 Contests & Activities: April 27, 2022 Issue [#11334] |
This week: What You're Doing Matters. Edited by: Jayngle Bells  
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Hi, again. I've skipped the final installment for contest creation until my next C&A installment. I came across a few emails and felt this was the more pressing topic right now.
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I really wanted to finish my newsletter series about starting and overhauling contests. Instead, I'm sitting here staring at a blinking cursor, trying to figure out if I'm going to go that route, or write an open response to an email I received.
Not because of what they said in the email, but because of what was said to them that prompted them to email me.
I'm not okay with how they were treated. It also very much ties in with Jeff  's "Authority" .
I will reply to the person that emailed me, but this is my open response to what happened to them.
I don't care what anyone else in your life or on this site tells you,
WHAT YOU ARE DOING MATTERS.
We are, for the most part, amateur writers on this site. We all have our own reasons for being here. Some of us want to fool around with our writing, and see what boundaries we can push just for ourselves. Others want to elevate their game and become published authors. Some of us don't care if our writing ever gets published, and we write for fun.
Let me repeat that for the people in the back: some of us write for FUN.
I can put together show-stopping gardens, but I have no interest in becoming a garden designer. People learn to paint with no intention of selling their paintings. My grandmother was an excellent knitter; she never sold a thing. A family member is far down the rabbit hole of nature photography. He takes beautiful photographs, and has zero intention of selling them. You know why? Because he doesn't want to. He does it for fun. For relaxation.
It doesn't matter to me why you do what you do, and it's none of my business what you do with the things you create.
THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE THINGS YOU DO DON'T MATTER.
There is absolutely NO reason anyone should be asking why you "bother to write" if you don't want to be published.
Much like you can learn to cook complicated dishes without wanting to be a chef, you can undertake artistic endeavors without needing to profit from them.
Both feed your passion and your soul.
The person who throws that comment at you doesn't see what's going on in your life. They don't know if you're pacing your floor every night because you're taking care of an elderly parent with dementia. They don't know if the only outlet keeping you from harm is what you manage to write on the page. They don't know if you've examined your life and reached the stage where you're happy with what you have and who you are, and this is just a fun social hobby for you.
No one, not a single person, has the right to tell you that what you're doing doesn't matter.
It is hard enough to share our experiences, wondering if "it's good" - whatever the flavor of the day of "good" means - without some snide commentary simultaneously telling you it's not good enough and you'll never get it published, but if you don't want it published there's really no point to you writing it in the first place.
THAT'S A LIE.
DON'T BELIEVE IT.
Anyone in the arts is going to encounter rejection, even on this site. We'll be dressed-down for not being "good enough" or "serious enough". So why do we continue to do what we do?
Because it's art and because we can.
If user BadNewsGrumpyBear (BNGB) doesn't like it, fine. If BNGB tells you amateur writing as a hobby is the equivalent of being a failure, don't listen. They can hold an opinion, even if it's the wrong one. Perhaps they believe they are above the hobby crowd. Perhaps they don't understand the inherent harm they drag along with their righteousness. You are under no obligation to gaze upon their heels, wide-eyed and pleading for them to understand you're only here as a hobbyist, while they sit on their high horse.
Ignore them. Don't feed into their righteousness - you'll only succeed in giving them a reason to explain why they're even more right than they thought they were in the first place. Send their wrongness packing by not acknowledging it. Let BNGB return to the land of The Ridiculously Wrong, where they can sit in their wrongness among those who cannot fathom the peasantry of "a hobby", the quaint countryside pastime of the masses.
Make no mistake, your hobby is not a problem.
Their attitude about it is.
Despite BNGB's (wrong) opinion, whatever you are doing, somebody cares. So what if you won't have throngs of crowds begging for your autograph or studios snapping up the rights to your cat poem?
One person may care and get a real kick out of your work.
That one person may be YOU.
YOU ARE ENOUGH.
You are enough of a reason to write.
You are enough of a reason to enjoy your work.
You are enough of a reason that what you do matters.
WHAT YOU ARE DOING MATTERS.
Why isn't it enough for BNGB to accept that somebody out there is cheering you on, even if that person is you?
BNGB doesn't get to decide what your hobbies are. They don't get to decide what the "right" hobbies are, or the "right" way to do a hobby.
BNGB doesn't hold any power over you or your creativity.
They just want you to think they do.
I want you to love your hobby, and I support you if:
 Your thing is to buckle down and learn as much as you can, and try to write the most stunning pieces you can every time.
You want to throw out a reasonably put-together attempt because that's all the time you have this month.
You write every day.
You want to write one thing every six months and spend the rest of your time running a contest.
You write every six months and do nothing in between.
You're emotionally drained and just want to hang out and read other people's stuff.
You want to be published.
You don't care if your work ever leaves your port.
Keep doing what you're doing. Do it because you want to, because you're able to, because it excites you, because it relaxes you, because it fills a hole or a need or a want.
Keep writing, you glorious hobbyist.
WHAT YOU ARE DOING MATTERS.
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A plethora of positivity:
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