I see you saying "I need to know what I am writing for" but all I can hear is "I don't know how to write for myself".
It's like you've gotten so good at molding yourself around other people's expectations and achieving when you write what other people want to see that you've lost sight of the stories that you want to tell yourself, the ones that you'd be proud of even if not a single other person in the universe ever saw them. Of course, learning and tweaking and improving your processes to become a better writer in a technical sense is all good for you, but maybe thinking about marketing and the author/reader relationship is a little cart before the horse - if you aren't excited to tell yourself these stories, how can you make anyone else enthusiastic about your work?
If you were going to look back on yourself 10 years from now, talking about your work as an author, what do you want people to know you for? What are the stories (edited or unedited, experimental or tightly structured, novels or 100 word short stories, whatever) that you want to put on your website apropos of nothing?
Think about the stuff you want to share not because you got it into some famous literary magazine or sold a bajillion copies of it, but because you loved that story so much you brought it into existence for the sheer sake that you could. Where are those? People who resonate with the things that make you happy to create will find you, I promise. :)
CRAP. I fell for it again! Headlong into the trap of the tension of opposites.
So our two posts are EXACTLY the two opposing ideas I keep getting stuck in. The overwhelming need to create to express oneself vs the equally overwhelming need to have that self-expression understood and accepted. Kyeopu, if your post had been from the "but creating in a vacuum is so lonely" side, I would just as passionately have defended the "but I have to make the things" side.
Every time I fully embrace one side or the other of these opposites, my big fat feels push me right back to the other opposite. This is why resolving the tension is so hard--the feels get in the way of seeing that I'm only stuck because I keep clinging so hard to one side AND THEN the other side, back and forth, no resolution.
I just need to understand (and remember! It's so hard to remember when the feelings rise up!) on a soul level that I NEED BOTH THINGS. I need to create, and I need that creation to be seen. And that IS OKAY. It feels like I can't have both things at once because I don't rationally see a way to have both from where I am right now. But that's not true. I just haven't figured out how yet. And honestly, I'm right on the edge of figuring it out, if I can manage to keep myself out of the trap.
My stupid tricksy brain is really amazing at manifesting the trap over and over again in different ways--for example, in this post worrying that my need for an audience will push me to compromise the very principles that push me to make art. That's a completely new manifestation of the same bloody opposites, and it kept me very effectively stuck for a good while.
I just need to keep holding both tensions, no matter how they arise. I can have both desires. I deserve to create and be seen. The answer to how will come if I keep believing in that.
Whew. Was I awake half the night fighting with this? Yup. So much fun! But thank you so much Kyeopu for bringing the reminder 💖, and sorry for setting you up as one side of my opposite 😞. I'm working on it!
Let me put on my best Palpatine: "Yeeeesssss, yeeeesssss, let the turmoil fuel you~"
Of course, I think the question was meant to be hard to challenge you to really think about what it is you want to put your energy into and why you want to improve yourself in this way. And if the answer is that you want to write explicitly to communicate with other people, telling stories and sharing ideas and subverting narratives, then I think the next place I would start looking is - what narratives do you want to subvert, then? Why that in particular, and how would you want to change it? Or, what is a topic (personal, communal, social, etc) that you're dying to talk with other people about? Who would you talk to about it, and what do you want to say to them? These answers could give you a footing for the What of a story.
Maybe the Who you're writing for is not yourself, but instead "People craving soft stories with sweet endings" or "Impassioned queers who want to see themselves in the world" or "I like a gritty dose of loneliness over crime noir and black coffee" or whatever. You don't have to know where they are yet to write for them! In a world where knowing your audience feels critical to creation, putting a general idea around who that person you're writing might be a tool for you - In what frame of mind might someone want to read a story you're writing? What kind of authors might they be into? What are the tropes they are expecting?
Ha, and how funny is it that I was watching The Clone Wars this weekend! V nice Palpatine, by the way. Do you also have cookies? 😉
My new world with the series of stories I did for the workshop is definitely a great setting to tell a good chunk of the stories I want to tell, certainly the ones about the particular weirdnesses of being mixed race in the world. I've started my first Substack post in this world today--that should be up soon!
I wanted to improve because it's a lot easier to write stories when I get what makes up a story! 😊
I love your Who questions, and I am totally going to steal them to ponder in my writing journal!!!
