When I was growing up, I created art, stories, books, and crafts for fun all the time. And of course I showed these things off to my parents and my friends, but other than the occasional handmade present, much of what I created was for myself.
In the current internet landscape, I feel like I’m constantly being pushed into “handmade gifts mode”. There is this endless pressure to create things that others like all the time. And those anxious moments of when no one sees or likes what I create—sends my mind down a winding path of questioning if the project I put so much of my care into was…worthless.
Then the pressure builds to figure out what everyone wants from me and what the algorithms want from me—all so that someone somewhere can see (and like) what I make. So as a creative in this modern world, I’ve found myself succumbing to two types of grovelling:
One: Trying to chase whatever it is I think people want. This involves being glued to numbers, metrics, and trends just so I can figure out how to make that “perfect” thing.
Two: Trying to chase whatever I think the algorithms want. This includes being obsessed with keywords, hashtags, how to create the “right” titles for my blog posts, etc…On top of that, trying to make the machines happy creates this unpleasant feeling of being on a treadmill.
I’m left feeling like I’m never enough, and that the human side of my creativity—the irregular, messy side of things—that there’s no room for that in this world. And that maybe, there’s no room for me.
But this year, I’m doing something different. I’m stepping away from the numbers as much as I can and telling the algorithms to go choke on their own vomit—all so I can ask myself a question that I haven’t asked in a long time:
“What do I want from me?”
I don’t need to crunch data and analyze trends to find the answer. My inner creative compass knows EXACTLY what I want from myself. So instead of deferring to people-pleasing and machine-pleasing, I’m going for it.
I’m doing whatever I care about and pursuing fulfillment instead.
Back when I was wrapped up in writing my fanfic, my mind often went back to the criticism people sometimes throw around about how a certain piece of work is “self-indulgent.”
Like, “Oh, that writer’s work is so self-indulgent, we wouldn’t dare take it seriously or even call it art…”
But after writing my fanfic, I realized that creatives who can dip into self-indulgence are healthy creatives. Self-indulgence is what happens when I stop people-pleasing and focus squarely on projects that bring me joy. I learn, grow, and innovate when I create from that space of selective selfishness. I am truly detached from the outcome, and I can experience working from that coveted flow state—for a very long time.
On the other hand, when I create from a people-pleasing focus, my process is wrought with anxiety and overthinking. I’m consumed with, “Will they like it?” Even worse, I’ve found that my work becomes derivative. When I’m focused on metrics, I often have to repeat what I’ve done before to boost them, because those high numbers are coming from my past work. I believe that’s why blogs and websites that are locked in on the numbers can sound so repetitive. They are either building off of the most popular pieces in their own body of work or on what’s trending in the world at large.
Of course, if I wanted to maximize making money, this would be a smart move. That’s what a lot of blogs and websites are here for anyways. And of course, my blog has helped with driving my book sales, but for me, blogging has never been just about making money—money has been the byproduct of my blogging.
More importantly, my blog—and my work overall—is about how it makes me feel.
I think people can tell when I’m deeply invested in what I’m sharing or when I’m just doing it to take advantage of some numbers-driven trend. And even if they can’t tell, I can. And what good is it to create stuff that others like, but that I don’t care about?
Life is hard enough as it is, and I’m not going to spend it creating things that do not make me happy in ways that make me unhappy. I don’t believe in growth at all costs, even if it could improve my bank account.
So. Let me tell you what I want.
I want my Internet presence and creativity to feel personal. Like it’s here not just for you, but it’s here for me too—shamelessly for me.
This ties in well with how I keep sharing my desire to let go of the unnecessary demands, and go back to the basics. I want to connect less with numbers and more with how I feel.
I believe that beyond the influence of deeply working on my fanfic, my latest move towards creating more for myself started with something so basic, but extremely hard to find in today’s online environment. I’ve been on the lookout for online spaces that DO NOT drive me crazy.
Spaces that don’t hit me with popular posts of the day, more information to take in, pointless notifications, needing hashtags, and likes and…strategy. I want a space free of strategy, because as an online creative, I am hit with strategies all the time of how to boost this and that all in the pursuit of trying to get more people to like what I do—and that is why I try so hard to love where I am and build contentment and connections instead.
For me, social media feels like being locked in a room full of people who want my attention.
