4 Reasons Why I Keep Writing Even When No One Reads It...
A reflection on my journey as a new serialized fictional author writing bipoc & queer romantasy
1. I’m just not making the art, the art is making me.
Almost a month ago, I hit POST on the first chapter of a story I didn’t know would save my life. And not only that, but I wouldn’t even understand why something as simple as writing a story could save my life. I have been very open the past couple of months about my ongoing battle with depression and grief. It has been as destabilizing and debilitating as the chronic illness flare-up I’ve also been navigating.
Finally getting the courage to do something I’ve always wanted to do and not receiving support was definitely auditioning to be my 13th reason. I have the same 3 - 5 readers show up week after week to read and engage with my story… 5 out of the 6,400 subscribers I have here on substack.
Most people would look at those numbers and think of me as a failure. 5 out of 6,400 is not impressive. Nothing to brag about. So why would I keep spending hours of my life each week to outline, draft, edit, and publish a story not many people even seem interested in reading?
The answer is simple.
I’m not just making the art, the art is also making me.
In 3 weeks, I have plotted an entire story from beginning to end, built a fantasy world with a magic system, written over 50K words, and published 15 chapters here on Substack.
I did it sick. I did it sad. I did it frustrated, crying, grieving, angry, and hopeless until I realized that I was not only doing the thing I was most afraid of doing, but I was doing it at a time when I felt my worst.
With each chapter and outline, I found myself laughing more. I heard the passion seeping back into my voice when I got the chance to gush about it to friends. I found myself coming up with creative ways to help myself progress towards a baseline. My symptoms have not relented. I am still not feeling well. Most days are an uphill battle from the time I wake up but now— now I find that I want to fight them.
I think one of my favorite things about writing fiction is asking, What if? When I’m drafting a scene and I get to a plot point, I love standing at that road diverged in a yellow wood... I love imagining the different outcomes of the endless possibilities of those choices. I didn’t know until recently that writing fiction has been studied for its ability to be as effective as journaling on a healing journey.
There was a1study done that showed that writing fiction can not only be a great way to explore healing, but it can also positively reshape our self-concept and beliefs we have about ourselves. Creative writing has the power to expand and validate the different facets of who we are and what we think is possible for ourselves and our lives. For example, completing a short story or novel can boost our self-esteem and confidence. When we prove to ourselves that we can set a goal, harness our own creativity, and produce something meaningful, it changes the very chemistry of the way we think— therefore changing the way we behave or the habits we keep.
The more I stuck to writing everyday— the more I depended on it, the more I started waking up and actually getting out of bed. I began to go outside to write at the park or my local library. It felt like the sun was slowly peeking over the dark cloud that’s been hanging over my head. I’m still depressed, but each sentence I’ve written has trained hope into every action I have been able to take for myself since I started writing. And what is hope if not a resistance to succumb to what is, without ever asking what if? And what then is courage but daring to act on those possibilities without the promise of better?
Writing hasn’t made me feel better, but it is teaching me to feel. To cope. And make no mistake. Coping is not a strength; coping is strength itself. It is the thing inside us all that is death-defying. The part of us that screams Not Today when the world threatens to drag us under.
So I have found that writing powerful women has made me powerful— each word and syntax has become a reclaimation and a homecoming as much as an adventure of the unknown.
I am not just making the art— the art, this story is making me.
“Do you think it’s all true? The legends of where we came from— our ina?”
“I don’t know, I think it’s been so long that even the Eshari has generational knowledge colored by the way of stories. Some of it may be true, other parts of it might just be the stories we’ve told ourselves to make sense of it all.”
2. Metrics don’t always equal merit.
We are a generation of creatives that define the value of our art by the metrics it accumulates and not the merit of the art itself. I am guilty of this. It’s been hard to work this out of my system because I understand the power of social media and why metrics have become a measure of perceived value. I’ve seen how numbers have the power to reshape entire lives. But the thing about writing is that it is not short-form video made to be devoured by 2X speeds, double clicks, and nonstop scrolling. When writing a story I am asking a reader to give me something more valuable than 1M views and a 67% engagement rate. I am asking them to give me something they can never get back… their time.
And while time is something that we can count, the intrinsic value of time is unknowable. It may take 2 seconds to like a post but it takes more than a handful of moments to truly engage with written art.
The value of words can be found in the way that we carry them with us always. Once we read something that brands itself to our soul, we never stop engaging with it. We can sometimes build our identity around a single sentence. Erecting a new life from a handful of paragraphs. The thing about writing is that the merit is not something that can be defined by metrics— validated, yes. But not defined.
A story is still a story even if no one reads it, and art still exists even if no one sees it. I don’t think I want to be an author as much as I just want to tell stories and create art. But an author doesn’t become an author after a certain number of people has read their work; they become an author in the writing.
