Write for Yourself

Writers are always taught to write for their audience. This is good advice because if you can write in a way that relates to your readers, you will be a successful and effective writer. In that sense, audience is everything. However, there is something to be said for the flip side; that is, writing for yourself. It's important, in fact critical, that you write what you want to write, what motivates you, what impassions you. Because if you don't care deeply about what you're writing, neither will your readers. If you can't lose yourself in the heat of your creativity, readers won't find themselves in it. So, in listening to those inner voices, you may have to buck conventional wisdom about what sells, what readers want, what's hot and what's not, and just write what turns you on. It is only in the committed discovery of self that writers are able to connect meaningfully with others. Don't worry about what all the prognosticators say about the publishing world. That's only a distraction. Just write what you feel, write it as well as is humanly possible, and send it out into the world. Because, ironically, it's what you so desperately need to say to yourself that readers so desperately need to hear. That raw, pure honesty of creation is what makes great writing and what makes writing for your audience have real meaning.