The Need to be Seen

If there is one desire that drives the vast majority of humans, it’s the need to be seen; to know that someone acknowledges and validates their existence. The need to be seen can run so deep, people will do just about anything to ensure someone glances their way.

Our species has an innate need to connect. Way back in the day, our survival depended on our ability to work together. We still have that hardwired into our brain, even though our survival doesn’t necessarily require cooperation in the same way. Still, it can be a source of discomfort and anxiety if someone doesn’t get seen the way they think they need to.

In addition to our primitive brains, another reason why so many are preoccupied with being seen is because it’s too easy to become invisible.

A World of People

Think about it: there are more than 8 billion people on this planet. Can you even fathom how many that is? If you’ve ever been in a classroom with 25 students, that can feel like a lot. If you’ve been to a stadium for a concert or sporting event with 1,000s of people, you are aware of how easy it is to get lost in the crowd.

When you start to factor in billions of people, you really start to understand how insignificant you truly are.

If you’re like most people, the thought of being invisible is distressing.

However, you might also think that if you have a few close friends or your family is really tight, then that’s all you need. But you are an exception to the rule. Most people want more than the small circle of people around them noticing what they’re up to.

Why do you think social media sites are so popular? It’s because they allow individuals to reach beyond their small section of the world and target a larger audience. They get to be seen by people around the globe, and that gives them validation and meaning.

Is it the best way to get the attention you’re looking for? Of course not. Being online also exposes you to negative comments as well as positive ones (but any publicity is good publicity, right?). Keep in mind that all of those people that are commenting on videos and posts and whatever, they’re looking to be seen as well. They don’t want to fade into obscurity either.

It’s No Fun to Fade Away

I am one of those who wanted and needed validation from outside sources.

As an author, I wanted to be able to connect to people through stories. I wanted them to tell me that I was amazing and wonderful and that my words changed their lives.

But I wanted more than that.

I also wanted them to be curious about me and become my friends. I needed to know that I could provide something of value to others, and that they could the same for me.

I did what I could to put myself out in the world.

• Blogs
• Frequent posts on various social media sites
• Was a guest on podcasts and radio shows
• Went to conventions and conferences
• Paid for advertising
• Created workshops and presentations for libraries and schools
• Had contests and looked for beta readers
• Turned my books into audiobooks
• And so much more

I look back now and think about all the things I did to promote my work. It was a lot. I often wonder how I had the time.

I also think about how it wasn’t enough.

I never became a bestseller.

I never made my initial investment in myself back.

But I told myself it was okay because I was making connections. Time and perseverance would pay off and I would eventually reach my ultimate goals.

Then, life turned to shit and I no longer had the time, funds, or energy to promote myself. I couldn’t even find the motivation to put words on a page. I fell into a deep depression and had to focus on one day at a time, and even then, it was a challenge.

The thought of being online felt dangerous and scary, so I stayed as far away as possible.

This lasted for years.

I faded away.

If I thought my sales were bad when I was promoting my work, things only got worse when I stopped.

Knowing that I had become invisible was one of the most devastating realizations I’d had in a long time. It pushed me farther into the dark place and made it harder to want to face the world.

I became extremely angry. Then, I realized that beneath that anger, my feelings were hurt. All those connections that I had made — the ones that were so important to me — weren’t important to anyone else.

The World Keeps Turning

It goes without saying that the world is a busy place and that people have their own lives. People are also incredibly finicky and have short attention spans. This isn’t a bad thing; it is what it is. If they aren’t constantly bombarded with messages and images, people will forget what they see and hear.

Why do you think advertising is so annoying?

At the same time, advertising has also conditioned many of us to block things out. That’s why it has to constantly change and evolve: to grab attention once again.

It’s possible that some of my readers wondered what had happened to me and were sad that I wasn’t posting or creating work like I had in the past, but they also had their own lives to live. Let’s not forget that the world has also been turned on it’s head in the past decade, and that has had a huge impact on what people focus on.

I can’t expect people to stop their lives and wait for me to get mine together to provide them with stories and insights. Even when I was in my “prime,” I wasn’t making the impact I thought I was.

Life goes on. Mine and everyone else’s.

Lessons Learned

Of course, through it all, I have learned some lessons from what happened. It has taken me doing a deep dive into my life and emotions, and I didn’t always like what I found, but it has helped with my hurt and anger.

The first thing I had to ask myself was why I needed to be seen so bad. One of the answers to that was because the more readers I got, the more sales I would make, and that would lead to making money so that I could live a writer’s life.

