Writing for Balance

I’ve been thinking about writing.

Okay, good start.

Ever since I placed in the Tamres Scifi Writing awards, I haven’t finished anything. I’ve been caught at a crossroads between worlds of inspiration and lack of motivation, as I like to say. It’s not that I can’t come up with decent ideas, because I have come up with a lot of decent ideas, and I have a lot of decent (although decently vague) brainstorming going on. I think it just scares me that the thought of me as a writer has started to make a little ripple within my family and friends. I started a writing blog, and there are a few people who like to check in on it and see what I’m writing. But for some reason, I can’t get myself to post anything other than pieces I submitted to my writing workshop earlier this semester and have since revised. Nothing new is working out for me. And here is what I think about that:

I’ve always been used to writing for me. And by writing for me, I mean writing only for me. Never sharing my work with anyone, and writing only about things that make me really happy, and things that I would personally love to read. On the flipside, I also sometimes write purely for the reader. That would be when I’m forced to write something I don’t necessarily want to write — usually for school — such as lesson plans, research papers, etc. In those cases, I couldn’t say I put any more effort into writing those pieces than the arm strength it would take to toss them into the trashcan. So there’s my problem. I’m trapped at either end of a wide scale of writing for the reader vs. writing for the writer. When I write for myself, I get self-conscious about sharing my work due to how personal it can sometimes be, whereas when I write for others, I lose that passion that makes writing important to me. And the more I share my work on public outlets (which I have been doing more of lately), the more conflicted I feel. So here comes the big question:

Should I focus on writing for myself, the writer? Or should I write for the reader?

The most obvious answer here is both. It’s important to write for your audience, otherwise the piece that you put so much effort and thought into is just another draft to be lost in a folder. But it is equally important to write for yourself. If you don’t enjoy what you’re writing, what’s the point of writing it? There really isn’t one…is there? 

This has been burdening me for a long time: How can I tailor my writing to suit a specific audience when writing has always been a very personal thing for me? To look more closely, I began thinking of why I started writing in the first place. It was because of my unending love for stories, in any format. Whether book, movie, TV series, play, or anything in between, escaping into a story has always been my absolute favorite thing to do. Sometimes it’s crazy to think that we live in such a unique, amazing, wonderful world, yet people are still able to come up with more. The human mind is infinitely creative. How on earth do we do it?

–Anyways, that is beside the point.

So I write because, at a certain point, disappearing into other people’s stories isn’t enough. I started to get a wanderlust that wasn’t satisfied by opening a book. I started to get a discontentment that swirled around inside my head, creating an overwhelming chaos that shot me straight into anxiety, depression, confusion, and all sorts of negativity. That is, until I started writing down my thoughts and feelings. It was like a way to organize all the loose ends that were jumbled up inside my brain into something visible and concrete. It felt satisfying, like when you finally sneeze after fighting with that “I think I have to sneeze” feeling for just a little too long. And it still feels good. When I have a bad day, a great day, or an experience that stirs up a lot of emotion, I write. Because I have no idea what else to do with that emotion besides write it. Since I like fiction, I tend to insert said emotion into a character and have the character deal with their emotion in ways that I wish I could have. And even though it is technically not real, and that emotion most certainly still exists in my reality, the feeling of resolution seems real.

I form a personal attachment with my characters, because they are some of my closest confidantes. Sometimes it feels as though they know me more than anyone else in my life. Even though they are just a part of my mind, a figment of my imagination, they become like real people to me. When I create a character based on my own emotions, it feels like that character has somehow relieved me of pain, loss, failure, boredom. All the things weighing down on me become their burden to bear as well. And as most people know, sharing a burden with someone creates a lasting bond.

So, back to what I was originally getting at: As much as I would like to say that I write for my readers — as few as they may be — I will always, first and foremost, write for myself. Writing will never not be my coping mechanism, and my best writing always comes from real and personal emotion. Of course, taking my readers into account is necessary for writing to have a real purpose. Unfortunately, thinking of my readers instills in me a certain amount of fear and hesitation that can make writing exhausting. How do I write this poem so people will like it? Does this dialogue sound stupid? Writing for a reader is an unnerving experience, especially when one is used to only writing for their own eyes. However, when one writes for themselves, from their own experiences and emotions, it is authentic writing. And authentic writing will almost always be the most well-received by a reader. When I write, I am always thinking about how much I love stories, and how much I love my characters and the plot they are in. All it takes is a little bit of thought given to everyone out there who absolutely loves stories just like I do. And wanting to create another world full of new people for them to love as much as I love them. With that mindset, I can think of my readers without losing the personal aspect that makes my writing so important to me. That being said, the one thing I need to remember as far as writer-centered vs. reader-centered writing is making sure to take both into account — balance. I need to find my balance.