Many people, including myself, may write for an audience. I may write an essay for a teacher or podcast for a few sports fans, but I don’t do it completely for myself. I do it partly for others. When podcasting or maintaining a blog, this is not the way to go about it. By doing it for yourself, the audience will ultimately enjoy it more.
Maria Popova goes on a podcast and says that “when you start to think of your writing as content, you’ve altered the motive, you’ve lost meaning.” Not many people will produce content for their own pleasure. Content is for other people’s pleasure. This is the disconnection between writing for yourself or writing for your audience. She also refers to Vonnegut’s 7th tip of writing, which is to write for one person. That person is not a publisher or crush you may have. That one person is you. Your work not only becomes more meaningful to you if you take this stance when writing, it also becomes a better work in general.
If you create a podcast, for example, and you don’t want to make the next episode, but you feel your audience NEEDS this next episode and you do it, it might not seem as good as the other episodes. It might seem dull and lackluster compared to other upbeat episodes because the motive for producing it is lacking enthusiasm.
When you write or podcast for yourself, the work becomes more thought out. You may get more statistics or facts for a podcast or write in deeper detail when doing a work for yourself. When I want to podcast, I will dig deeper to find facts and present more ideas from my viewpoint. Authors that want to write for their own pleasure may get into more detail, whether that detail is gruesome and makes you flinch just by reading, or by building suspense, leaving you on the edge of your seat.
This topic really jumped out at me because I could make a connection with this. I do a podcast every now and then. Sometimes I do it because I want to podcast. Other times, I do it out of guilt for not uploading a podcast at the time I should have. When I do that, I don’t feel as the podcast is as good as it should be. After listening to Popova, I realize that uploading a podcast inconsistently, but out of pleasure, makes it better than uploading the podcast consistently, even if the episode is not as well done as the others.
So if there’s one thing people should know when starting a podcast, or one tip students should take to make their writing better, it is to write for yourself. These links will take you to a couple of my podcast. You may notice the first one is better than the second, as I had planned the first one more, and rushed to get the second one done because I had felt that my upload schedule required it. This is a prime example of why you should write for yourself.