Hello all! This is my very first campfire post. :)
Ok, so, I'm new to the internet twilight fandom. I've been reading the books since shortly before Eclipse came out, but didn't have internet access until just a few months ago. I started writing fanfiction in November, and I finally opened a twitter recently. My first foray into the internet fandom was the twilighted forums, which I joined in November once my story was accepted on there. I was somewhat overwhelmed and mostly lurked. I joined twitter mid January right around the time that there was a heavy debate about publishing fanfiction, and frankly I was scared. There was a lot of hate being slung back and forth, but it seemed to blow over rather quickly, so that was cool.
But, when I started looking around on twitter and following people I kind of had the urge to turn tail and run. I mean, there are a LOT of hateful people who take fanfiction extremely seriously. I got into it for fun, and honestly since I've had a twitter and been more involved in forums I've been afraid to write and having a really awful time trying to force it, because I'm afraid the wrong person might read it and begin flaming it somewhere while not giving me any constructive feedback.
So, my question is this: Are there any other newbies out there who found it more difficult to write once they started joining more internet groups? Anybody else feel overwhelmed by the internet fandom? Any suggestions from our seasoned fanfiction writers on how to not let this kind of stuff get in the way of writing?