If You Seek Validation for Your Writing, You’ll Gonna Have a Hard Time

Or how the romanticizing of writing is destroying your creativity.

I hate it when I read or hear ‘we, creative people’. What does this person mean when he says ‘creative people’? Is there a specific category of people who walk on Earth that differs from the rest of us?

I’ve written for the last 10 years everything I could, from clickbait articles in my native language that are public to screenplays sitting hidden somewhere on my computer. But I never called myself a creative person because I don’t know what that means. I know I want to write and I keep doing it, even if only two persons read what I write.

I recently saw a job ad entitle ‘we search for a sandwich artist’. Naturally, I laugh at it, but then I realized. What distinguishes an artist who writes and one who makes an incredible sandwich? Isn’t the second one working in a 3-dimensional creativity space with all the ingredients, placing them, and combine them to make an incredible sandwich?

As a writer, you work only one-dimension. Your thoughts.

Being creative is overrated. We like to think we are some kind of semi-gods (doesn’t matter if you have 10 years of writing or two articles) who create emotion from thin air and let the mortals down there on Earth breathe into our own genius.

But do we really feel like a genius?

We like to romanticize the act of putting words on a paper because that’s what makes us feel accomplished. In reality, we are all seeking validation. Instant validation is the best.

We write 10 sentences on the internet and want to become famous. We put together a couple of words on a paper and we dream about our speech at the Nobel literature award. (So far mine is eight minutes long, and it starts with thanking myself for putting up with me for almost 30 years.).

The validation is part of the vanity that we have in us but we ignore it because, damn, I’m a writer, I have a higher morality than the rest of the mortals.

What if validation never comes?

Let’s see an example of someone who didn’t have validation for most of his life.

He was a failure all of his life. He worked at the post office as a letter filing clerk; he was an alcoholic, and he wrote about alcohol, his deviant relationship with women, and so on.

Until the age of 49, he was a failure from a writing perspective. The magazines often reject his poems or short stories, and he only publishes in smaller magazines.

Did he seek validation? Was he writing for fame, money, or a Nobel? No.

He did it because it had to be done.

The letter that will change his life came when he was 49.

He didn’t seek validation or a stranger’s acceptance. He wrote his dirty poetry and keeps going.

“I have one of two choices — stay in the post office and go crazy… or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve”.

Charles Bukowski ends up publishing over 60 books.

Validation is not a sign of success

We forget sometimes why we write and try to copy others that have found success. We agonize about why nobody is reading us or why we don’t make a shitload of money from just one title.

Or worst. We change ourselves and write something that has no meaning for us just to feel that sweet validation of a stranger who in fact doesn’t give a shit about our writing. He or she wants to see other person’s failures or seek guidance from writers that are often more damaged than them.

But what if validation never comes or comes at 49 like Bukowski? Are you willing to throw your entire work and life just because you don’t see the big numbers coming instant at your writing?

Why live a petty life when you could keep writing and don’t give a fuck about money or what others are saying?

Money is not a sign of success

‘I want to make 100.000 dollars per hour from my writing’.

I know how it is. You see articles about how others are making a ton of money from writing and you want it, too. You fantasize at night about it. You want to be included in that group of people who are seeing thousands of dollars every month for putting words on a paper. You want to write like them because that’s how you think you’ll succeed.

Who gives a shit about others? Do you want to write? Then write it and don’t think about the money. Do your best job, be your best self, seek to help others, and don’t let money be your only motivation.

Yeah, money is important. Of course, is important not to starve to death while you are a misunderstood genius. We all want money, that’s how we live, like it or not.

But don’t put money as your primary goal, and for the love of God don’t start writing because you read an article about somebody who made a gazillion of money writing 3 articles every 6 months. If that person makes that kind of money, it means only one thing: he or she deserves it. Not even 10.000 words per day will bring you money. Passion, understanding, and empathy will bring you that gazillion (whatever the fuck that means).

Write to help others, not for validation

Don’t write for:

• Validation
• Fame
• To brag about
• Money

Instead, write:

• to understand
• to learn
• to help others
• for passion

Write if you feel you need to write with every fiber of your body and soul. Write with passion, write to be understood and to understand. And write to help somebody else, not you. Writing is the best thing that can happen to a writer.

49 years of failure said it better than me:

‘if you’re doing it for money or fame, don’t do it. if you’re doing it because you want women in your bed, don’t do it.

Charles Bukowski — So You Want To Be a Writer