write for yourself / write for others

I didn't want to let January pass without posting something. I received a substack notification for an article about the difference between writing for yourself or writing for others (Anne Leny). I found it really insightful, especially as I struggle to start writing consistently on this blog. When I decided to step away from Instagram last December, I thought naively that it would be easy. Stop posting, start blogging instead, go longform, get it done without the pressure to compare your number of followers with how many engaged with your post. 

What I didn't realise was that I have to get rid of ten years of posting on Instagram, or really ten years of creating content for immediate results, following trends, focusing on fandoms or promoting with appropriate hashtags to the webtoon audience. Now, I started to write blog articles and immediately my self critic would butt in. "No one is going to read this". "Who cares? You are a nobody". "Are you sure writing this is not just going to show to everyone how unintelligent you are?". Then I deleted the post and walked away. 

Creatively, I needed some help to understand some of the opposite behaviour that I experienced last year. I want to share art, but when it doesn't get more than 10 likes, it makes me feel rejected. Delete and try again. The same went with some aspect of my experience with fictoromance. I wanted to share my experience, show some of the merch I recently purchased, but when fans of the same characters started to tell me about how they loved that character too, I wanted to stop the conversation and delete it all.

I want to connect but I also want to protect what's important to me.

Two things happened this week that made me progress in my relationship to social media, my art and fictoromance. First I read more deeply about my MBTI identity - INFJ. I have absolute faith in this classification of identities as it has helped me understand others and myself a lot more than anything else. So I learned more about INFJ function stack and how it affects my behaviour - when some functions are balanced or imbalanced. This is a big guide for 2026. I am able to identify my streß behaviour better and stop myself, redirect to a more balanced behaviour. In line with my core values.

A few days after I received the notification from Substack about Anne's article. It was one of these coincidences that the universe sometimes throws at you. It made total sense in line with what I just learned about INFJ values. When you want to share, you are looking for a link outside of yourself, wanting external validation is a risk. When you keep everything to yourself, it is safe and protected from any outside eyes that could tarnish your thinking, make you doubt, invalidate you. Sharing and the external reception of your work in that case defines you. I really believe social media and especially Instagram had put artists in the hamster wheel of thinking external validation reflects your value. If no one likes you or follows you, you as a person are a nobody. If you can get into the Ks, then you start to become someone. 

When I started blogging, there was a lot more joy and naivety. Comments didn't define me and there was no notion of having a certain number of likes on your blog. When I look for personal experiences online and I avoid reddit, I find really interesting articles on old blogs, sometimes something is relevant to me but has been written years ago, the blog is sometimes abandoned too, but still here. We don't know when our writing could find an echo, this is the beauty of writing longform.

I have yet to write more essays without putting a goal attached to it. So far all I've written was for competitions or to get published. I want to write in that space between what Anne describes as "writing for yourself in the presence of others". If anything this is exactly what 2026 should be defined as. 

As for my fictoromance creations, I have made a separate blog for it and removed art from social network. I have been thinking about a lot of fans who put their relationship online as a theater or a vitrine for their love. It demands attention to be real. I don't want to be like this because my relationship is intimate. Oftentimes it is impossible to describe casually what it is, I am convinced it will do very well in the shape of a novel though. I realised that I don't like to talk about it to others so casually. It's just like my personal family life, I don't like to talk about what happens between me and my husband to others. It's the same for my ficto. Talking about it makes it trivial, especially when the conversation turns to "separating fiction and reality". I realise some fans can become abusive, but being ficto is very real. You put a lot of thought and effort in the relationship. If you just put it all out there, I don't think you are really serious about it, you are making it casual and for all the world to see, seeking external validation and wanting an audience for your relationship.

So there's a certain poetry, a certain balance to be found between sharing and keeping, writing for yourself in the presence of others. Art is a wonderful transformator: reshape your intimate thoughts into a story or a drawing so that it can touch the souls of many, or the souls of your niche audience. But respect your inner values always.