Does anyone care?
Does it even matter?
Am I ever going to achieve my dreams as a creative? Am I ever going to get published? Is it even worth trying? What if I’m not good enough? Not talented enough? What if I am just mediocre and not as skilled as I think I am?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up plagued with self doubt. Frustrated, and depressed, because something that I worked for, something that I fought for fell through, or didn’t work out like I had planned. I recently took part in a writing contest with a piece of writing that I really loved, but which did not even make their shortlist and I found myself once more rather frustrated and full of doubts.
When you’ve been working at your dream for as long as I have, it can be easy to get bogged down with a feeling of frustration when it feels like you’re getting older, and you’ve been doing this for a long time and yet what do you have to show for it?
And the longer it takes the more frustrating it gets, and the more frustrated I get the more I doubt myself and I wonder—is this even worth it? Am I ever going to be successful? Does anyone care?
Now more than ever, with the devaluation of art at the hands of generativeAI (or theft as it is more accurately described) it can be easy to feel as though the work that you put into creating something is going to go nowhere. Anyone can click a button and make something readable, if unenjoyable, derivative, and ethically dubious at best. Anyone can create something and even though they always could if they put forth the effort now you don’t even have to do that much. No effort required.
It can be easy to see that, and to see something with very little effort put in suddenly get all this attention (especially as more and more the internet is taken over by bots and it can feel exhausting. Frustrating, and worse it can feel demoralizing. You put so much work into what you do and what you create only for no one to see it, no one to care. Agents to reject you, contests to overlook you, and readers to ultimately be so overloaded with slop that they couldn’t even find your work and you’re just screaming into the void notice me!
It’s so easy to question why bother. To doubt the purpose of continuing on, and to want to quit.
But the reality is—you’re not the only one feeling this way.
Most people desperately crave human connection, genuine human connection. Now more than ever especially. Most people want art that was created by a person, they want something interesting and unique and they want stories. The need for stories will never go away. The desire for stories will never go away. As much as it may feel otherwise, the tides are turning, and things are improving. And it is worth continuing. You are worth the effort. Your art is worth the effort. You are talented enough, and for that matter talent is often not even a factor in success, because what matters is tenacity. Giving up is easy. It may not feel like it, but ultimately deciding to give up can be easy, but fighting for what you want, fighting and refusing to give in… refusing to give up that is hard but it’s worth everything. Because when you love what you do, truly love it, and that’s the only thing you want to do for the rest of your life, giving up isn’t possible.
I know it’s frustrating, and it’s exhausting, and I know that you may feel like what is it even worth? What’s the point? Why am I going to continue to do this day after day? There are so many bigger things going on in the world, there are so many more important things going on in the world that I could be focusing on, why would I bother to focus on this?
I can’t even tell you that you’re wrong for thinking that. I can’t tell you that I don’t understand where you’re coming from—but the act of creation is important. It’s important for the world and it’s important for you. It’s an act of revolution and resistance and more importantly as a creative person, it’s an act of self care. It doesn’t matter if you’re “good enough” according to whoever makes those decisions. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re good enough all the time, what matters is, do you enjoy doing it? Do you enjoy telling stories and creating things and writing in whatever form that takes? Because so long as you enjoy doing it, so long as you enjoy making it and bring it to life that is what matters at the end of the day. And that is going to be what people respond to. Your joy.
It may not be hundreds or thousands, it may only be a few people who see it at first, and that might be frustrating but you have to remember that even one person seeing and appreciating what you do makes it worth it. It may be hard to believe this, but improving one persons day or giving one person hope about the future can mean an awful lot. Making a difference in the world doesn’t require you to be seen by everyone in the world, it doesn’t require your work to be noticed by hundreds or thousands or even millions, but it does require you to have the courage to share your work and continue making work even when it’s hard. Even when it’s scary. Even if you have no idea what’s going to come of it. Even if you think no one will see it or no one will care.
It’s impossible to know what will come from anything you create. You can try to guess, you can try to assume based on past experiences, you can even try to promote it every which way with every tag you can think of, but there’s no guarantee that one thing will reach more of an audience than anything else, and you have to create anyway, because that’s what you love doing. That’s what you were meant to do.
It’s a reminder I have to give myself sometimes too, but trust me, it’s true.
