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13 Things I’ve Written That Nobody Will Ever (Ever) Read

And that’s EXACTLY why I wrote them

By emPublished 2 years ago 5 min read
2
13 Things I’ve Written That Nobody Will Ever (Ever) Read
Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash

If you weren’t reading this right now, if nobody did at all — does that render it useless? Null? Void? Redundant? A real big waste of my time?

Or, okay, let me put it this way:

“If a tree falls in the forest and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?” — some Philosopher out for existential blood.

Does the tree have value if there’s nobody around to observe it? If there’s nobody to watch it grow, hear it fall, pick it back up again and replant it? Is a Thing™’s purpose defined by the way in which it is received or by the way in which it’s created?

Don’t worry it’s a rhetorical question because actually, the answer is: uh, no.

A tree is a tree because it’s here! In existence! Being a tree! It doesn’t need to be climbed. Harvested. With a tiny wooden house built into it. It doesn’t need to be seen, admired or kissed up against. A tree is phenomenal because here it is, just being. No bother, just breeze. And the same applies to our words.

It doesn’t matter if a story is read. It doesn’t even matter why the story was written. All that matters is that it exists. It was made, it lives, it breathes, it happened. And as a writer, I think we need to know that.

We can write (write write write freak out cry stress slip into a coma-like state of numbness whilst we painstakingly contemplate the cosmic void and then — just maybe — write some more) all we like: and that’s enough. It doesn’t matter if it ever gets seen. It doesn’t matter if it ever gets finished. It doesn’t matter if you read it back and edit it or close the document before pressing save.

All that matters is that you made it. That you, the writer, wrote. You practised your literacy, you wove words together, you told stories, you storyteller! Whether six million young adults read it, or just you and the universe. Or not even that.

It all counts. It all helps. And it’s important that actually, occasionally, you write with the intention of not being read at all. I know it sounds counter-intuitive but trust me, it’s worth it. It will connect you with your craft. It will strip back the desire for recognition or reward and remind you why you’re writing: because that’s what you were born to do.

We’re the writers; our job is to write. The reading is down to the readers, that’s on them, we’ve played our part. And that’s why I make a point of writing things that will never ever (ever) be read by anybody (other than maybe a family member or friend as I’m too stingy to spend money on an actual birthday present, so instead I subject them to some crap that I’ve written because I’m poor in cash but rich in waffle).

And to prove to you I’m not lying (read: spouting fiction at you), here are 13 things that I sat down to write — with no reader in sight:

To read or not to read — that ISN’T the question

  1. A script about who owes who more money between me and my cousin.
  2. A roast battle scene in which Sue Sylvester from Glee is tearing into my own mom.
  3. A poem about the kettle that broke in my house during the first lock-down.
  4. A tiny story about a guy who’s so precious about his personal space that he ends up peeling his own skin off.
  5. A four part lecture summary of the reasons why I should date Finn Shelby (from Peaky Blinders).
  6. A fake complaint letter to McDonald’s on behalf of my best pal, because they started using orange flavourings in their McFlurry’s and she’s allergic (I ate 7 in one sitting so that she didn’t have to).
  7. A 110,000 word manuscript about glitches between universes in which two people fall in love at the intersection.
  8. A short story and poetry collection that I mistakenly self-published when I was 19 (and refuse to tell anybody the title of so that still, it will never be read).
  9. A story about my baby nephew growing up to be an astronaut, written for his second birthday knowing fully well that he still doesn’t know how to read (and thus criticise my work. Score!).
  10. 14,000 words worth of short stories based on real life events for my mom and dad’s Christmas presents — one of which depicted the time my dad taught me how to sly fart in public.
  11. A poem about Abed from Community falling in love with the entire Andromeda galaxy.
  12. A letter, written to nobody, purging onto the page all the pain that was swirling around inside me knowing that I was battling severe OCD and could tell nobody about it (well look at me now lads!).
  13. My journal. Except no, screw that, it is actually written to an omnipresent audience (the universe? Moses? My mom when she sneaks a peak whilst I’m pooping? I don’t know) in the hopes that one day I will be immortalised by my tales either through the form of my journals being revived from the rubble in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future or they’re converted into the script for my autobiographical remake of the Vampire Diaries (named; the Empire Diaries). Maybe both.

James Clear said in a newsletter of his

“The world rewards you for value provided, not time spent.”

And he’s right (he’s always right and I love him, hi James I’m free every Thursday until the universe switches off, just fyi). And that’s wrong. That’s so bloody wrong.

Write crap. Spend 17 years on a book you’ll never publish (as long as you’re enjoying the process). Publish an unedited first draft. Scribble out a bestseller in a single afternoon. Do what you want to do because you want to do it.

Whether you “provide value” or not. Whether you “spend time” on it or not.

It.

Does.

Not.

Matter.

All that matters, my literary love, is that you wrote it at all. Do you hear me?

You wrote something! You made something! Something that wasn’t here before! And now it exists! All because of you!

Jesus had 12 followers. Madonna has 16.6 million. The newborn baby in the pram opposite me in this cafe currently has zero. And yet they’re all pretty valuable beings, regardless of how many people see them, know them, love them. You know?

The same applies to your words.

Write them. Create them. Bring them into existence. It doesn’t matter what happens next.

Only that they’re here now.

self help
2

About the Creator

em

I’m a writer, a storyteller, a lunatic. I imagine in a parallel universe I might be a caricaturist or a botanist or somewhere asleep on the moon — but here, I am a writer, turning moments into multiverses and making homes out of them.

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