so today i made the executive decision to let my friend beta read my fanfiction.

now, i'm sure all of you have experienced this at some point, but it's like an unspoken rule that you just never tell anyone that you know in real life that you write fanfiction, and you especially don't tell them where to find it or let them read it. i have broken that rule. 

you see, after, i don't even know, something like, six or seven, maybe more, years i finally have decided to begin working on this work in progress that i started when i was like 15 or something. it was the second novel that i had ever worked on. and this fic had had a beta reader on another site but because i haven't updated in so long, and i'm especially bad at responding to people who i don't interact with every day, and a bunch of other factors, we haven't really contacted each other. it's safe to assume that she's probably not working on the fic with me, for reasons other than i just fell out of touch (maybe she's not writing fanfiction anymore, maybe she forgot about me, who knows really) but the first 5 or 6 chapters have been beta read and it feels somehow wrong to not have the rest of the story beta read as well.

and this friend, i love her to death, i trust her with everything, i'm not afraid of being made fun of or anything like that, but it's still weird. because no one has read my fanfiction before, at least no one i know. and even though i know that i'm not going to be made fun of for writing this stuff, it still gives that little bit of anxiety, because what if.

i don't even think it's the content that i'm writing that gives me some anxiety anymore, it's just having people actually read my work. i love getting critique on how to improve and all, but nobody wants to be told that they're terrible and they suck, especially not by someone that they know. 

this honestly sounds like a big mess, i don't really know how to properly express what i'm feeling at this moment, and going back this reads like an unorganized mess. but tl;dr, it's a new experience and feeling allowing someone i know to actually read my work.