If no one likes this post, does it even exist?

—because let's be real, we all only make art for external validation, right?

I remember the first time I discovered the synonym button on Microsoft Word. I was 10 years old and I’d written a short story on the family computer, when the red squiggly line appeared under ‘seperate’—my mouse slid past the spell check function and right into the lap of the funny word with too many y’s. It sprouted leaves of letters lining up in unfamiliar patterns, my eyes growing wide scanning ‘autonomous’, ‘differentiate’ and ‘disassociate’. I chose ‘disparate’ because of its similar spelling and sound to the original word; if I were to cheat, I may as well try and be inconspicuous. This didn’t last long. By the time I was finished butchering my story with the right-click button, out of the 498 words on the page, maybe a third of them were mine, and most of these were fillers like ‘the’ and ‘and’. I printed the story (because people owned printers back then) and presented it to my Dad like a billionaire presenting their tax return to an accountant: unashamedly gleeful, but most definitely guilty. I watched his pupils dance around the page, trying to translate the hurricane of not-quite-right vocabulary. He looked up at me and smiled, praising me for producing such a complex piece of work. That praise became a drug I chased for the following 15 years.

A few months go by, and my parents had signed me up for 11+ tutoring (for anyone not from the South of England, this is an entrance test kids take to get into an elitist secondary school known as a ‘grammar school’). We were doing a mock exam and marking it ourselves as a class. I decided before I’d even finished the paper that day, that I was going to get 100% (I’m not sure why, maybe 11 year old Angel just needed an ego boost). We went through each of the questions and whether it was right or wrong I gave it a tick and when collecting the scores at the end of the session, I proudly declared that I had no incorrect answers. Murmurs and gasps filled the room as the other kids gawked at how clever I was. Everyone clapped and I was sent back to my parents with a bag of sweets from the tutor. I never told my parents that I cheated, but they probably connected the dots when I barely scraped a pass on the real exam.

I never got any attention from my parents unless I did something impressive. I grew up with an abusive Mum with untreated bipolar disorder, and became accustom to her see-saw of emotional turbulence. She was either in a debilitating state of depression and wouldn’t leave her room for days on end, or was manic and squeezing a hot tub into our small garden patio and demanding we throw a pool party. Either way, she only acknowledged my existence when she had something to brag about to her friends. My Dad was a good person, but he was distracted. He worked 7 days a week to provide for his family and make up for the fact that my Mum couldn’t hold down a job. I had three younger siblings who all needed his attention more than I did, whether it was because they were failing at school or getting into trouble. Parents Evening was my favourite night of the year because it was a whole two hours where I was the centre of attention, and like a rare jewel I clasped this recognition tightly and securely in my hands. But it was fleeting. Soon the praise dwindled and I resumed to being conveniently invisible.

I grew out of needing my parents’ validation, and graduated to needing it from basically everyone else. I searched for pieces of my self-esteem in lovers (more on this here) and education institutions (oh and here). Creating seemed silly and childish unless it was gaining me something. I needed to hear someone tell me I was great in a play or that my poem was amazing, otherwise it didn’t matter. My art didn’t exist outside of the vacuum of validation, and the more I compared the value of my art to the feedback it was getting, the less clarity I had about my own opinion of my creations. Like the claps from classmates for a test score I knew I didn’t deserve, it meant more to me to have their validation and acknowledgment, rather than being earnest. It didn’t matter if I was proud or had worked hard for something, my self-concept was purely fuelled by how others viewed me and my achievements.

My joy for activities was purely outcomes based, and I struggled to find any pleasure in things I wasn’t naturally good at. This might be the undiagnosed ADHD taking centre stage here, but the amount of new hobbies I have wholeheartedly committed to, just to find them too difficult to excel at off the bat and throw in the towel, is astounding. Dusty balls of crochet yarn, crusty watercolour sets and out of tune ukuleles haunt me like Chucky dolls, reminding me of all the times I pursued the dopamine hit of being good at something, just to be reminded that hard work takes time. Time that I could not be bothered to invest. Supportive, nurturing environments for children encourage them to play, explore and fail, teaching them to enjoy the process of trying and improving, and seeing achievements as the culmination of that trying and enjoyment. I don’t like to blame all my shortcomings on my parents, but I believe I was conditioned to only place value in how I’m perceived for what I achieve, and only see myself as good enough when I have something to show for it, which has been a difficult thing to shift.

