Writing is an inherently lonely endeavor. Those of us who seek to make something on the page spend countless hours in our own heads staring at a screen or a blank piece of paper hoping to manufacture an act of creation; and we do this largely on our own. Yes, there will be editors, and beta-readers, and publishers, and more; but the majority of your time is spent alone.
Rather frustratingly, this seems to run headlong into the part of writing that comes after all the typing or scribbling. After you've done all the writing you then need to get somebody -anybody- to actually read the dang thing or all your efforts, while not pointless, will seem somewhat...disappointing. At the very least they will be unprofitable.
This means that we creatives will inevitably have to engage in an activity that feels very frustrating and in many ways conflicts with the actual work of writing things, namely marketing. We have to make blog posts (quite the meta statement there), and social media content (I'm working on it, I swear), and comment on various places that have comments, and on and on and on. All of this comes naturally to nearly no one, at least in my experience, and more importantly -IS NOT WRITING!
It can often be quite depressing trying to do all of this because for many of us the work produces very little if any actual fruit. You post and you comment and you share and still no one is buying and no one is reading you cannot help but wonder, why bother?
Unfortunately, I don't have any answers for this. I'm not trying to sell my course or my top ten tips to become a nationwide bestseller. If I had that knowledge than more people would be buying my novella (Nightwatch: on sale now on Amazon!). Still, I can tell you to keep going. Really, as far as I can tell the best advice is to simply keep writing, keep posting. If the words you put on the page are the words that your soul needs to put out there than eventually the people with whom those words resonate will find you, or at the very least you'll empower your own heart and soul. That's what creative work does.
It can be disheartening to see zero sales or a lack of reviews but really, the reason we write or do any creative thing is because deep down we need to. Follow that need, fuel that drive, feed that beast and you'll be happier for it. See yourself and hopefully someday, others will see you too.
