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drarrily-we-row-along · 9 months

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Hello, I've been a big fan of your blog for at least three years now but I wanted to ask what you recommend to people thinking about posting their writing/art online?. I'm a poet and I really want to post my work online but I'm terrified for a number of reasons. Mainly, about not being able to grasp people's attention. (And my work being stolen/ reblogged w/ credit but yk). I love your work and would really like to get your opinion on this.

Hi there lovely!

Thanks so much for the ask, I'm genuinely honored to be sent an ask of this nature; I'll do my best to give you my thoughts on the subject. <3 (I got a little long-winded, I'm really passionate about this. tldr; sharing a piece of yourself in your writing is absolutely terrifying but you should do it anyway.)

When I first started posting my writing (7 years ago?!) in the Sherlock fandom, I was so afraid that people were going to be mean. Literally the only way I could start posting was by telling myself that if everyone hated it, I could just delete it and pretend it had never happened. And I was terrified when I started posting drarry stuff on this blog and I told myself that if even 10 people liked it, that would be enough (I couldn't have imagined how many people would engage with this blog and my fics). Over 350 stories (ranging from 50-100k words) later, I still regularly get nervous about posting things.

I don't know how to get people not to steal other peoples' work. I don't know how to stop ai bots from consuming writing/art and popping out soulless shit because of what it consumed. There are no answers that I can give you on this front.

And if I'm being honest, I don't have the foggiest clue how to grasp peoples' attention. The follows this blog gets and the posts that get attention continue to be a mystery to me; I can't ever guess which things will gain traction and which stories will go dark (and sometimes I get pissy about it- my fic on AO3 with the most kudos is a stupid 1k story that I wrote in 30 minutes while stories that I've spent literal years writing do half as well, but I digress). And there are stories that I see other people writing that I'm obsessed with- their prose, their imagery, their crafting- that don't receive anywhere near as much love as they should and I can't understand that either. It often seems like there is no rhyme or reason to what "does well" and what doesn't.

Which is why I can't let myself get caught up in which stories are well received and which aren't. For me, writing and sharing things can't be about what will get the most reach because I can't base the story's worth (or my own worth) off of that or I'd never post anything at all. Don't get me wrong, I love for my fics to receive kudos/likes, comments, and reblogs- it's a euphoric high. But in the end writing has been about giving myself permission to be free to be an entire person without the constraints I put on myself day in and day out. It's been about putting into words all of my darkness, my fears, my failings, my desires, my wants and needs along with all of my beauty, and strength, and joy, and hope. It's been putting my heart down on a page and believing that the response I receive is less important than the process of self discovery. Over and over, I've written myself the life I want to have; I've written the type of partner I want to have, the type of partner I want to be; I've written about healing and self discovery. Writing for me has been a way to fall in love with myself over and over again, to heal woundedness, to offer myself some hope, some comfort, a dose of encouragement and bravery, a little bit of tenderness when it was scarce.

Reading fanfiction when I was in my early twenties saved my life. I'm not saying this to be dramatic, it is actually true. Reading fanfiction saved me from an abusive relationship and helped to keep me from going back. Reading fanfiction taught me what it meant to be loved well and it changed my standards for myself forever. Part of my desire to pour back into this community stems from that. If there is even one person whose life can be touched in that way, who can realize how lovable they are, who can see how they deserve to be treated and loved, my time was well spent.

I'm not saying that has to be your reason for sharing the gift of yourself. We all write and create for different reasons. But I do believe that all humans were made to create and we were all made to share ourselves in what we make. Share your words for you. Share them as an act of rebellion. Share them as an act of war or change. Share them as a way to express the deepest emotions of your being. Share them because they are a part of your own soul. Share them as an act of self-love and a way of honoring the unrepeatable, beautiful person that you are. Whatever your reason for sharing your words, make it a reason that is about you. You deserve to be seen and loved, to be known in a way that can only happen when you give yourself permission to be vulnerable. There are, in my humble opinion, few things that bare your soul the way that sharing something you've created does. Love yourself enough to give yourself away.

#i hope this helps!#you're beautiful #share your story #create #asks #writer ramblings #c rambles #i love writing

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