Thank you thank you for hard questions and good ones. 💖
Oooof, this is such a good comment! Thank you for saying it, and in such a supportive caring way 💖. You're hitting on an exact part of my "stuckness" that I was having trouble getting around--why can't I just be a storyteller and tell the stories? *Why* do I keep worrying about the marketing / audience part instead of just sitting down and telling that story that I have within me that I must get onto the page?
Honestly, that is one of the things that I admire so much about your work--the way you just bravely jump in and tell the story. I can tell it's a story you are excited to tell yourself, and that makes it so special and good.
The thing is, you're right, I don't know how to write for myself. Because I don't want to. And that might make me a terrible artist, and maybe I should have followed my other dream of being a foreign ambassador. But my writing isn't for the pure love of story. It's for the pure love of communication. My writing is my art version of being the change I want to see in the world. I am embarrassed to admit that the idea of writing something apropos of nothing feels...weird? Not good? There is SO MUCH I want to tell in story form about the world and each other and ideas I want to communicate and narratives I want to subvert. The thought of taking all of my fire and passion and drive for change and betterness and understanding and packaging it all up into this beautiful wonderful story knowing that it will never touch another human consciousness completely breaks my heart. It feels like a terrible silencing of my very soul. It is SUPER big and overly dramatic feels, that's for sure! But I don't want fame, and I don't want to make art for myself. I need to reach out and touch and connect through story--even if it's just to a handful of people. I also don't know if I am making any sense at this point, but there you have it. 😊
I was going to write that maybe it's OK to just let go and write for yourself, but then I scrolled down here and read all this great discussion in the comments. I will second kyeopu though and say that you will find an audience (you have found an audience), so tell those stories. Get them out, push them along to wherever they need to be. It won't be into a void.
"instead of holding on to those fears, what if I trust that readers want the worlds that live in my head most, and my work for them—for you—is to make those worlds as visceral and compelling and fun and easy to access as I can" <<< yes, I do (*we* do, I'm sure), but also, I do love hearing about process and all that goes with it, so if you serve it up, I will gladly take it, whatever form its in :)
^no idea if that makes any sense, it's been a long day 😅
I have found an audience, right?? It's ridiculously easy to re-write reality in my brain. But now that I've started posting a serial-ish story, I feel enough pressure to continue that it's easier to focus on the story-making.
I am also still full of process thoughts, and I am cooking up another essay now....never fear! 😅 I'm just going to try to make sure the balance of fiction outweighs the nonfiction from here on out!
I will never forget reading about how the early railroads across america supplied rifles to the passengers. This so that they could shoot buffalo from the train as "free entertainment". Worst of all, they left their rotting carcasses on the prairie...all part of an overall strategy of eliminating an important foundation of the native american way of life...It both horrified and saddened me that we could behave like this. How someone can use this as a successful example is beyond me.
I love your essays about your journey and process, so much echoes how I feel so keep it up! :)
It was very creepy that I stumbled on that story used in that way right when I was grappling with the idea of marketing. A synchronicity I will not ignore!
Thank you so much! I doubt I could keep myself from writing about process if I tried, so while I will be getting more fiction out, the essays won't disappear. 😊
I love all of this so much but particularly calling out how Capitalism and Capitalist mindset often involves lauding the most abhorrent behaviour humans are capable of rather than wondering about that and if it's a system we should want to participate in.
I think a lot about my audience and how it's always queer, neurodivergent weirdos and misfits. Like, always. I think about the stuff that resonates with me and want more of it in the world. I know there are so many of us out there with our janky misaligned messy multiplicities who find formulaic fiction derivative of the status quo over and over. And I think about how the authors I like best, I don't have a parasocial relationship with but I do know stuff about them outside of the things they've written. Like how Louise Erdrich runs a bookstore (and is a character in one of her own books, which, I absolutely loved and feels like a version of 'write a newsletter from the perspective of a character') or that Ruth Ozeki also teaches Dharma and can be found at the Upaya campus where I did my Chaplaincy training.
I think you are getting at something really essential here, which is that humans crave community and connection and as a reader, we find that through authors. I don't know very much at all about Becky Chambers but YOU BET when I meet a fellow reader of her books, we will gush excitedly and bond for the next twenty, thirty, forty minutes about her worldbuilding and characters.
anyway...good food for thought, all this. And like, can marketing be art? Or more so...what does it look like to not market ourselves, but to build community through the art we make?
