Long time no write, I had a baby, moved and fell into a depression. Other factors played into it but writing was a big one. Some would say getting a bad review hurts but what I think hurts more is when you send your book out to be reviewed and never getting a response back. That's what happened to me, one review, one who read it and responded, and no response or reviews left on Amazon from any others I had sent it to and I sent out many. Being autistic and ADHD doesn't help this because not hearing from anyone I sent my book to who said they would review it tells me many negative things. If they left a negative review, sure it would hurt but that would tell me they read it. Not responding to me and ghosting me hurt way worse to me.
Like many other writers there are services that offer a plan, you pay them an amount and they write a review on it. I can't find myself to trust anyone now whether I pay them or not because of those in the past who broke that trust for a free book that I have no idea if they read or not.
I started writing because I liked it and I wanted to share my stories with others. I welcomed both good and bad reviews. But now after years of giving away books and hearing nothing from the reviewers, I feel I have lost my desire to write again. Both the books I had planned to write after Charms have been sitting in my docs waiting to be continued and I don't know if they'll ever be finished. I'm crying now typing this because writing that I may not write anymore does hurt. In time I'll see if I do go back to those stories or if I just delete Charms and pretend it never happened and feel guilty about it after the time and effort I put into it that some thought I should have put into something else.
I'm lost and not sure what to do, what path do I take on this mountain I climb. I have sat long enough doing nothing, but I don't know what path to take forward.