Don’t Give Up!

The writing industry is ruthless. Not only is there all the difficulties linked to writing in itself, you also need to fight to get your book published. And even if you finally publish a story, there's absolutely no telling what will happen. You can get scammed and loose your story, loose all the merit of writing it. Or your story might not get seen at all, with all the competition there is, it's hard to get attention for your book. It's even worst when you self-publish, because then there are costs linked to it which might not be worth what you will receive from it.

One of the "easier" options would be to publish online. But that option brings a lot more problems in the long run. First, there are a lot more scammers online. Then, you need to find the right site to publish your story in (which isn't always easy, there are a lot of them). You need to follow the rules of that site (very hard, even when you don't write controversial stories). Many of those sites needs you to specify a lot of things about your story, which can also be hard if you're writing for the love of writing. Not to mention that views are not guaranteed on the internet either. The competition is even harder so even if you published hundreds of stories, you might not get seen at all. Or maybe if you're lucky, you might get a few likes and followers. In the end, all that is frustrating and might make you want to quit or give up.

I realise that what I'm saying might not make you understand why you shouldn't give up. So, I'm going to refocus myself on you. The first question you'll need to answer is; why are you writing? If you're answer is "for money and fame" you might need to reconsider. Money, attention and fame is hard to get in this industry. Any other answer should be valid. Now, the answer you need to give is; why do you want to give up? You're reading this, so you most likely thought about giving up. Anything you answer here is valid (I think). It doesn't mean you should give up. The last question is; is your reasons to write stronger than your desire to give up? If the answer is "no", you have to find better reasons to write. If the answer is "yes", then don't give up. Hold on to your reasons as if your life depended on it. Or until your reasons to give up are stronger than your desire to write. Even then, don't give up.

You might wonder why, and it's understandable. When I say, "don't give up," I'm not saying you should never take a break if you need one. Take as many breaks as you need or want. What I'm saying is, don't give up on your stories. If it's published, don't unpublish. If it's written, don't erase. If it's on paper, don't burn it. It's already hard enough to write as it is. There are rules you need to follow, you're not forced to follow them, but if you don't people won't understand. If you follow them all, people might find your story boring. You need to navigate between following and not following the rules, creating your own rules in the midst. So, if you succeeded to write something, despite everything. It shouldn't be taken lightly. Maybe one day, your story might inspire something great. But it will never happen if your story doesn't exist. Everything brings something to this world. Why would we want to take away the possibility of something great? I would say, the only exception would be if you wrote something out of hate. That should stay in your diary, and you can do whatever you want with it. Hate stories are just propaganda, and we do not like those kinds of things. A writer should always be open minded for their minds to find new universes.

That being said, I'm not your success story. I did not get thousands of followers or views overnight. I don't even have a thousand anything right now. But I've only been publishing for a few years (writing for over a decade, but that's a detail). Even though I haven't been that long, it's still hard to try and try and try again without getting any results. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm doing the right thing, which I already know the answer. If you don't get the results you want, you're not doing the right thing. I don't even know what the right thing is. But I won't give up. Utile I am where I want to be, I'll continue and persevere.

Why am I writing? I love living adventures with my characters. Living through them. Seeing how they evolve. Evolving with them. It's a way for me to do everything I can. A way to deal with my frustration. A way to do what I want. I just love writing, because writing is living, and I don't feel like I have enough life in my life. I also want to share those experiences with others, so they could find a bit more life in their life.

But then, why do I want to give up? I'll never give up creating stories. But I often want to give up writing for others. I have financial problems (part of the reasons why I don't have Vocal+ anymore), which makes it very hard for me to write when I don't get anything from it. I don't mind making no money from what I write (I did make $27 with Vocal, though), but, since I don't make that much money, I need a motivation to keep going. I need someone to enter my universes with me. Someone who tells me that I make a difference for them. I just need one comment once in a while, even when I'm not there. Just so I know when I'm there that I did the right thing by sharing my stories.

Is my reasons to write stronger than my desire to give up? Yes, and it will always be. Though, I might not publish as often since I don't feel like it matters anyway. I know everything I write will be published one day. I just don't know when and how.

There's something I really what I want through my writing. I want a community. A group of people who I can share my stories without fear of being hated for them. Somewhere where people would comment them. Either to tell me how to make my stories better, or to tell me what they liked about it, or maybe just to make links in-between our stories. I want people to tell me about their worlds and their stories just enough to encourage me to read them, but not too much to sell me the punch. I want a community that welcomes everyone and tries to understand on another instead of telling people what they think the other is saying. Somewhere where we can open our minds together only through the use of our words. But I don't have the resources to do that. So I guess I'll wait for that day to come. Knowing that it might never come.