Who Are You Writing For?

One of the questions I've thought about a lot over the past few years is whether creative work should be made for yourself or for other people.

At first glance, the answer seems obvious: create for yourself.

Follow your interests. Explore the ideas that fascinate you. Ignore trends. Ignore algorithms. Ignore what everyone else thinks you should be doing.

There's a lot of wisdom in that approach.

In fact, I don't think [un]civilized would exist if I had tried to write what I thought the market wanted. The book grew out of subjects that genuinely interested me: power, perception, consciousness, identity, and the hidden forces that shape human behavior. Those themes kept me engaged through two years of writing because I was curious about them.

Not because I thought they would sell.

But I also discovered that creating entirely for yourself has limits.

At some point, a book stops being a private exercise and becomes a shared experience.

The moment a reader opens the first page, the story no longer belongs exclusively to the author.

Now there is another mind involved. Another imagination. Another perspective.

And that means the reader deserves consideration.

Writing solely for yourself can become self-indulgent. Writing solely for the reader can become hollow. The challenge is finding the balance between the two.

I think of it as a conversation.

The writer brings the ideas. The reader brings the interpretation.

Both are necessary.

If I only wrote for myself, there would be little reason to spend time refining scenes, improving pacing, clarifying descriptions, or strengthening character motivations. After all, I already know what I mean.

The reader doesn't.

My responsibility is to build a bridge between my imagination and theirs.

That's where craftsmanship enters the picture.

The themes that fascinated me enough to write the book were personal. The work of making those themes accessible to someone else was an act of service.

Both matter.

Without the first, the story lacks authenticity. Without the second, the story struggles to connect.

I've come to believe that the best creative work begins as something deeply personal and ends as something shared.

The artist starts by asking, "What do I want to say?"

Eventually, they must also ask, "How can I say it in a way that reaches someone else?"

That tension never completely disappears.

Nor should it.

It's the space between self-expression and communication that makes art possible.

The work begins with the creator, but its final destination is another human being.

And that's what makes the process worthwhile.