I didn't really have space to go into it in the essay, but I too when I am struck by a smart, excellently-crafted story want to know a bit more about the author. And I think that's super fun to know too! I think it's more fun to know that fellow writers are fun quirky weird people like us than to know what they ate or their weird parenting choices or the other bizarre things people overshare on social. (Great examples of wonderful author weirdness you gave too, thank you!)
More janky misaligned messy multiplicities FTW! I love your idea about building community through our art. I mean, it's more than a little scary to think about my art holding space for a whole community. And it's scary because where does art stop and artist begin? But I think it is the ultra-ninja-pro level of what we really want when we fan, right? Friends squee best together!
Elnora, I remember a young and ambitious writer sending short stories out to magazines and webzines hoping to get published. I also remember hearing about rejection letters with comments about the need to basically dumb your writing if you want to be a commercial success. You vowed to never do that. Take all worlds, journeys, and characters that are residing in your head and put them into the stories that you want to tell. Your audience will come.
Thanks so much Claudia! It's a little overwhelming jumping back into Substack after a break, but it's good to be back. I'm looking forward to getting back into your Seed Grower story!! 🎉
Yes, I can imagine. Felt the same when I got back in February after a 2-month break. My mission was to publish my first fiction story to an audience of 46. I’m happy that I did.
Yes, that was my thought as soon as I jumped on substance, got the first subscriptions and first comments. I knew that if I keep on going something will happen. I will, at the very least, finally unload all the stories from my head onto the page. The first fiction story I published was actually unplanned. I was inspired by a writing prompt from Elle Griffin and just dipped into my worldbuilding for stories to be told.
I see you saying "I need to know what I am writing for" but all I can hear is "I don't know how to write for myself".
It's like you've gotten so good at molding yourself around other people's expectations and achieving when you write what other people want to see that you've lost sight of the stories that you want to tell yourself, the ones that you'd be proud of even if not a single other person in the universe ever saw them. Of course, learning and tweaking and improving your processes to become a better writer in a technical sense is all good for you, but maybe thinking about marketing and the author/reader relationship is a little cart before the horse - if you aren't excited to tell yourself these stories, how can you make anyone else enthusiastic about your work?
If you were going to look back on yourself 10 years from now, talking about your work as an author, what do you want people to know you for? What are the stories (edited or unedited, experimental or tightly structured, novels or 100 word short stories, whatever) that you want to put on your website apropos of nothing?
Think about the stuff you want to share not because you got it into some famous literary magazine or sold a bajillion copies of it, but because you loved that story so much you brought it into existence for the sheer sake that you could. Where are those? People who resonate with the things that make you happy to create will find you, I promise. :)
CRAP. I fell for it again! Headlong into the trap of the tension of opposites.
So our two posts are EXACTLY the two opposing ideas I keep getting stuck in. The overwhelming need to create to express oneself vs the equally overwhelming need to have that self-expression understood and accepted. Kyeopu, if your post had been from the "but creating in a vacuum is so lonely" side, I would just as passionately have defended the "but I have to make the things" side.
Every time I fully embrace one side or the other of these opposites, my big fat feels push me right back to the other opposite. This is why resolving the tension is so hard--the feels get in the way of seeing that I'm only stuck because I keep clinging so hard to one side AND THEN the other side, back and forth, no resolution.
I just need to understand (and remember! It's so hard to remember when the feelings rise up!) on a soul level that I NEED BOTH THINGS. I need to create, and I need that creation to be seen. And that IS OKAY. It feels like I can't have both things at once because I don't rationally see a way to have both from where I am right now. But that's not true. I just haven't figured out how yet. And honestly, I'm right on the edge of figuring it out, if I can manage to keep myself out of the trap.
My stupid tricksy brain is really amazing at manifesting the trap over and over again in different ways--for example, in this post worrying that my need for an audience will push me to compromise the very principles that push me to make art. That's a completely new manifestation of the same bloody opposites, and it kept me very effectively stuck for a good while.
I just need to keep holding both tensions, no matter how they arise. I can have both desires. I deserve to create and be seen. The answer to how will come if I keep believing in that.
