Nearly 15 years into my career as a writer and editor, I still occasionally find myself wondering what might be different in my work and personal life if more people read and engaged with my work.
I usually end up asking myself questions like these on days when I’m struggling to find purpose in my day-to-day work. I force myself to engage with these ideas not because I specifically yearn for a bigger audience, but instead, because I frequently need to remind myself that my words matter more than how many people are actually reading them.
You’ve probably thought about this, too. And I’m here to assure you there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be heard. It’s just not necessarily the finish line you always want to be sprinting toward.
Most Writers Don’t Want to Be Famous
Well, I sure don’t. And I obviously can only speak for myself here. But honestly? There are plenty of aspiring writers — and even published, successful ones — who aren’t after the fame and fortune (ha) that many of us dream about.
What most of us actually want is to feel like our words and stories, ideas and opinions, matter. That our minds are worth something. We don’t want to be read because we want to be known, at least, not in the more traditional sense. We simply want to be heard. For someone, for once, to listen to one of the stories we’ve poured our hearts and souls into making.
Sometimes fame, of a sort, is a byproduct of that. John Green talks about this a lot — how he wanted to be famous until it happened to him, and how he sort of just wants to write stuff. Someone like John Green no longer has to wonder what he could do with a larger platform because he already has one.
Having a Platform Is a Privilege
Thankfully, there are a lot of sensible creatives out there who have large followings and are aware of how privileged they are. Because writing itself is a privilege — having the time and resources and energy to fill blank pages with stories consistently is on its own a luxury not everyone has access to. And writing with a large audience? It doesn’t happen to a lot of us. And over the past few years, we’ve seen that many writers who have acquired such a level of fame don’t necessarily deserve it. (If you know, you know.)
I often think about what I’d be capable of if everything I wrote was read by even thousands. I’d have more freedom to write about the things that were important to me; things I knew a lot about and had an equal amount of passion for. I’d be able to allow a more diverse audience feel seen through my stories. I could take my time. I could write things that only raised money for charity — something I’ve dreamed of doing for years, but obviously can’t afford to do now.
Privilege opens up dozens of doors previously locked for most of us. There’s nothing wrong with wishing you could open even just one of those doors and reap the benefits. It’s not realistic, so to speak. But it’s also not impossible.
Writing Really Is the Only Way Forward
There is no guarantee that any of us will land in the right place at the exact right time for the perfect strike of lightning to change our lives forever. We can daydream and hope and wonder. But we can’t sit around and wait for the impossible to happen overnight completely at random, either.
I haven’t stopped writing, even though my readership has dropped significantly over the past few years. I encourage you to keep writing, too. Because writers don’t find success by just hoping it will happen. Most of them — the ones who deserve it more than anyone — write until one of their stories just so happens to catch fire. And that fire spreads. And suddenly, they have the following they need to do everything they’ve been dreaming of all this time.
Meg Dowell Writes 