Writing for Exposure vs Writing for Enjoyment

This topic can be touchy.

Everyone has a different perspective on it. Whether they’ve had success in the writing universe or not.

I have my own opinion. Whether others listen that’s their choice. Or if they are listening, it’s the questions of importance. Did they learn anything from it? Do they stand behind me or do they simply see where I’m coming from?

That’s the thing about being a writer, new or a veteran. There is not always a lot of feedback. It can be hard to determine whose side of the equation your readers are on. But as the Author of the opinion, it is your job to find out through people’s reactions to your work.

Then you have to decide where you stand. Are you writing for exposure or for pure enjoyment.

Of course you can have a say as both. Perfectly logical, but it devoids the point.

Pick a side, present your case, and stick to it like your life depends on it. In other words is your writing a business or is it just your  brain child that you’ve shoved out there?

It all depends on how you choose to look at it.

In full honesty writing is my business. I love to write. I can’t go a day without it. It’s been one of the longest present things in my life. Writing has never failed me. Though here I am calling it my business. Writing IS my life. I wake up in the morning and it’s what am I going to write next? 

I am a writer, the writer life found me. I have no idea how, but here I am writing about writing. Go figure.

Needless to say writing is not easy.  It’s easy in the word perspective. I mean all you do is put words on paper. But it is so much more than that. Writing is a psychological experience of living life through one’s fingers. Through one’s words.

When you become serious about writing, you have to push forward a differentiation. Are you writing to find and connect with people or are you writing for the hell of it?

Writing with no boundaries for me became this chase. I chased after my character. I chased after my plot. I became a puppet and my book became the puppet master. I had no idea where I was going with it, it was steering me in my own direction. First draft ended up a bloody nightmare. Writing with no sense of direction was not the correct route for me, but I figured it out through experience and that’s okay.

In my own opinion, writing for exposure has given my writing a purpose. A meaning behind each word. Running out into the writing world has awakened me to all these possibilities. I see something I want to do and I do it because I know if I don’t I will regret it. Writing is freedom.

Writing for exposure has allow me to write what I feel and know that it is good enough because it’s out there. There are no more obstacles, there is no more fear.

I chopped off the monster’s head and threw it into the passing crowd.

Someone out there is going to see my purpose as I see it myself.  The adventure is finding them. How can that not be the opportunity of a lifetime?

Put your work out there. Kill the monster that is your self-doubt and get it out for the world to see. Regret will be a word you no longer know.