And while I think it’s human to want people to see what we’ve created, I also think we don’t fully understand that driving force to hold our creations in our hands so that others may experience the inner workings of our minds.
Lately I have been asking myself, what if we create to become and we share to connect? What if the true desire behind seeing the numbers is not to measure success but to measure how many more people like us there are in the world— that we are not as alone as we can feel sometimes.
The point of the numbers is not to measure the value of making the art or if I should discontinue after I don’t meet those artbritray markers. The point is that I want as many queer people to know that the way they love and exist is beautiful and undeniable. I want them to know that the worlds I imagine feature them as main characters who are complex, desirable, and inspiring. That is the value. Numbers may have the power to validate that, but the value is born the moment I decide that underrepresented people deserve center stage in fictional art and dare to give voice to those beliefs.
My mother never taught me to feel shame about my fangs or talons. They are just as much a part of me as the locs of my hair. Her voice plays clearly in my head as it always does. She would take my youngling claws in her own and say,
“When you see these, always remember that someone survived long enough for you to inherit the means to thrive. Not all blessings from your ancestors are joyous blessings of love and light... Some are fearsomely beautiful things meant to protect that love and guard that light. Light doesn't just shine my little night star, it burns. Never let them make you ashamed of what you become to overcome. Burn Bright.”
3. Obscurity can be a gift if you let it.
Write like no one is watching, because in the beginning they usually aren’t. This is not such a bad thing I think. As a new writing with no editor and lots of evidence of undiagnosed dyslexia, I dont mind making mistakes quietly. This is the best time for me to really find my voice. To experiment with different methods of storytelling. To swing big and miss hard.
This obscure space where I dont have to many eyes on me becomes a playground for inner child and all that I can imagine. This is where I learn how to miss, so I know what it feels like to hit my mark.
“You already have this idea of how you’re supposed to do something you've never done before.” She takes the dagger from my hand and tosses it without looking and the sound of the blade hitting home prickles against my skin.
She pulls another dagger free.
“Our muscle memory doesn't just recall the right form—”
Thwack. She pulls another.
“It also tells us when our posture is off—”
Thwack. And then another.
“When our wrist is bent at the wrong angle— when the current doesn't flow right.”
Thwack.
“You hone your feeling of hitting your mark by learning what it feels like to miss it…— if you want to learn you have to drop your little pretense of perfection.”
4. Your story isn’t wasted—It’s in waiting
Think about your top 5 favorite books… When were they published? How did you find out about them? How long did it take you to read them? How many times have you read them? Better yet, how many times have you recommended them?
Had the people you recommended it to ever heard of them before?
In some variation of the answers to these questions, many of us will realize that we found our favorite stories well after the author published them. By the time i discovered one of my all time favorite fantasy series, The Gods and Monsters series by Amber V Nicole, she was already on the tail end of editing the third book in the series. Nearly 150 chapters of her story was already out in the world before I found her. But that did'nt stop her books from being my favorite. I binged them like crazy and recommended them to anyone who would listen.
One of the biggest challenges of expanding my love of stories from just reading them to telling them has been rewiring my algorithmic brain rot. When we post a piece of content on traditional social media platforms like tiktok or instagram. The performance of that post is determined by what happens with the first 60 mins after it goes live. The level of engagement received on the outset impacts how the video gets distributed on those plateforms. If the video performs poorly with engagement in the first hour, it’s likely to not perform well at all and there’s little to be done about it.
I have had to rewire my way of thinking when it comes to writing. Writing is not like posting something and hoping that in the first hour it’ll gain traction and go viral. Writing is like being a gardener. You don’t plant a seed, water it, then stand outside for an hour to see how far it grows out the ground.
You plant your story, a draft and a chapter at a time. You tell people you have a garden even though they cant see the stems yet. You tell them what seeds you’ve planted and everyday that you write, you water your story. You water it, and shape it, and wait for your season of growth.
This journey is teaching me patience. It’s helping me reframe my relationship with art and the value of creativity. It’s showing me the power of hope and reinforcing my faith in myself.
If youre thinking about creating something and putting it out there in the world but youre afraid to flop or not accumulate enought metrics to defend your passion for wanting to create your thing— I hope you read this and feel inspired to do it anyway. I hope you see the value in your writing just existing because you exist…
You know as well as I do that convenience is not a substitute for passion…
Chase your passions, or they will continue to chase you! -With Love ,Div
Thank you so much for reading! I would love your support so I can continue to bring more stories and diverse worlds to life! You can subscribe to unlock more content here or buy me a coffee with a one-time tip.
https://www.bolton.ac.uk/blogs/psychological-benefits-of-creative-writing
the garden analogy is a gorgeous one! also, the relationship between writing and healing is so interesting - i had no idea of the studies behind it but it really lines up at least with my own experiences… thank you as always for sharing div 💖
perfectly said