Writer/Attention-Seeker

Picture courtesy of flickr user tnarik

A few days ago, a friend asked me if I had ever written anything for the mere pleasure of admiring my own creation. In other words, she asked whether I had ever written something for myself.

“Well, duh!” I responded instinctually. Does she really think I am so vain as to need someone else’s appreciation in order to be satisfied with my work?

Nonetheless, I began to meditate, filing through my memory for an example—a poem, a short story, anything I might have done out of mere inspiration and for purely private enjoyment. The only thing I could come up with, however, was the diary I had kept during the eighth grade, which isn’t even a valid example, as it was more of an “I have a crush on my best friend’s brother,” cathartic sort of activity than an inspired, literary, artistic one.

So here I am, this self-professed lover of the craft of writing, never actually having practiced it for the pure purpose of personal enjoyment. What a fake, what a poser, what a failure!

How repulsed Nabokov would be at my impudence in even aspiring to one day reach his level of rhetorical mastery; how perfectly amateurish Henry James would consider me; “What a sellout,” J.D. Salinger would say—that is, if they were to be alive, not to mention, know or care who I am.

As you may have discerned, I might not practice the writing-for-the-self exercise of a “normal” writer, but I certainly possess the self-deprecating qualities of one. Thus, after days of reflection, self-condemnation and “mortification” à la Elizabeth Bennett, I decided to give myself a little credit. It’s not that I write solely for academic or exhibitionist purposes (i.e., this blog), but the fact is that when I write a text with no concrete intentions, there is no sweeter satisfaction than having someone else admire my abilities. That doesn’t make me a sellout. Does it? What it does make me, however, is an attention junkie.

Would I write this blog for the pure purpose of seeing my thoughts on a computer screen? Probably not. I like knowing that someone out there is (hopefully) reading what I have to say, appreciating my perspective, disagreeing with me, noticing my puns, my humor, my grammatical mistakes. For me, writing is an interactive activity between the author and the reader; it’s not a private enterprise for personal catharsis.

Truthfully, writing for the self seems a bit, well, selfish. It’s like having a great idea and cultivating it within your mind instead of sharing it with others to create something solid. Granted, I also see how one must possess at least a trifle of conceit in order to have the courage to share a text one has written. Nevertheless, presenting your work to others carries the promising potential of inciting reflection, discussion, and—the most rewarding response of all—identification.

I am not denouncing private composition. How could I, with brilliant authors such as Kafka, Dickinson and Plath as models of the impressive fruits of writing for the self? What I cannot help from pointing out, however, is the fact that these authors’ works were eventually, albeit posthumously, published; people were given the chance to read, criticize, support, question, and connect with them. The author-reader interaction occurred, regardless of whether it had been these authors’ intention or not.

So please, I beg of you, read my work. React to it, reflect on it, be repulsed by it, relish it. But don’t ignore it, because I need you; and hopefully, eventually, you’ll identify with something I write, rendering my work pertinent, not to mention, validating the subject of this post.

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