfriend and confessed a crush on me, which I immediately explored. She began to shrink me, so I watched her growing relatively taller, and then my task was to climb her boots, her leather leggings, and her clothing. Every inch of her body was a sexual thrill, from the long stretch of featureless thigh to the dynamic terrain of her chest, until finally I reached her face and she rewarded me with messy, greedy kisses.
Seeing those words outside of myself, this graceless confession of unformed, molten passions that in no way fit my upbringing or plans for the future, was earth-shattering. The simple act of writing these things out blew my skull open, and I hunched guiltily over my keyboard, in the silence and isolation of my locked dorm room, needing to see what the words would look like as badly as I needed to voice this urge locked up in me for two decades.
Like an idiot, I mentioned it to her in idle talk, and her boyfriend demanded to see it. My next story became that I’d lost this fantasy in a terrible computer crash that I was very upset about, but if I ever was able to recreate it, I’d go straight to them with it. After that I avoided the usual haunts and never saw them again. And though my computer was completely intact, I don’t think I stored or backed it up anywhere, so I don’t have the very first piece of Size writing I’ve done, but I have many early records after that. I started to teach myself HTML, and I created site after site of repositories to share my shrunken-man fantasies.
That’s what I want, again. I want that passion, that excitement to see the private, shameful ideas flow out of my head and stain the page. Of course, I’m no longer ashamed of these ideas. My friends all know about my kink, I asked some of them to help me perform and record a Size-themed song. I’ve spoken frankly at parties about going all-in on the underground, self-pub fetish subculture, and then stopped when I realized no one was asking me about any of this. The thrill of its forbidden quality is entirely drained, the potency of its secrecy is absolutely negated. I’m not getting away with anything, I have no dirty little secrets. I’ve shown up in person to a couple SizeCons, without occluding my face or anything, even revealed my actual name in conversation, intentionally.
Now it’s just me, writing for… an imaginary audience. If I post a story here, there are around four people who will either speak up or like it. If I post it on Giantess World, maybe a few more will rate it and beg for another chapter. I don’t think the answer to the creative question is to write with an audience in mind, trying to compose a crowd-pleaser. That never happens. So many authors have said the same thing: write with one person in mind, someone you love and who loves you. Write to make them laugh, make them cry, frighten them, and turn them on. Just one person, someone who sees you and wants the same things you do. That’s a good trick, finding someone like that.
So, I don’t know what comes next. I’ve researched creativity and inspiration, I’ve thought about starting again under a different handle (as if I could masquerade my writing style for very long). I’ve attempted other creative straits: music, ink drawings, photo collage, 3D modeling. I’ve recorded an audiobook and toyed with the idea of a limited-run podcast. I’ve also toyed with the idea of packing it all up and walking away, leaving all those stories unfinished, all those hypothetical readers heartbroken. And I’ve agonized over this for a couple years, with no progress or resolution. I’m very aware what a broken record I’ve become, in this regard. I’ve given it time, set it completely aside and not thought about it, as I served as caregiver for my mom after her stroke and her surgery, way out in the alien context of the exurbs. I’ve visited museums, wandered through nature sanctuaries, binged Asian TV series and snacked my way through awful movies, or just walked interminably in one direction, listening to this or that writing podcast.
I don’t like the thought that the urge to be the diminutive sex toy for some libidinous possessor is something you grow out of. It was discouraging when Blogger tried to censor my blog, it was hurtful when I ended my Tumblr account to show solidarity for a group of people who would soon turn on me, and it was devastating when Stripe terminated the dozen subscribers I’d lured to my meandering and inconsistent blog. But to lose the Size interest simply because enough years had passed… that would really take a large chunk out of me. At that point, I might as well buy some land and live out in the woods, to redefine myself after becoming unrecognizable.
But writing is a struggle. I sit down with a clear outline or a simmering fever-dream, and I hate the story even before I begin to type, and I hate myself for even thinking about spending any precious time on something so stupid and worthless. In that pique I can’t imagine anyone, anyone in the world could be thirsty enough to want to read a word of it, and even outside of the disapproving imaginary audience, there’s so much loathing of myself by myself. If I walk away from the keyboard and turn on a movie, I’ll be disappointed in myself for not being creative and trying to write, but if I write, I have searing, blistering antipathy of myself and my “ideas” and my “talent.” I absolutely don’t know how to get past this.
Aborigen 
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