I'm gonna think about this post for weeks.
I haven't written in years. Decades, probably. I know I don't do it for the "right" reasons, and anyway, nobody ever seemed to be able to find the time to read anything I sent them.
But when I do write, I sound like this. I always have. Because I wrote to impress my father, an unempathic and unhappy man who admires literature but believes he knows more about it than he does, and so my writing was tailored to his taste. It was the only thing I ever got praised for, even though it always came paired with unsolicited critique.
I recognize now that I only ever wrote so that I would be told I was good at something.
Sometimes when things are bad, I liked to imagine I could write again. After all, we live in a time where people are reading often and all kinds of books - maybe this time, I could find readers.
My career was the only other thing in my life I was ever told I was very good at; It collapsed in 2021, and I haven't heard anyone say that to me since. Sometimes I liked imagining that writing could be a way I would get to hear it again.
Again, I know that's not the right reason to make art. I should be content to make it for nobody except myself, and that should be enough - i should be satisfied that the story is now extant in the world, that I have read it should be enough for me. Alas I am a flawed person; I need to feel like I am doing a good job at something.
So, in a way, I am grateful to OP for this post. I can't imagine how destroyed I would be if I had taken a chance and posted a story, only to have eight thousand people all agree that its some kind of eye-melting slop. I would rather write and share nothing, than have thousands of people all casually laughing about how bad my writing is. OP has spared me from that.
It hurts, yes. But I am grateful all the same. Because now I know how much worse it could be, and I understand what I am saving myself from.
titsay
andulkaphoto
dailybridgerton
stormborns
