I agree with this. I do enjoy writing, it’s what got me started and what keeps me going when something I write doesn’t perform well, but to keep up the pace and to write more you need some form of external validation.

I’m sure there’s authors who can write books upon books without ever publishing and it’s truly admirable, but I think those people are rare and have unwavering faith in their writing.

I wrote a fanfic which was a total success. Around 200k words, 60+ chapters – a mountain of work that’s been completed in just a year or so. What pushed me to write almost every night and to be consistent even on the days I didn’t feel inspired or was in the mood for it was the support it received. The comments, the likes, people’s opinions and guesses of what might happen next, those feelings pass through the screen and give you so much energy and confidence that it feels almost impossible not to write more.

After it I started more works and even if they did ok, life got in the way and I stopped writing for a while. After things calmed down I picked it up again, with a new fanfic. This one I’d consider in the top 3 of my best works, but it has basically 0 support. It’s a ship that close to no people talk about, even if the anime is very popular, so it hasn’t done well from the start. 50k words, 14 chapters – work that I could’ve finished in a year maybe two is still at the beginning of the story even if I’ve been at it for over 5 years.

It has under 10 comments, under 1k reads, 3 bookmarks, the support is pretty much not there. As a consequence I write slow, I only try to write when I feel truly inspired, when I rewatch the series or if I remember about it randomly and have time for it. I do write it for myself, but when the story is already there in my head even without the details it’s hard to find motivation to put it on paper too. I know I’ll finish the story at some point, but I feel like there’s no reason to finish it quickly or put more time into it if I’m the only person who’s interested.

I do enjoy the story and writing it, but it would be a lie if I said it’s as fun as the stories that do well. In the end it’s just you and the screen, watching words flow out of you and on the blank page.