What do you think of this? Do you see me? Could you like me?
However, the problem is that I’m only one person. So not only am I overwhelmed by the idea of giving my attention to so many people, but also this is something that I need too. I need to be seen too. And being stuck in a room where everyone wants me to see them, only makes me wonder if anyone cares about seeing me in return. In that kind of space, it’s easy to doubt if anyone does.
But when I leave that room and close the door behind me, I finally do have the space to be seen. Because instead of being forced to look at everyone else, I finally have the space to see and recognize myself. It’s so easy to see other people. But it’s hard to see myself.
Social media platforms are designed to be spaces of perpetual desperation, almost in reflection of the companies that own them. At times, I’ve felt embarrassed that my social media presence is so low, but at the same time I know that it’s a protection.
I don’t want to feel desperate all the time, and for me having a light social media footprint is the best way to detach from obsessing over outcomes and what others might think. When I create for myself, I don’t care if other people like it—or even if they see it—because the one I’m trying to make happy here is me. And the happiness doesn’t come from the response to my work but from the work itself.
One of the first online spaces I started experimenting with this mindset is my Thoughts page (Do you want your own Thoughts page? Here’s where to sign up for one). It’s like having a super personal un-social media microblog. There are no likes, no comments, no followers, and no pressure—just a stream of thoughts and experiences. Lately I’ve been sharing a single thought from my microblog in my regular emails with readers, and I’ve been enjoying it. I can share little moments in a way that doesn’t trigger desperation. I am simply sharing what is, and that is good enough.
This is the ultimate goal for my creative work. I want to reclaim creativity as a natural expression—not as a task to fulfill someone else’s expectations.
I can easily say that my Starlight Library Membership is the most free-flowing thing I’ve dared to create so far. I’ve intentionally designed it to feel personally fulfilling even if it’s messy, imperfect and if—no one shows interest in it.
Part of me feels that being so transparent with this intention is such a bad idea, but it’s true. So what’s the thought process behind creating such a self-indulgent product?
A few things.
Logistically, my books are what earn the most. Printables, journals and all the other things don’t even come close to my book sales. Which is okay, because I love writing books. However, I also want to branch out and experiment, and it’s disappointing when I put effort into trying something new, but it struggles to be seen.
So first off, I felt that putting all of these overlooked parts of my work into a membership could boost the chances of people benefiting from them, since they can be enjoyed all at once in tandem. Making a more attractive option out of these projects is obviously something I want to happen, but how have I made it okay if that doesn’t…land?
The fact that this membership is at its core an open journal of my creative process is what makes it okay.
Honestly, I thought this library was going to mainly feature my less visible projects, but the more I’ve worked on it, the more I see that this is actually for sharing the ideas I want to put out into the world—before they become blog posts.
To be honest, I have concepts for blog posts coming to me more quickly than I can physically write them. I only write a tiny fraction of what I want to share, and as a result I often feel a lot of mental pressure. Being able to talk about these concepts and share them in audio and video is a huge relief, even if I don’t get a chance to write about them more deeply.
I seriously didn’t see this coming until after I had created the membership and started adding things to it. And the more I shape and mold this library, the more it’s becoming a gift to myself. I can take my time weaving a narrative of my creative practice and journey at my leisure, growing a wild garden of reflections and lessons learned. I don’t need external validation for this membership to have value. And if the external validation comes, I still have the room to accept it with gratitude.
And while on the theme of creating spaces detached from external validation, I’ve also restructured my Instagram account to fit this mindset. If you look at my Instagram now, it feels like a journal that’s introducing parts of myself and what I care about to whoever visits. It’s definitely far from perfect, but it’s—me. And I’ll only update it when I feel like it. And believe it or not, sometimes I actually do feel like it.
So if you’re currently struggling to be seen, I hope this not-quite rambling deep dive of mine has at least served as a reminder that you don’t have to wait desperately for others to create space for you. You can create space for yourself in ways that don’t need external validation and that feel like supportive gifts for your well-being.
Creating for others is beautiful and needed, but feeling forced to do is soul-sucking. So leave room to create for others from the heart, but also take time to do the same for yourself.
What do you want to create for you?
And please, be a bit shameless about it.
I have no idea where this creating for myself thing is going to take me. But I can tell that wherever it is, it won’t be boring.