Due to certain posts passing through my dash and having watched a video or two that sort of relates as well over the past couple of days, I find myself thinking about my writing. Not in an imposter syndrome type of way but in a more categorical way.
Like there’s always so many people saying that you need to keep in mind who your audience is when you’re writing. Like who is your story going to be read by. I’ve never had a definitive answer for that, not in a way that’s quantitative. Who I’m writing for is myself and others who also like similar stories as myself. What age range or demographic that is, doesn't factor into this. As I’m still writing similar types of stories whether I was 10 or 30, I just have more life experience now. Which means that I always struggle with how to rate my fics when posting them.
Then to try and label the genre, I often find just as hard to narrow it down. I often have a "finding love" type of story arch in most of what I write (not all, but a majority). I’ve always thought that the type of stories that I want to write might live in this fairytale-esque type of telling, even if the story itself isn’t actually a fairytale or fairytale retelling, like that’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from. This nebulous thought of vaguely historical fairytale like world that is mostly like our own but is not actually Earth. If any of that makes sense.
Now there are some imposter syndrome thoughts that come with this. I often wonder if I have bigger ideas than what I can actually execute. Beyond that even, I wonder if I’m a flat story teller. Are my characters too straightforward? Is my world building lacklustre? Craft struggles that come with everything. Second guessing myself whether I should or not. But some of these thoughts are legitimate concerns. Like am I actually detailed oriented enough for my stories to have an impactful effect on someone.
Which loops me back around to wondering if I actually do even ever want to try and get a story published (a childhood dream) or if just sharing them online is enough, even if it means never getting paid for it. Sometimes the sharing online idea is enough, sometimes I think it’s not and I more seriously think about publishing, whether it be traditional or self. (First I’d actually have to finish a story though). Like I would still love to say that I’m a published author at some point, and hold a physical copy of my story/s in book form. But I do often wonder if it’s worth the hassle, the rejection and what not that comes with it all. Whereas posting online is easy and free, even if it doesn’t have that same prestige that being published does.
Anyways, these are some of the things that I do think about every so often. Some more than others, most only in certain circumstances, but all at some point. Some of these I wrestle with more than others. I hope that this makes sense and makes sense in the way that I actually intend it. (Which is definitely another thing that I question on occasion, at least when I struggle to grasp how I want to express an idea that doesn’t necessarily want to translate from what I’m thinking in my brain, to what I’m putting down into words.)
