When I first started writing more and blogging one piece of advice I heard over and over was “before you write for anyone else, write for yourself.” And really, it makes sense. If what you are writing doesn’t first resonate within you, the chances of it doing that for others isn’t nearly as high.
So I wrote what I cared about in my free time. I wrote about sports, I wrote about some of the boring things going on in my life. And guess what? Nobody read it and even less cared.
I’ve talked with a lot of people who gave blogging a try and gave up because no one was reading. Almost all of them said they didn’t care about whether anyone read what they wrote, but eventually the endless tide of posts no one was reading won out and they quit.
There is this disconnect between the ideal of writing for yourself and the reality of needing people to read it for the writing to be fully worth the time and effort.
And here’s the thing, I think the advice to write for yourself is wrong. Completely wrong.
If that’s the end goal, to write for yourself…keep a diary and don’t let anyone read it.
If your writing is going to be read by others, you have to write for them, not you.
If you’re writing only for yourself, why share it? Why publish it in spaces where others would read it?
This is the difficult piece of writing: It must be something that first welled up within you, but also something that relates to others.
When I write, I write for you. Sure, it’s something that I cared enough to write about, but I post it because I believe it’s something that needs to be read by you. Otherwise I wouldn’t let you read it.
Don’t write for yourself.
Write for the people who will read it.
