Ages ago, I had a conversation with a friend about writing. The guy was only just starting to learn how to craft a story, and he asked me a simple question: Do you think it's possible to write without revealing yourself too much? After all, your own tastes and thoughts bleed in every art you make. Is it possible, then, to write something that doesn't bare your whole soul to the world?
My answer is yes. And my argument is as follow:
1: The large majority of people who read your stuff are not gonna care enough to overanalyse why you included xyz element in your story. This is perhaps disheartening to hear, that you're gonna pour so much yourself in a work of art and most of the response you're gonna get is "ok cool" and then moving on, but it's true. This is a fact you're gonna have to come to terms with if you share your art on the internet.
2: People who do care enough to analyse what your art says about you are, very often, going to be hilariously wrong. I am speaking from personal experience here. You have no idea how many "oh it's sooo obvious you wrote xyz because you have a fetish" messages I got over the years about stuff I wrote for completely different reasons. Unless someone knows you personally (and even then!) it is plain impossible for them to tell if you're writing for fetish reasons, trauma reasons, projection reasons, coolness reasons, or virtually anything else. They can make assumptions for sure, and it sucks when people perceive you incorrectly to your face, but the original point of "what if they See me" is really unlikely.
So if you want to write, but you're afraid of being too genuine or showing too much of yourself in your art: don't be. It won't happen. Trust me, people are not in your head. All they have a concave mirror. You can go ahead and be as weird as you wish in your art. They're gonna be incorrect and judgemental either way, might as well be balling with it.
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