We live in a world where artistry is so skewed by popularity. Instagram and TikTok followers and views seem to be the ultimate goal for writers, and define our worth in so many ways. I say this partly out of jealousy; I don’t have a big following and if I could wave a magic wand I would give myself 100k avid listeners that shower me with praise and validation. A fanbase opens opportunity; it’s so much easier to land a publishing deal or sign with a top agent if you’ve amassed a certain number on a social media profile. I meet people in creative circles who do have large followings, and whenever I see their profiles I automatically assume they’re important and that their art is superior in some way. I put them on a pedestal, when they are just people too, creating and doubting themselves in the same way I do. I can’t help but feel embarrassed seeing them follow me back, knowing that their tens of thousands of followers is incomparable to my measly fanbase.

I met someone at a poetry slam recently and by the end of the night we were both commiserating our shared loss in the local pub. After becoming fans of each other’s work that night and massively oversharing about our lives, we went to follow each other on Instagram. I gasped to see his profile amassing tens of thousands of views per post, some even millions! I started to retreat into myself as I blurted out:

“Oh, you’re famous!”

I was instantly embarrassed as soon as the words left my lips.

“No, no, I’m not.” He replied. “That’s literally all from the past 3 months, from this one post.”

It’s funny how artists instantly fall into self-deprecation mode when we are complimented and how we pre-empt people’s disappointment in us. After becoming friends with this person and speaking to them more, I’ve realised it doesn’t matter how many followers or likes you have, many of us share the same wounds of not feeling good enough and like we need to prove ourselves and our art worthy. The goalpost of the number that would be ‘enough’ is always moving forwards, and we always find reasons to not be proud of what we have already achieved. Creativity becomes a constant pursuit of something greater, without looking back at all the greatness you’ve already created.

Having a numerical measurement of people’s attention to us reassures our brain that we are being heard. Art is soul-bearing and raw and there’s nothing worse than shouting your deepest darkest thoughts just to find out no one was listening. But are you listening to yourself?

I started The Artists Way by Julia Cameron a few months ago, and was sceptical at first, but now the book’s recommendation of ‘morning pages’ has become an indisputable part of my daily routine. Every day I sit on my sofa with my V60 drip filter coffee and I just write. Sometimes one page, sometimes reams and reams of pages. About anything. My thoughts, fears, to-do list, new friends, new crushes. I write imperfectly, with spelling errors and simple sentences. I use curse words and abbreviations and so many exclamation marks. This brain dump shakes off the need to create for others. It reminds me that writing is mine. It is the way to understand myself, to connect to all the past versions of me that never felt heard, and to find pockets of joy in a world that is always trying to take it away. You are an artist because you love to create art and that art has value even if it’s just for yourself.

It’s hard to ignore the external world completely, and creatives would be lying if they all didn’t secretly hope one of their posts would go viral. However, when you find yourself chasing the external validation and ignoring the inner voice telling you what it wants to create, it’s time to sit your inner creative down and have a stern conversation. Your uniqueness as an artist is your story and experiences, that is what will attract an authentic engaged audience, not pursuing accolades or viral trends. I say all this with absolutely nothing to show for it—I’ve never had anything published nor have I been awarded anything for my art. What I do have, however, is happiness and pride for what I do create.

Yes, a part of my soul dies every time I receive the all-too-familiar ‘We had an unprecedented amount of entries this year and unfortunately you haven’t been selected’ from a publisher. I do still cry when I get ghosted by casting directors after spending hours prancing around my living room giving life to their half-baked scripts. It’s so demoralising when you post a piece of writing you’re really proud of and only get a handful of likes from your friends. And if I get a no from the National Poetry Competition for another godforsaken year in a row I might actually tear my hair out. But I keep going. Because creating is the only thing I want to do. Whether the yes comes one day or not, it’s about enjoying the process over the outcome. Love to create for its own sake—it’s so much more fulfilling to write imperfectly from the heart, than to use the synonym function until it barely resembles you at all.