Moving Forward

Yesterday, I decided to quit posting on a writing board. It took me four hours to compose a response and answer a question. This included writing the article, editing several times, listening to it with my favorite speaker from Natural Voices-Mel, editing and adding again, completing and posting it. After I finished, the time came to continue my novel.
But my energy vaporized.

Talk about an epiphany. I knew right there, my posting on the boards needed to end. To assist this realization another poster, who contradicts everything I say, leaped with her agenda. My fault, I know. I called her self-serving a month ago. I hate book doctors. I make no excuse for my distaste and failed to hide it.
Yes, I know.

I bid farewell on another thread, expecting nothing. But a different poster, who I ignored after his internet temper tantrum, posted first and flamed. For three months, this same person never posted anything toward me. Respectful, we ignored each other. Or so I thought.
Jaded? Perhaps, but the level of cowardice in this amazed me. In my farewell post, this guy takes the opportunity to get one last dig? The book doctor jumped on it as well, both feeding off the other's retorts like parasites. This made me realize, as I smiled and shook my head, how thick my skin grew after many months. Strange thing.

It also told me I made the right choice to stop posting there. Others did wish me well and thanked me for the various advice I gave. I will always appreciate those writers. But I wondered-why the animosity?

In Purple Slinky, YouTube, the VN Boards, etc., I see this repeated for other people as well. I don't get it. Are posters that jealous, insecure, and bitter? These same people avoid confrontation in real life, but make it their place to stroke the flames behind Internet anonymity.

Why?

It also made me realize the reason professional writers don't post on internet forums with their real names: It becomes open season for the cowards.
Again, another epiphany.

I wrote this article for me and to close that chapter in my writing career. Another lesson learned, another step to become a fulltime novelist. Once day, I want to look back at this article and see how naïve I was. I want it to remind me how far I journeyed from those innocent beginnings. No regrets, no turning back.

Moving forward.