Like any good romance novel, this story follows three stages: the getting-to-know-you phase, the anti-climatic almost breakup phase, with-maturity-comes-compromise & I’m-my-best-when-I’m-with-you phase. Bear with me though, this takes turns that everyone faces as a writer.
The Love For Writing
15 years ago, I took up writing not as a passion but to vent my heartfelt feelings. Those you can’t share with anyone including your best friend who knows all your secrets. They were letters to no one in particular but it felt like addressing them to someone—even though imaginary—who would understand.
But writing them made me feel good. Like a dam that was almost bursting now has a healthy outlet. It wasn’t love at first sight but the feelings grew along the way. My writing branched out and became more revised diaries of my daily life, places, and memories I wanted to hold close and not forget even minute details. This moved on to the dream of being a travel journalist. Somewhere along the line, like any good plot, outside factors crept into this tryst with writing—suggestions, how to improve the blog, what is wrong with my writing, etc.
Writer’s Block Began to Hit
Slowly, the writing I cherished as an outlet to my world became something to appease an invisible audience. Mind you, I did not have a readership I had to cater to. But, the “elites” of the writing world said there needs to be a niche, there needs to be a structure and there needs to be information.
My writing went from expressing myself and my experiences to being informative, at best. Then came SEO; the third person in our cozy relationship. Accommodating SEO into my articles was akin to adding water to my slowly dying fire for writing. Things became commercialized. I lost focus on what the blog was meant to be for. Gradually, I developed an anxiety that whatever I did would be wrong.
I also started a career in writing which just added pressure. It was making a love marriage work where you had to adhere to societal norms and conventions that did not have a place for love. I tried applying what I learned at work to my blog which further increased my panic every time I started an article. It was the most stressful part and then I let it die. For two long years, my blog stayed alone while I tried hard to figure out my professional life.
Anytime I picked up my laptop to focus on writing, it felt like I was making a decision where the risk was all mine. Even though I didn’t consider making a living out of my blog, I felt suffocated by it. The expectations were too much to follow.
Finding My Way Back
As days progressed, I took up travel again after Covid. And here and there story ideas hit my head. How I would phrase a particular destination, encapsulate an experience, and let my readers feel it. But again, in the back of my head, I knew my articles wouldn’t pop up on Google because of SEO. So, what is the point? No one will read it, ever.
Life went on! But, these spurts of creative writing kept creeping in the most exhilarating times and some not-so-great moments. After a long thought process, I just let loose and wrote an article for myself; capturing every experience, scene, and memory of a destination. This unfurled a knot in my chest. It felt like being FREE to be ME.
Finally, I started loving writing again. Not because I wrote extensive blogs or consistently started writing again. But because I didn’t compare my blog to others or wait for the views to go up. Adding social media into the mix, was a bad decision because of all the number crunching. I am a creative person. And the best way to write is to write for yourself or people who think like you. The rest are simply not your “niche”.
Be an influencer for something you like, rather than following in the footsteps of someone who has already achieved it. Your niche is YOU being YOU. Every destination is the same, it is just different in how you perceive it. That’s what makes you stand out.
Well after all that is it happily ever after? Of course, not! I still do not write every day. I have trouble getting the ideas in my head into catching stories. Nevertheless, I just let my mind dictate what to write and visit it two days later to see if I find a different perspective to give it a little polishing. It’s an ongoing relationship; healthy and strong.