If you write to please others, you are selling out. You are in the process of audience capture. This way of talking, which is how the fear in me talks, is common—as if writing for an audience and writing for yourself are at odds with each other. I really used to feel like that.

But I no longer think that it is quite right. The relationship between... See more

I get it. You pour your soul onto the page, and it’s crushing when no one seems to care. That’s human. But if you’re not careful, the need for validation starts steering the work.

You bend your tone. You chase trends. You lose the very thing that made you worth reading in the first place.

And the things is the more you write to grow , the less your... See more