Whew. Was I awake half the night fighting with this? Yup. So much fun! But thank you so much Kyeopu for bringing the reminder 💖, and sorry for setting you up as one side of my opposite 😞. I'm working on it!
Let me put on my best Palpatine: "Yeeeesssss, yeeeesssss, let the turmoil fuel you~"
Of course, I think the question was meant to be hard to challenge you to really think about what it is you want to put your energy into and why you want to improve yourself in this way. And if the answer is that you want to write explicitly to communicate with other people, telling stories and sharing ideas and subverting narratives, then I think the next place I would start looking is - what narratives do you want to subvert, then? Why that in particular, and how would you want to change it? Or, what is a topic (personal, communal, social, etc) that you're dying to talk with other people about? Who would you talk to about it, and what do you want to say to them? These answers could give you a footing for the What of a story.
Maybe the Who you're writing for is not yourself, but instead "People craving soft stories with sweet endings" or "Impassioned queers who want to see themselves in the world" or "I like a gritty dose of loneliness over crime noir and black coffee" or whatever. You don't have to know where they are yet to write for them! In a world where knowing your audience feels critical to creation, putting a general idea around who that person you're writing might be a tool for you - In what frame of mind might someone want to read a story you're writing? What kind of authors might they be into? What are the tropes they are expecting?
Ha, and how funny is it that I was watching The Clone Wars this weekend! V nice Palpatine, by the way. Do you also have cookies? 😉
My new world with the series of stories I did for the workshop is definitely a great setting to tell a good chunk of the stories I want to tell, certainly the ones about the particular weirdnesses of being mixed race in the world. I've started my first Substack post in this world today--that should be up soon!
I wanted to improve because it's a lot easier to write stories when I get what makes up a story! 😊
I love your Who questions, and I am totally going to steal them to ponder in my writing journal!!!
Thank you thank you for hard questions and good ones. 💖
Oooof, this is such a good comment! Thank you for saying it, and in such a supportive caring way 💖. You're hitting on an exact part of my "stuckness" that I was having trouble getting around--why can't I just be a storyteller and tell the stories? *Why* do I keep worrying about the marketing / audience part instead of just sitting down and telling that story that I have within me that I must get onto the page?
Honestly, that is one of the things that I admire so much about your work--the way you just bravely jump in and tell the story. I can tell it's a story you are excited to tell yourself, and that makes it so special and good.
The thing is, you're right, I don't know how to write for myself. Because I don't want to. And that might make me a terrible artist, and maybe I should have followed my other dream of being a foreign ambassador. But my writing isn't for the pure love of story. It's for the pure love of communication. My writing is my art version of being the change I want to see in the world. I am embarrassed to admit that the idea of writing something apropos of nothing feels...weird? Not good? There is SO MUCH I want to tell in story form about the world and each other and ideas I want to communicate and narratives I want to subvert. The thought of taking all of my fire and passion and drive for change and betterness and understanding and packaging it all up into this beautiful wonderful story knowing that it will never touch another human consciousness completely breaks my heart. It feels like a terrible silencing of my very soul. It is SUPER big and overly dramatic feels, that's for sure! But I don't want fame, and I don't want to make art for myself. I need to reach out and touch and connect through story--even if it's just to a handful of people. I also don't know if I am making any sense at this point, but there you have it. 😊
I was going to write that maybe it's OK to just let go and write for yourself, but then I scrolled down here and read all this great discussion in the comments. I will second kyeopu though and say that you will find an audience (you have found an audience), so tell those stories. Get them out, push them along to wherever they need to be. It won't be into a void.
"instead of holding on to those fears, what if I trust that readers want the worlds that live in my head most, and my work for them—for you—is to make those worlds as visceral and compelling and fun and easy to access as I can" <<< yes, I do (*we* do, I'm sure), but also, I do love hearing about process and all that goes with it, so if you serve it up, I will gladly take it, whatever form its in :)
^no idea if that makes any sense, it's been a long day 😅
I hope today is better 😊
I have found an audience, right?? It's ridiculously easy to re-write reality in my brain. But now that I've started posting a serial-ish story, I feel enough pressure to continue that it's easier to focus on the story-making.
