I know this.
Like countless writers before me, I understand how lonely the road can be.
Forget the wild parties with the intense debates over politics.
Forget the struggling artiste stereotype.
Writing is work.
Hard work.
Like any artist, writers labour over their creations, forging something from their imaginations, something from nothing. At the end of the arduous process of writing, redrafting, and self-publishing, what is there?
Many times, it is the sound of one hand clapping – my own. Last night, that solitary road deepened into loneliness. For a while.
Yesterday, I hit the ‘publish’ button on two books on Amazon and wrote and published an article on Medium. As a writer, those are not small accomplishments. Not for me, anyway.
Yet those actions impacted nobody but me.
Once upon a time, my newbie writer self would have called everyone I knew, eager to share the excitement of publishing. I wanted their acknowledgement, their validation that I was a writer, and a successful one because I am publishing. Those achievements meant I finished projects AND that I was successful, right?
Nope.
Wait, what?
TWO books? That’s huge!
Sure, but not for anyone other than me.
I do not have a following or an email list.
I do have a small circle of writerly friends who appreciate the trials and tribulations each writer goes through on the journey of manuscript completion.
And … I have crickets.
They clap.
Loudly, too, if I listen long enough.
I shared my achievement with a dear friend. I stood on the decking overlooking the lush Tasmanian wilderness near Lettes Bay while the trees whispered their applause. I’d climbed my own Mount Everest, and I wanted to shout from the summit that I did it!
Their response?
“How lovely.”
That didn’t land well. My friend’s response was not in the same town I was standing in, let alone the ballpark I was sharing from.
But it wasn’t my friend’s lukewarm response that registered for me. I appreciated their efforts to acknowledge the big deal of publishing two books.
Instead, I felt a pang of loneliness.
One born of the recognition that few people I know could stand shoulder to shoulder with me and ‘get’ what an accomplishment this was – specifically the Short Story Collection with stories that took years to craft. Stories that were birthed during happier times, that deepened after processing trauma: stories that felt like I was chiseling their completion from stone.
After a period of creative constipation, I was finally uncorked, ready to move forward with my writing. It was time to complete, publish, repeat – every unfinished project in my metaphorical bottom drawer.
I was ready.
I was doing it.
But the shock of how solitary I felt, how alone I was with my achievements brought me to tears. Deep, racking sobs had me scrambling to process the realisation that few people could ever really know the how and the why and the sheer grit it took for me to complete those projects. That was the moment of understanding that all writers have their own Mount Everest. But those mountains in the clouds are invisible to others.
And that’s okay —now.
Because I understand – I don’t need validation, praise or someone tooting horns on my behalf.
Writing and publishing used to be something big in my life. Something that meant I was ‘doing’ my life the way I was designed to.
Publishing meant success in some ethereal manner. But not anymore.
Now, writing and publishing is just something I do. I no longer need the applause. I no longer want to share my accomplishments with friends and family – because writing and publishing is just like walking and eating.
It is not special.
It’s just something I do.
With that insight, the ache to belong, to be seen, sharpens. So few people see me for who I am. I pour myself into my writing, yet with so few eyes on my words I wonder – does it matter?
Is it unimportant, trite?
Deep inside I know that’s not true. I understand that excavating my experiences and sharing them with the world and whoever happens across my writing, is validation enough.
Hold your applause.
Hold your criticism of me and of my words.
Instead, the next time a friend shares an accomplishment, pause a moment.
Dig deep and feel.
Feel their vulnerability in sharing their moment with you.
Feel your response, feel their need, and walk away before you patronise them with, ‘Isn’t that lovely?’
Because at the heart of that sharing, that vulnerability, is the need to connect. For me, it is the need to know what I do is valued. To feel my accomplishments further self-understanding – mine and yours.
Connection lets me hear my vulnerability reflected in a heartfelt moment of appreciation and intimacy. Without those responses, that feedback from the universe, I feel like I am shouting into the void, hearing only the wind as I walk the solitary road of a writer.
Clearly, there will be a lot of wind and crickets on this road.
Yet I will continue to write because at my core, that is who I am.
It is what I do.
If it is only me reading my words, that will have to be enough.
Christine Writer 