User blog comment:ShadowFlash83/No longer working on The Death Valley Drive/@comment-28266772-20181119173125

Being an excellent writer requires just as much effort as being an excellent painter, or musician. And, more than anything else, that means practice. Years of practice. Decades of practice. Some people have the raw talent to get published on the first goal. Others *coughcough*me*coughcough* require a lot more work to get better.

Writing is an exercise in failure, repetition, frustration, and tedium. Like any other endeavour that is truly worthwhile, it requires you to commit to a thousand failures before you even get the glimpse of a potential success. I'm not going to say you should bang your head against a wall for no good reason. But if I was you, I'd start learning to frame your 'failures' in a different light. Your goal is to become a better writer?

Then your goal is to improve. Getting better is a success in itself. Not being accepted here. Not being published. Not being loved or having fans. None of those things are your goals. Your goal is to improve. And if that's your goal, then every word written and every criticism given is another goal achieved.

All you have to do is keep trying and put in deliberate thoughtful reflection on how you can imrpove.

I'm sorry if you feel that the deletions have demoralised you. That's a shame. We have the standards for a number of reasons, the gist of which is that without them this wikia would become a mess and the day-to-day running of it would become unfeasable. We try to be fair but there's no universal system that will make everyone happy.

But everyone here wants everyone else to succeed. We're all trying our best to get better and it doesn't matter if you're 13 or 70, this is a community dedicated to helping new writers improve and meet their goals. Keep trying, and if you'd like I'll put the time into reviewing your story. Just let me know.

I would ask that anyone else who feels the need to contribute here does so politely and in a constructive manner.