writing is not retail; or, why I don’t feel so guilty about not replying to fanfic comments any more

owlinaminor:

a few months ago, I saw a story on tumblr.  I can’t remember the exact post so I can’t
link it here, but I remember it was a story from a reader who commented on a
fanfic that hadn’t been updated in years.
the writer of this story got so excited that someone was still reading,
they started updating again.

a wonderful story, of course.  good for the writer, who found motivation for
an old work and validation in the reader who loved it.  and good for the reader, to have received this
surprise gift.  but the story bothered
me, like a nudge in the gut, when I read it, and has bothered me more in the
months since.

here’s the thing: this story was being touted as a shining
example.  “look, comment on fics!” the
moral went.  “the writers are so starved
for the validation, they’ll do literally anything for you!”  that attitude is one I see increasingly in text
posts and tweet threads and the like, practically begging readers to throw all
their support at us writers, saying, writers need notes, need kudos, need
comments.  this validation is why we
write, these arguments go.  we’d have no
motivation without it.

this attitude is one that strikes me as increasingly
dangerous.  not for fandom as a whole so
much, but for writers themselves.  if
writers, especially younger writers, writers most vulnerable to these types of “voice
of god” diatribes, get this mentality that they are worthless if nobody reads
them, it becomes so easy to lose hope.
it becomes so easy to say, well, this one got no notes, no readers
begging for more, so I should just stop trying.

and on the flipside, that attitude makes it easy to get tied
into a work that isn’t actually interesting or creatively fulfilling or just
plain making the writer happy.  just
because it’s getting notes, views, comments, the logic says, it must continue.

but here’s the thing: fic writing is not retail.  you don’t need to sell a brand to get your
work out there – ao3 and ffnet and any other site on which you might want to
publish are all as open to you as they are to some big name fan.  that’s one of the beauties of fanfic, to
start with.  your foot is already in the
door; you don’t need to cater to anyone besides yourself to get published.  or: the reader is not the priority.  the writer
is the priority.  (except for gifts and
fic commissions, but those are subjects for other essays.)

to paraphrase rainer maria rilke: to truly become a writer,
one must look deep into one’s soul and inquire of oneself: MUST I WRITE?  if I were unable to express my inner self in
the written medium, would I perish?  (letters to a young poet, p. 16 in my norton
1954 edition.)

rilke is rather melodramatic about it.  my interpretation, and my lesson to young
writers, is: ask yourself, DOES THIS MAKE ME HAPPY?

not will it get me
attention, not will it please this
fandom, but does it feel worthy of my
time, my skills, the piece of my soul that will go into it?  your first audience, before you publish your
work anywhere and get feedback from anyone, is yourself.  for most writers, in fact, your primary
audience for at least half of your work is yourself – because, come on, none of
us have good track records for finishing our wips.  thus, if you’re not pleasing yourself by
exploring characters or worlds or literary themes that you enjoy (or by getting
paid at the end of the word doc) whatever you’re writing is not worthy of your
talents or your time.

and here’s the other thing: you’ll probably need to write
for a couple of years before you’re actually good at it.  I don’t mean to
discourage anyone here, just to be realistic; writing, like any other craft,
takes practice.  very few
people put up a very first fic on ao3 and immediately get 1,000 kudos, and
those who do have probably been writing an original fantasy series since they
were seven.  why do you think all the
best porn is written by people over the age of thirty?  this
shit takes experience.  and if you’re
refreshing your ao3 page every ten minutes, agonizing over every single comment
and every single tumblr note, calling yourself worthless every time you don’t
hit some magic hits/kudos ratio, you’ll never want to actually do the work that
will get you that experience.  a lack of
validation is only reason to lose heart if the work meant nothing to your
personal satisfaction in the first place.

I have been writing fic for almost eight years.  in that time, I’ve had widely popular fics
and widely unpopular ones, in a whole host of fandoms.  and to be honest, much as my horrible lizard
brain craves validation, some of my absolute favorite works are the ones that
got no notes.  because I know that those
fics are the ones I wrote truly for myself.
they are the most creatively satisfying.
they are the works that make me happy.

(and, a rarepair writer secret: those fics are also often
the ones that get the absolute best comments.
when you prioritize writing what you love, it
shows.)

rilke, at one point, was so poor that he could not even buy
his own books (letters to a young poet,
p. 25).  and yet today, he is lauded as
one of the best german-language writers of all time.  just because you are not getting validation
right now doesn’t mean you are not learning and growing as a writer.  if you find what you’re passionate about and
write from the heart, someday, you will find someone who shares your passions –
it’s one of the beauties of the internet that you don’t need a publishing
contract to find that other person.  all
you need is the self-confidence to write your piece and the bravery to hit post.

I don’t want to speak for all writers.  not everyone is a literary theory-spouting
weirdo like I am who sometimes wants to lock herself in a cabin in the woods
and turn off wifi for a month just because she’d get so much done.
some people write fic as a coping mechanism.  some do it to make money, or as a stepping
stone into a professional writing career.
some need validation to truly be happy.
I only want to speak for myself, to voice my concerns, and to ask any
writer (or any content creator reading this, really): does it make you happy?

you do not owe the commenter anything.  you owe yourself
everything.