I've been banned and I'm confused.
See, I wrote a smutty little slashy little fanfiction story. ("Little" somehow grasping the fact that it's over eighty pages long in MS Word. Makes me wonder how long a "real" book is.) Anyway, I wrote it. After four months, I finished it. Just to test what would happen, I posted it to a website that hosts such things.
It was up for about a week, and I got a few emails back from readers saying all kinds of things like "That was so good!!!!!!!!! I really liked this chapter! Please post the next one really soon!!!!!!!!" and "You're continuing, right? This is an incredible first chapter, great storyline, excellent characterization, no grammar errors... this has the potential to be one of the really, really good stories." and "wow! this is really well done. rnrn i cant wait for the next part! rnrn~ (name deleted)" (I'm very fond of the one with all the exclamation points.) (And confused about what rnrn means.)
And then I got an email from the web site saying they had taken it down because it violated their rules.
Which baffles me. See, I posted Chapter One of a nine chapter story. Chapter One has no romance, and not even a hint of any sex it. At that point in the story, the main characters could be as anatomically incorrect as Ken dolls. So the actual textual content of the story isn't something to which they could object. But see, I made the mistake of being honest. The web site has the writers choose a rating for their story based on the MPAA ratings, and as of a few months ago they no longer accept NC-17 rated stories. And being both honest and therefore stupid, I rated the story as R/NC-17 (which was an option in the drop-down menu), since that's honestly what the overall rating would be for the whole nine chapters. But I also included right after the rating that I was respecting the web site's rules and would only be posting Chapters One through Four, which are rated probably PG-13 to R, and would post the full story elsewhere.
So now I'm confused. I sent them email which they have not answered, asking if they removed my story and locked my account because a) I posted something which I never intend to finish (some sites will only accept complete stories, but I didn't think this was one of them) or b) because I rated the overall story NC-17 instead of the individual chapter PG-13. I don't think they're going to answer me. Which is too bad, because I hate being left bewildered about which rule I broke.
On the other hand, I'm still immensely and inordinately happy about the few reviews I got.
Aside from being puzzled, I'm also a whole mixture of feelings about being banned. I'm furious that they removed the story without any kind of warning first. I'm annoyed on principle that they are excluding sexually explicit works.
Mostly, though, I'm unbelievably delighted that I've joined the ranks of authors who have been banned. It's like a badge of honor.
Even if it is just smutty fanfiction.