Writers Over-Romanticize Writing, and How It Can Damage Your Journey
This was posted first in Medium: Writers Over-Romanticize Writing, and How It Can Damage Your Journey
Are you one of them? I think I might be, but for my own good, I need to balance them out. I need to do myself one better by kicking it to the curb.
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Let’s face it, the days of the William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe and the rest of the legendary poets and writers has become a thing of the past.
Not that it’s impossible to achieve, and yes, one can dream.
But reality often time paints a different picture for each and every one of us. You can be just like JK Rowling and be successful 20 years down the road while eating dirt. But most of us simply does not have that kind of luxury.
Today, writing has become mainstream due to the increase of educated people and through autodidact.
Almost everyone I know are writers.
Some of them writes on Medium, Self hosting Blogs, and while some writes on the social media platforms. Everyone who has the applications installed in their phone, has become a writer.
The online writing has simply become overly saturated. And it saturated writing altogether.
With the addition of A.I “Writers”, which is gaining rapid popularity, you can imagine how many are the numbers of writings being published online.
According to EarthWeb.com, there are around 7.5 million posts published on a daily basis! The immense amount is jaw dropping. When someone online said that the competition is fierce, they’re not kidding.
Looking for your articles in the internet will be like searching for needle in haystacks.
Unless you ranked properly in the google search.
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This reminds me of how movies were first introduced to mankind.
At that time, those were really one of its kind. Because there aren’t many of them. And everyone is amazed by it.
Fast forward to date, we criticized even the slightest thing about a movie.
The difference in between the awe of early days and todays grunting, I’d say it has become mundane.
Similarly, the world of writing followed the same path. As the time goes, the less rare good writings has become. In medium itself, you probably can find more than your fingers could count of how many good writers, not including yourself of course!
To be able to sit on top of the immense amount of writers, you’d have to be skillful and lucky at the same time. People get angry when I say that — it is what it is. To have luck on your side is considered a skill, well, at least for me.
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Don’t get me wrong though, I do understand why people romanticized writing. I get why people want to write like a poet, and to write for themselves.
Its food to their soul.
Its liberating and one does not need abide by the rules that constraint them.
It’s freedom. And it taste good.
But what tasted good, often comes with bad side effects. Sometime readers are just not that interested in your poem, and rant of the week. People are less likely to be interested in what strangers has to say about their own day. So you risk of not getting reads.
Consequently resulting to earning less than what you desire.
On the other hand, I also get why people want to write to satisfy the need of their readers. After all, the point of writing is to get people reading, isn’t it? The more people read, the better it is.
Lets not mention the fact that writers need to be rewarded for the time spent writing. Every hour of your time is as valuable as anyone else’s time.
The downside is that it is much easier to get lost interest to your craft as sometime you have to write what people want to hear, instead of persuading them to listen to you. Overtime, it can kill your passion for writing.
Writing about something that you don’t really care about is torture.
Personally, I think both side has its own merits and reasonable arguments to be made. Its like arguing what phone brand is the best, well, as long as you can make a call, send a text and access the internet, then its good enough.
With that same pattern of thinking, if you love your craft and able to earn from it, then that is the best case scenario isn’t it?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t aim for Pulitzer award, but if you are here in Medium, then I’m guessing that you want more than just to read, but want to write as well (and be paid for it).
Writing, if you can strike a balance in between is an achievement and it could not be said how important that is.
- You’ll less likely get burn out and stuck to your craft for a long period to see your efforts bears fruit
- You can finally earn while writing about the things you’d love to talk about
- You have positive relationship with your craft
- Expanding and improving your solo business much easier task to do
Personally, I think the sooner one realize this, the better it’ll get. You can’t be doing what you love and not getting paid till the day you die. I can’t imagine doing that. I got mouths to feed.
Much like many legendary figures that came before us.
Our time and theirs are just different in reality.
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
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Footnote: I know I haven't been writing much everywhere lately, and the most time I could do is cross post my stories from other platform. I am still trying to come back from my long holiday and it's going to take a while. For those who read and commented on my stories, you have my deepest gratitude. I'll reply to your comment whenever it's possible for me to take a period off from my fatherly and husband duty. Till then, take care! And thank you for reading!
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