Most Readers Do Not Vote or Comment

Dear Reader,

After having written 150 stories and 47 poems on this site since January, I have made some observations, some of which I have shared in my story, Hits vs. Voting and Public Comments.

Those of you who vote and leave comments will either take pride in the fact that you are not who this story is directed at or will rise up in your self-righteous indignation and leave a comment or send me an e-mail telling me that you vote and make a comment to every story that you read, thank you very much. Well, what I have to say to that is...thank you very much. Unfortunately, most of those who this story is written for will never read this, so what is the purpose of writing it? I wrote it for myself, to get it off my chest. Ah, I almost feel better and, probably, will feel much better after I finish writing this.

Just as Literotica states what the writer's responsibility is before they can submit their work, Literotica should have a paragraph that states what the responsibility of the reader is before they can read a story. In a perfect world, you must vote and comment on every, 50%, 10%, 1% of the stories that you read. Presently, based on my scorecard, the percentage of votes to my stories versus hits are ½ of 1 percent with the comments being a fraction of that. We cannot even get people out to vote for who is to be elected president of this great country. How can we expect people to vote for a story on a porn board? Impossible. Or is is? I don't know, you tell me.

Yet, I know that Literotica would never require a reader to be responsible to do anything. This is a free site. Literotica encourages readers hoping that they will buy some of the products and services that they advertise on the site. The last thing that they want to do is to make requirements and restrictions that would discourage readers from participating on this free site. Yes, I understand the premise.

I wrote this story as an attempt to understand why people open a story, read it, and then leave it without casting a vote or making a comment. Human nature mystifies me. Yet, often times, I do not understand myself; how am I to understand anyone else? Now, why did I just do that? I don't know, I just did. I need to go back and apologize.

"Sorry, Lady, for grabbing your left breast. I meant to grab the right one. There, now I feel better."

I take considerable time thinking about a story and creating it in my mind before I actually sit at the computer to write and edit the thing. I think that I am a good writer, better than some and not as good as others. Certainly, I am not the best writer, if I were the best writer; without doubt, I would not be wasting my time writing here for free. I'd be writing for the movie industry or the television industry or writing novels.

I would love to write a story and see the characters come to life in the creation of the movie of it. I would love to work with a staff of writers creating a situation comedy. That would be fun. Sitting around, drinking coffee, thinking up funny scenarios and putting them to paper. Wow! Now, that is a dream job. I picture myself as being a modern day Dick Van Dyke when he played Rob Petri and was married to Mary Tyler Moore when she played Laura Petri. He worked as a situation comedy writer for Carl Reiner who played Alan Brady. Ah, back then, being married to Mary Tyler Moore, life was good. I would love to write novels like Stephen King or J. K. Rawling and watch them be made into movies.

I am a terrible speller. Without spell check, readers would think that I was Ozarkfictionwriter instead of Bostonfictionwriter. Moreover, I am a worse editor than I am a speller. It takes me longer to edit my story than it does to write it. My talent is in the creation and invention of the storyline and the plot. I am the Billy Joel or Elton John of writers. I can write good lyrics (or is it I can write lyrics well?) but I am a terrible singer.

I only write when I am inspired. Never do I sit at a blank screen and wonder what story I will write today. To me, doing that is a big waste of time. If you want me to write a story, find another writer. I don't write well under pressure or deadlines. I guess, writing the way that I write now for Literotica, writing whatever and whenever I want, may be the best (writing) time of my life.

When I write I already have the story nearly written in my head and by the time that I am ready to sit and actually write it, it pours out of me like vomit. I cannot type fast enough to capture all of my thoughts and many times I forget what it was I wanted to write. Yes, I know, my bashing audience will write a comment that reads it is not like vomit, it is vomit. Thank you for that and thank you for leaving a comment.

Nonetheless, this story is not about bashing and bashers. This story is about you, the reader. We writers write for you, the reader, and if you don't cast your vote and leave your comment, we wonder why we should continue writing for you when there are no signs of life returning in the form of a vote and/or comment from the other side, from the reader. Your votes and your comments are the only form of payment that we receive.

Surely, we writers write because we love to write and because we must write. Writing is our passion and our outlet. Writing is what we do to express our thoughts and ideas and then to have this forum to share our writings with the world is, well, unbelievable. Yet, then, you post your story and, much like it is when sending out a resume and never hearing back, you wonder what happened? Truly, I'd rather be rejected than be ignored. I'd rather be bashed than to hear nothing. I'd rather read why someone did not like my story than to read someone write that my story was...good. Good? Why was it good? Hey, at least the bashers will tell you not only why your story sucked but also why you suck and why you should commit suicide. Okay, that's going a bit overboard, but you get my point.

There are so few places for writers to write to get noticed. That is why I am here. I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm here to get noticed. I'm hoping someone in power and who has influence is reading my stories thinking that he or she likes my writing enough to hire me. Yes, to actually employ me and pay me money to write. Boy that would be great to finally quit my job as an accountant and trade the dismal science of crunching numbers and counting someone else's money for the job as a writer and writing my own words for money is a dream. Oprah, Jerry Springer, Steven Spielberg, and Jerry Seinfeld, if you are reading Literotica, I'm here! Hire me! Please!