That dream didn’t last long, and it soon became apparent that I was just another book on the shelf, and being found was incredibly difficult.

I then changed my thought process and decided that as long as people were reading and enjoying my stories, that was all that mattered to me.

But it wasn’t.

I needed a connection that I could never get.

I’m not going to go into the details about why I needed that connection so bad, but just know it has to do with emotional starvation. I had assumed that others would be able to fill the hole in my being.

It turns out, that’s not the case. And since others couldn’t meet my expectations, it left me disappointed and disillusioned.

I had to face some uncomfortable truths about myself and really figure out what it is that I wanted from the rest of the world.

Being Invisible Isn’t that Bad

One of the first things I discovered was that being invisible wasn’t that bad. It meant that there were less people in the world I needed to make happy, as well as less people who could disappoint and upset me. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone, and I was free to live my life the way I wanted.

From that thought, I moved to the idea that my life doesn’t have to be big.

I don’t need the movie contract to prove I’ve made it. I don’t need to live like Stephen King and JK Rowling to know I’m a success. Would it be nice? Hell yeah! But I need to be realistic. What I desire and what I get often are two very different things.

I also realized that just because I don’t get the results I was hoping for (or that others had expected of me), that didn’t mean I had to give up on my dreams altogether.

It wasn’t a black and white type of scenario. There was gray in the middle that I could explore.

I also decided I wasn’t going to let others force me into obscurity. It was one thing to make myself invisible, it was something else to kowtow to another’s wishes to vanish entirely.

One of the things that has always made me content was creating stories. And I wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from me.

It took me a long time to get back into writing and enjoy the process. I started small, posting to my blog again, then slowly putting posts on my FB author page. Those posts are pretty infrequent, for a variety of different reasons.

For the works I’ve already published, I once again decided to transition them from Amazon to Wattpad — at least the electronic versions. For those books that have paperbacks, they’ll still be available on Amazon.

This is me not living big. This is me creating the stories I want to create and sharing them with others — but it’s not a big deal if no one reads them.

I had someone ask me one time which novel I was most proud of, and I couldn’t pick just one. I’m proud of all of them. Each one took me time and effort to create. There’s a piece of me in every story.

And no one can take that away from me.

They may not get read, and they may not make millions of dollars, but I accomplished something amazing. I put a lot of words on a page and crafted them into a coherent narrative.

If you want to read them, that makes me happy. If you don’t, that won’t stop me from creating. Like most people, I want to be seen, but it’s not a driving factor in my life like it used to be.

I see the things that I’ve accomplished, and I’m proud of what I’ve done.

I see me.

Taking the Beauty Out of Art

I have a colleague that is a poet and an artist. The other day, I asked him what he was working on, and he told me he was honing his skills drawing life-like objects. He explained how he was focusing on measurements and making sure they were as precise as possible — because without precise measurements, the item on the page doesn’t have the same qualities as what it is trying to represent.

Chuckling, I told him he was sucking the romanticism out of art.

We then got into a discussion about how the creation of art is anything but romantic.

It Takes Work to Create a Masterpiece

Most people think of artists as sitting alone in their room or studio, being struck by the muse and becoming obsessed with finishing their masterpiece. They barely think about eating or drinking or taking care of themselves in any way until the work is completed. There are high emotions, and the creator feels divine and happy. All of those feelings are transferred from their being into the work before them, which is then transferred to the audience and creates feelings of joy and excitement within them.

In reality, there is nothing romantic about creating art, whether it is a painting, drawing, poem, or novel. The process revolves around taking chaotic thoughts and half-formed ideas and taming them into something that can be consumed and understood by others. If you think about the thoughts that run through your head at any time during the day, you know that feat is easier said than done.

There is a lot of precision to the creative process, which does mean having the right measurements — or choosing the right word or phrase or using a particular pencil or color — and assembling them in the right way on whatever medium the creator prefers to use.

Being precise and particular can make the process incredibly long. Depending on the type and depth of the work, it can take hours to years to finish a product. And during that time, it will go through a lot of different versions. It needs to be edited and refined. The final product may only have a hint of the original idea that the creator envisioned.

Making Things Look Easy

If you’ve ever looked at a final product — again, whether it be a painting, poem, novel, whatever — and thought, “That was amazing, and it seems like the creator had no issues at all making it,” then the creator has achieved their goal. The more effortless a project appears, the more work has gone into it.