I am also still full of process thoughts, and I am cooking up another essay now....never fear! 😅 I'm just going to try to make sure the balance of fiction outweighs the nonfiction from here on out!
I will never forget reading about how the early railroads across america supplied rifles to the passengers. This so that they could shoot buffalo from the train as "free entertainment". Worst of all, they left their rotting carcasses on the prairie...all part of an overall strategy of eliminating an important foundation of the native american way of life...It both horrified and saddened me that we could behave like this. How someone can use this as a successful example is beyond me.
I love your essays about your journey and process, so much echoes how I feel so keep it up! :)
It was very creepy that I stumbled on that story used in that way right when I was grappling with the idea of marketing. A synchronicity I will not ignore!
Thank you so much! I doubt I could keep myself from writing about process if I tried, so while I will be getting more fiction out, the essays won't disappear. 😊
I can't believe that somebody would use that story in such a way. It is awful.
I would rather that not a single word of mine is ever read if it results in the proverbial magpie losing a single feather. :)
I love all of this so much but particularly calling out how Capitalism and Capitalist mindset often involves lauding the most abhorrent behaviour humans are capable of rather than wondering about that and if it's a system we should want to participate in.
I think a lot about my audience and how it's always queer, neurodivergent weirdos and misfits. Like, always. I think about the stuff that resonates with me and want more of it in the world. I know there are so many of us out there with our janky misaligned messy multiplicities who find formulaic fiction derivative of the status quo over and over. And I think about how the authors I like best, I don't have a parasocial relationship with but I do know stuff about them outside of the things they've written. Like how Louise Erdrich runs a bookstore (and is a character in one of her own books, which, I absolutely loved and feels like a version of 'write a newsletter from the perspective of a character') or that Ruth Ozeki also teaches Dharma and can be found at the Upaya campus where I did my Chaplaincy training.
I think you are getting at something really essential here, which is that humans crave community and connection and as a reader, we find that through authors. I don't know very much at all about Becky Chambers but YOU BET when I meet a fellow reader of her books, we will gush excitedly and bond for the next twenty, thirty, forty minutes about her worldbuilding and characters.
anyway...good food for thought, all this. And like, can marketing be art? Or more so...what does it look like to not market ourselves, but to build community through the art we make?
I didn't really have space to go into it in the essay, but I too when I am struck by a smart, excellently-crafted story want to know a bit more about the author. And I think that's super fun to know too! I think it's more fun to know that fellow writers are fun quirky weird people like us than to know what they ate or their weird parenting choices or the other bizarre things people overshare on social. (Great examples of wonderful author weirdness you gave too, thank you!)
More janky misaligned messy multiplicities FTW! I love your idea about building community through our art. I mean, it's more than a little scary to think about my art holding space for a whole community. And it's scary because where does art stop and artist begin? But I think it is the ultra-ninja-pro level of what we really want when we fan, right? Friends squee best together!
Elnora, I remember a young and ambitious writer sending short stories out to magazines and webzines hoping to get published. I also remember hearing about rejection letters with comments about the need to basically dumb your writing if you want to be a commercial success. You vowed to never do that. Take all worlds, journeys, and characters that are residing in your head and put them into the stories that you want to tell. Your audience will come.
Pawcunawah
Thank you! The audience is here, I just need to remember it! 💖
Just wanted to say that it’s great to have you back! 🤗
Thanks so much Claudia! It's a little overwhelming jumping back into Substack after a break, but it's good to be back. I'm looking forward to getting back into your Seed Grower story!! 🎉
Yes, I can imagine. Felt the same when I got back in February after a 2-month break. My mission was to publish my first fiction story to an audience of 46. I’m happy that I did.
Thank you so much for saying this! My audience is at 45!! What a lovely synchronicity. I feel even more energized now!
Omg, I do have an audience! How can my brain keep glossing over that when I appreciate you all so much?!
Yes, that was my thought as soon as I jumped on substance, got the first subscriptions and first comments. I knew that if I keep on going something will happen. I will, at the very least, finally unload all the stories from my head onto the page. The first fiction story I published was actually unplanned. I was inspired by a writing prompt from Elle Griffin and just dipped into my worldbuilding for stories to be told.
Sometimes, the unplanned ones are the most gratifying!
And that is so true. SOMETHING will happen, one way or another!
Good luck with your writing!