Thought Capture

My writing has become about the audience. For me, this is wrong. It’s not meant to be about the audience, it’s about the writer. It’s about you. Writing is supposed to expose you. It’s intimate, it’s real. That’s the only way that it’s authentic. And there’s nothing better in this world than authenticity.

Once I became known as a writer, I forgot that writing was about me. I’ve been writing for an audience instead. Doing it that way makes your writing rushed, fake and sometimes maybe even boring. Because you’re trying to please so many people that you fall short.

I’ve let the fact that I’m not doing well with money cloud my judgement, I think. I’ve been thinking of all the little books I could write quickly and sell fast. I’ve been thinking of the sites I could start to make money from, too. Instead I should have just been writing whatever was in my heart, like I used to. Then in time the right people would find me and they’d love what they found because it was real. Right?

I was reading over my old poems and I loved them. I don’t mean to sound boastful but they were real to me. They made me feel. And when my boyfriend remembered the title of a poem I read at my event last year, I knew it to be true. My poems, the ones I never intended to show anyone, might just be my best work. Because they’re filled with emotion and never try to be anything else but what they are. This is what writing should be. The story or the poem should be what it is regardless of what sells or is popular or is easy. Right?

Writing has always been my friend but I’ve been a bad friend to it, lately. Writing has always had my back. It has always made me feel safe and confident at times and free. Writing helps me be me.

And writing never makes you apologise for any of it.