As a new forum member and new (to the genre) writer, I would like to give a newbie's point of view to reviewing writing and writing reviews.

I have been reading and lurking around this site for quite a while before I found the time and nerve to start writing my own story, which then spurred me to join the forums and start taking more of an interest in others' writing and their attendant reviews.

First of all I would like to say that boy does your ego take a knock when you get a less than glowing review. Yes the average review I got was not scathing, or particularly aimed at my skill (it was indeed quite hopeful when looked at a second time) but that initial stab of "someone doesn't like me" took a while to get over. I have had a few short stories published in another genre entirely and I worked on those for years before submitting and they were accepted right off the bat, so I guess I had no experience of a response that was less than "all praise the talented god writer", which some editors tend to do once your writing has been accepted - or have I been extremely (un)lucky in this regard.

Secondly I would like to agree with many of the comments here in that I NEED feedback for my writing, especially in erotic fiction. This is my first attempt and I am finding it truly difficult to recognise whether I have achieved my goal, to excite and arouse, with my writing. I find I am too close to the story structure itself and have relied on feedback from friends, none of whom are writers, all of whom are subs or doms. Even when I reread something I find myself thinking more on sentence structure and word choice (things I do naturally with my other writing) than on the more important question - Is this tittilating? I am finding erotic fiction a very intriguing genre in which to test my skill. So I for one hope to get hundreds of reviews and would hope they would provide some useful critiques for me, not just the "I loved it" (though they are appreciated) or the "not my cup of tea" style reviews.

Which leads me to my next point. I have not made many reviews but I am going to devote some time in the future to expand my participation of this site by joining the circle of dedicated reviewers. I have found though that I am not interested in reviewing a story I have read, and subsequently deleted from my computer, because it "was not my cup of tea". If it isn't subject matter I am interested in I won't review it. I will leave that to the people who do enjoy that particular theme. My opinion would be terribly biased towards what I think should be happening, rather than critiquing the story itself. I also find myself disinterested in reviewing a story that is utter crap. I wish for it to simply slip slowly out of sight.

Which quite neatly brings me to my last point (geez I'm hitting the segues tonight). I have passed on reading a number of stories here because their rating was low. I have come to trust the ratings system here and with the volume of stories and the limited time I have available, now less since I have started writing myself, I find the ratings system invaluable in seperating the chaff. Anything under a five I will dismiss out of hand, unless of course the synopsis looks too delicious. So I guess I really should spend some time reviewing the crappy stories, if only to help others like me who rely on the ratings system.

I guess I had better shut up now as this is getting as long as some of the stories.

Hope I haven't ranted too much.

Jason