Back to Mibba

So I've come back, after a long time away. Hopefully it will go better this time around.

The first thought I want to explain is that I have always loved and hated Mibba and the community within. I loved the creativity. What I hated, and will always hate, is how people here shame each other for grammar and punctuation. I know not all do, but let me make something clear, that's abelist. Ableist and classist.

Anyone can write. Whether or not they are good at English. Even if they don't go "professional" they can still write. They still have ideas to express on paper, with words. That still is worthy of being read.

When I first came here, it was after spending my childhood not caring for English. As a result, I was terrible at it. Then a friend got me interested in writing... and the world changed. I started to write, I discovered a talent for in depth writing very fast, I got passionate about literature, writing, and the English language. My spelling improved as I kept improving it for the sake of my writing.

Despite all that work I did, and was doing alone, at 12-13, even though I wrote a book out of sheer passion, I still felt very unwelcome here. Because spelling was all people saw, and mine was still improving. I felt discouraged - this community did nothing to encourage young writers who were struggling. At least, it didn't for me.

So I left. And always felt if I dared to come back that I wasn't welcome, I was a bad writer.

But I wasn't. Especially for my age. I had wonderful imagery, wonderful imagination, metaphors, ideas, passion. I agree, spelling is important. But we shouldn't in any way shame bad spelling. Though we can offer assistance and advice. We should also make sure spelling doesn't take over the entire written piece - which I think is hard for many of us, but I believe it is important, speaking from my own experience, and likely many others.

I don't know if things changed since, but I am wary coming back.

Hopefully my experience now will be more welcoming, less tense, less stressful for me.
I already realized I was getting stressed out and nervous while creating a story here, even though I had wrote out a great chunk of it and had it reviewed (with good results) already. That is not positive reinforcement on writers, or rather, it doesn't show a case of positive reinforcement.

I do look forward to putting my writing out there again, specifically creative writing.
And I look forward to the experience of being back.

If you want to bash my personal experiences or say they are not real, please just don't because that is really rude. But if you want to discuss the topic, that is fine.