Even if you’re looking at an impressionistic painting or reading experimental fiction and thinking that the creator just threw paint onto a canvas or wrote down any thought that came to mind, remember that everything was done intentionally — and more than likely painstakingly.

Most likely, nothing in the work is haphazard. There is meaning behind the splashes of paint or the seemingly random words. They were chosen for a reason.

No matter how much you appreciate and love the final work, keep in mind that the creator may not think of it as finished. During the process, the creator may have doubted themselves and shed tears because they didn’t think their work would be good enough. They may continue to think that their work isn’t good enough and be thinking of ways they want to change it.

Where you see perfection (or damn near), they may see flaws and problems. But they had to stop somewhere, so the final product in front of you is “good enough.”

If you think you can do better than what’s in front of you, I dare you to try.

See how long it takes you to recreate the work of art that you think was easy. But remember: you don’t get to be the judge. The audience makes the final decision. Do a compare and contrast and have others critique the work against the current standards and see how yours measures up.

Take a Moment to Appreciate the Effort

If you find that the work in front of you takes your breath away or makes you think or gives you the feels, take a moment to truly appreciate the effort that went into the creation. Think about the precise measurements the artist applied, the search for the perfect tool to ensure the final product looked just right, the agony that went into finding the right word or phrase.

Take a step back and soak in the work. Let it flow through you and indulge your senses.

Know that all the time and effort the creator put into their work was for your benefit. They wanted to make you feel. Being creative may not be romantic, but the final product should be inspirational and make you think that the process was effortless.

That’s part of the artistic appeal.

How Long Should a Story Be?

Determining how long a story should be depends on several factors. Is it flash fiction? A short story? An epic novel? Each of these varies in word count and length and determines how long a story should be. Below are the average, accepted word counts for the various types of fiction.

• Micro-Fiction: up to 100 words
• Flash Fiction: 100 – 1,000 words
• Short Story: 1,000 – 7,500 words
• Novellette: 7,500 – 20,000 words
• Novella: 20,000 – 50,000 words
• Novel: 50,000 – 110,000 words
• Epics and Sequels: more than 110,000 words

However, knowing what type of story you want to write is only part of the equation; there are other parts that have to be incorporated to create a story. And what if you don’t know what length of story you want to write? What if all you have is a story idea, but you’re not sure if you can tell that story in 50 words or if it needs 50,000 words. What do you do then?

It’s important to keep in mind that every story—even super short ones—has to have a beginning, middle, and end, along with a climax, events that lead up to that climax, events that bring the reader down from that climax, and then a conclusion. It’s also important that your main character(s) change through your story.

Your main character(s) needs to have a problem, and they have to solve that problem. How long will it take them? That depends on how complicated their problem is. You’ll also have to decide how developed you want your main character(s) to be. Readers don’t have to know a character’s entire life story to relate to them or be emotionally involved with their plight, but if you want to share that information, you can.

You’ll also have to decide how many characters will get points of view in your story. If you’re telling it from one perspective, it might not take as many words to write. However, if you have different perspectives from numerous characters, each one will need a story arc, a beginning, middle, and end, and have to change from the beginning to the end. How you handle each of those perspectives could lengthen the work.

You’ll have to develop your setting(s) too. If your story takes place on a world your reader isn’t familiar with, such as in a fantasy or science fiction work, it might take longer to develop that setting. If your story takes place in more than one setting, depending on how important each one is to the storyline, you’ll need to take the time to develop each place so the reader feels what the character(s) feel when they are there.

It’s possible to write science fiction micro-fiction. It’s also possible to write fantasy micro-fiction. These certainly don’t take lots of words to develop character or setting, and the reader still gets a sense of place and people. The stories also evoke emotions.

In addition to developing character and setting, you’ll need to decide the pace of your story. This will help you decide how long your work needs to be. The pace of your story determines how quickly you reveal information to the reader, how long the scenes in your story are, and how fast the action moves. In shorter works, all of these have to happen at a faster pace than a longer work.

The easiest way to decide how long your story should be is to start writing it. If you find that you are taking a lot of time to describe your characters and your setting, you might consider writing longer works. If you tell your story in as few words as possible, shorter works might be up your alley.

When you’ve finished your story, you need to make sure all the important details are included. You need to make sure that your story incorporates the needed elements (beginning, middle, end, climax, resolution) and that it makes sense. If readers walk away from your work wondering what they just read and feeling confused and lost, you probably failed in your attempt at writing a story. If you can evoke emotions, a sense of wonder and/or awe, or excitement, then you’re on the right track with your story—no matter how long it is.