I decided I wanted to work as a writer about video games. I took a course about writing and how to pitch articles. I started pitching.
I had a pitch accepted for an online publication called The Escapist. I wrote the whole thing and sent it in. They wrote me back to say they weren’t publishing it. My article had been killed.
They didn’t offer any explanation. I asked why it had been killed, and they told me I had written it for me.
For me? What the hell does that mean? I didn’t know I had written the article for me, and that minimalist explanation of why they had killed my article did nothing to help me understand.
Now, I do understand though. I wasn’t writing for readers. I was writing because I wanted to be published. I was writing because I desperately wanted to escape the career I was in. I was writing for every reason other than to entertain and inform my readers.
There’s something of a backlash now against the idea of making things for someone else. Many of them proudly tell their audience they make things for themselves. That’s great, assuming that lines up with what an audience wants… or assuming they don’t care about having an audience to begin with. Most of the best ones, though, still have empathy for their audience, as much as they claim not to care about that.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy your work. I’ve also had someone tell me that I wrote for myself when that wasn’t the case. Don Devine killed my email newsletter when I worked for the Jefferson County, Tennessee school district. I had told him I was writing in a way I appreciate because I’m writing to other people, and people enjoy the things people enjoy. I’m a people, so some people who enjoy things will enjoy the things I enjoy. That didn’t work for them. They were looking for something dry which isn’t really my jam. That’s not the same as writing it for me.
I see now, though, what I was doing wrong. I didn’t learn this from the person who killed my article, but I have learned it since. This new understanding is what has allowed me to build a career as a developer. To create something great, you have to set aside any goals that are ancillary to the quality of what you’re creating. Once my pitch was accepted, I should have aligned myself with a new goal: one that would serve my audience.
My goal as a web developer is to solve problems for people. That happens to be what people will pay you for. I also want to get paid as a web developer, but I focus on solving problems first, knowing that will achieve my ancillary goal as well.