For years I did not buy in to the notion of "writing for one's self". In fact, it seemed to me to be a copout for not being able to get published. Now I don't condemn the notion itself even if I do cherry-pick how I define the phrase.
Beyond being therapuetic, writing without thinking about an audience can be good. Normally we are taught to have the reader in mind, and that's particularly true for certain types of writing. But sometimes we write because there is something waiting to come out from deep inside and it has no particular audience in mind. That something may not be an important work and it might well be a detour from work we are currently doing. At other times it is work that stands in the way of other work. In other words, it might be important to us personally but it is not critical to our profession or even to our agenda.
The more you write, the more you are likely to face those types of works. For years I avoided those situations with all the fervor I could. I was not about to waste time on something unpublishable given that it is difficult and time-consuming to write anything significant in the first place. Writing became work--enjoyable but nonetheless work. There were many plots, subplots, documentaries, plays, psalms, poems, article, ectc. circulating around in my head that never received more than a lamentary nod.
But what about when something you've worked on so hard and have believed in for so long becomes such a work? In other words your "gem" has become simply something that you want to get out but are not sure anyone will care about? That was the case with my Viet Nam novel. I worked on it longer than anything else and I have had a greater emotional commitment to it than any other work I have written or plan to write.So having published it in kindle was strange, but now that I did it, it feels like a relief and I'm enjoying the feedback.
More important, I've relearned that all work has an audience and while we take a chance by putting our work "out there" there is actually a reason to do so. Words written are like melodies composed--they are meaningless unless someone else sees or sings them.
This meaningless is useless to the author. We write to be read even if its by just a few. There is nothing wrong with those works that never garner a mass audience but there is something wrong with those that only gather dust. So, publish the work, in one form or another or at least share it with a group of friends, neighbors or someone willing to read it. If it goes no further than that it will have served a purpose. All those bedtime stories that I wrote my grandson have worked to bond us closer, and my friends in my yahool group have enjoyed the short stories I've written for them, and of course some will buy my novel either because of friendship or because they've like my Christmas and Halloween stories.
I have said before that all things have a measure of their existence. In other words, they have a purpose. Those writings of mine may have already served their purpose and in that they have nothing to envy the longer works that I have and will continue to write.
The other point to be made here is that work that is "published" however we define that to mean is work that is behind us and which provides us perspective. We learn something from the experience of looking at them as finished products. We may cringe over the mistakes we've made or the awkward phrases, bad characterization, shoddy research or any other faulty writing that is now "published", but we know we can do little about them. We have to move on but their existence in "print" will remind us of the need to continue to hone our skills.
Work that is in some closet or drawer usually doesn't provide us such reminders nor does it give us much of a perspective. Now, I know that this experience doesn't always work this way. I remember that as a magazine editor in New York I knew a freelancer who submitted badly written features every month, and we published them. Why? Because the ideas were great and we had a section that was hard to fill, so the editors edited and rewrote his work for publications. One time we did reject his work and I was assigned to tell him that his work was bad--and it really was--and he could not accept it from some "young editor" and he pointed to his numerous bylines as proof that I was wrong.
So, if you have something to write, do it. Someworks will have their built-in audience but others will seem to be devoid of potential readers. Yet, the passion for a particular work will cause you to work hard, spend the required time, and eventually help you hone your skills. These works are like a good workout. Sometimes as writers we have to be "gym rats" with the pencil or computer. While at the gym we might focus on the next 5K, or the game, there are times when we only focus on our bodies, and not on what we are going to ask our body to do. In those moments we are able to take the time to do what we don't do at other times. Such is writing for "ourselves".
One last point: this advise can apply to scholarly work. While in scholarship it is imperative to publish, we sometimes find ourselves with work that doesn't have an outlet. We either dump it without finishing it or we stop writing because the unfinished product becomes a bottle neck. The result is the same, we don't publish. My thought is to finish it, send it around, take bits and pieces for a presentation, a short essay, a classroom supplemental reading, etc. and let it become a "publishable" work that we can then evaluate as a done deal. We will be amazed by what it does for our writing, and, of course, we will be relieved of the pressure of having an "idea" that has no audience.
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