If I had their money and success, I would not be wasting my time reading Literotica. Not that there is anything wrong with reading Literotica but, seriously, would you look for an employee at the homeless shelter when the above mentioned celebrities have a pool of thousands of people to chose from to pick their brains and give them a job?

My passion is writing. There is no doubt about that. Anyone who can write the volume of stories and poems, good or bad, that I have written in such a short time is passionate about writing. And yes, I would continue to write even if there was not the ability for the reader to vote and/or to comment. After all, it is about the story...stupid. It is just a story...stupid. For those who think that I am insulting them by writing, stupid, I am directing that insult at myself. I am stupid to think that I will derive any reward or success from writing here other than to write here. This is where it begins and ends, I'm afraid. Only, it is so sad to think that this is what it is and this is all that it is.

"Is that all there is?" Peggy Lee wrote a song about that. How prophetic she was writing that. How often can you make use of that expression? It is applicable in so many situations. Only, I sincerely hope that when I am on my deathbed that I do not think, "Is that all there is?" Certainly, I would rather be thinking, "Okay, I'm ready to die. I've had enough."

To me, there is no greater high than when I have an idea and an inspiration for a story and I sit and write it. There, it is my story, I created it, and I posted it for you to read. You ask any writer on the board and they will tell you the same thing. I'd rather be writing than drinking 21-year-old, single malt scotch, than watching Red Sox win the World Series again at Fenway Park, and than having sex with a beautiful, naked woman who is half my age and who swallows. Okay, one out of three, not drinking, still proves that I am passionate about writing.

"What do you think? I really did it this time, I think. I love this story. I laughed. I cried. I poured out my heart and soul, invented characters, gave them dialogue, and made them real for a time if only in my mind and hopefully coming to life in your mind after you read my story. Well? So, what did you think? Did you like it? Hello? Where'd you go? Wait! Come back! Shane! Shane! Shane! Come back! You didn't leave a comment. Matter of fact, you didn't even vote. You just opened damn the story and left. Did you even read it? WTF!"

Then, I submit my story and see that thousands of readers have opened my story. Did they open it to read it or did they open it to see what it is about or did they open it by accident? Judging by the difference between the number of votes and the number of comment versus the number of hits, I assume that thousands of readers opened it by accident.

I watch the people in the supermarket who hit every demonstration cart eating the samples, hoping to get multiple samples. I don't know maybe samples are the way they get their free lunch. To me, it reminds me too much of a handout at a homeless shelter. I'd be more willing to take a free sample if I could leave a tip. I am my own man. I don't want anything for nothing. That's how my mother raised me and that's how I am. I work for everything. You will never see me with my hand out. I'll be first in line to give someone a helping hand up and to give them a few dollars to help them through a tough time, but I'm no beggar. Call it false pride; I'd rather call it a sense of self. I believe in my ability to take care of me.

Yet, here I am writing this story with my hand out asking for your vote and for your comment. We writers are powerless without you, the reader. Yet, if the reader does not leave his stamp of approval or distain for what we, the writer, have written, we write for nothing but ourselves and sometimes that can be an empty feeling and a lonely existence.

More than once, I have written stories that I thought were going to be well received to watch them flop. More than once, I have written a story that I was not proud of surprised to watch the vote and hit meter spin higher than any of my other stories. Why? Dunno. No one left a comment. No one took the time to tell me that they liked it and why they liked it or that they did not like it and why they did not like it. It is discouraging, to say the least.

Would a singer get all dressed up and stand on stage and sing for an empty auditorium? Not very likely. Why should we writers continue to write for you, the reader, and be ignored? Do you believe that these stories are not written by people who have wants, needs, and feelings? There are real people pouring out their emotions for you, dear reader.

Just as it is our personal responsibility as the writer to write the best story that we can with as few spelling and grammatical mistakes as humanly possible, it is your personal responsibility as the reader when reading our stories to thank us by giving us your vote and comment. It is only fair, don't you think? Ah, you believe that nothing in life is fair. Still, that does not give you justification to take and not give back. Please, take a minute and give us your thoughts. Okay, I understand that you are not a writer and may feel bad that you cannot be as literate as the writer who you just read, it does not matter. The sincerity of feeling behind the comment is what matters the most.

Sure, there is no reason why you should vote or comment for a story after you have read it. It is not required that you vote or make a comment. No one is watching you if you don't vote or comment. You are, after all, sitting there in your underwear in the privacy of your home masturbating, no doubt, over an erotic story that you do not want anyone to know that you enjoyed. That is what the anonymous voter is there for, so you can cast your vote and make your comment in complete anonymity. Trust me, you wife or husband will never know it was you who read that story, cast that vote, and made that comment. Go ahead, no problem, I'll wait until you clean the cum off the keyboard or the spit off the screen before you comment on my story.

I'm not having a good day, as you can tell from this piece. This is a negative piece of writing. I prefer writing things that are positive, funny, and have happy endings. I mean, life is sad enough, so why not write funny stuff. Further, life never has a happy ending (did you ever see someone happy to die?), so why not write happy endings.

"Is that all there is?" I hope not because I'm a greedy writer. I want more. I want your vote and I want your opinion.

Thanks,

Freddie

Bostonfictionwriter