Confession

   I recently looked up how long it takes for blogs to get traffic, and the article I found told me that, if you’re doing everything right, it should take about three to six months to get traffic. I confess, I was kind of relieved when I saw that.

   Everything that offers advice to novice writers talks about how crushing it is to get criticized. I confess, I’ve never been criticized, at least, not for work I thought didn’t deserve criticism. See, I’m one of those people who catastrophizes constantly. I worry all the time about what will happen if I screw up, and I’m always afraid that I will. It doesn’t help that I’m very, very prone to panic attacks, especially in situations that my brain finds stressful.

  As a result, I almost never show my writing to anyone, and I’ve never posted things online where I thought people were likely to see them. I think I’m a good writer, but that kind of thought only last until someone points out all the ways you screwed up. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.

   Truth is, I’m not worried about someone criticizing my writing. Considering how rarely I edit my work before I post it, I’m certain it’ll start happening when/if someone finds my blog. What really scares me is the possibility that I won’t be able to handle it. I find it really difficult to judge how I’ll be able to cope, sometimes I can keep my cool in a situation one day, and other days my anxiety will decide to ramp up for no reason. I want to think I can just brush off criticism and move on with my day, but I’m not sure.

  To be fair, I could just turn off the comments if it’s too much for me to handle. But I don’t want to be the kind of writer who stagnates. I want to be a good writer, not live in a fantasy where I already am a good writer.

   And also, there’s this poem I wrote last year, back when the George Floyd protests were in full swing. I just started writing my thoughts about what life felt like at that time, and I remember thinking “In a few months, this won’t even be relevant.” To my surprise, the general mood of that moment held on for longer than I thought it would. I finished it a few weeks ago, and I think I want to share it with the world. I don’t think it’ll change things, but I think it reflects the mood of people at the moment, at least in America, and I find that if I can put my thoughts into words, I feel a lot better. It’s my way of making sure I’m feeling something real I guess. My mother told me to send it somewhere to publish it, and I would if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the places that would publish it won’t let you publish it somewhere else if it gets accepted. Given the fact that nobody knows about me, so it’s entirely likely that any sight that would accept it won’t get enough traffic for it to gain traction, I decided it was better to publish on my blog. At least, once it starts to gain traffic. I don’t even know if it’s really a good poem, I’ve spent too much time on it to be able to tell anymore, but I want to give it the best chance I can. If it was a novel, I’d feel differently, but since it’s just a poem, I don’t think it’ll make a lot of difference.

   I have to admit, the idea of fame is scary to me. I’ve read so many horror stories about how fame ruins people’s lives. But writing matters to me in a way that so much else doesn’t. It’s not that I have something important to say, it’s more that I just want to feel like I’m allowed to say it. I’ve gone through so much of my life feeling like I have to keep quiet so that I don’t accidentally upset people. I do think that it’s important to be careful so that people don’t get hurt, but I still wish I could talk to someone about what matters to me and not have them get angry at me. I’ll admit, there’s a lot I don’t know, and there are a lot more people who are better qualified to talk about this. I also know that it’s very likely that my opinions don’t matter, and whether I say these things or don’t, it won’t make a difference. But I became I writer because I don’t want to believe that that’s true, and I keep hoping that someday, somehow, I can help people. I may not be able to raise people up, but if I can get people to talk about what’s bothering them, that’ll be enough. I may not be able to do anything that can fix our world, but if I can get a few people to change their minds, that’s good enough for me. I don’t know if a better world is possible, but I write because I want to believe that it is.