I write because it is a part of who I am. It gives me an outlet, somewhere to put all of the thoughts in my head down, to turn my imagination into something that can be seen or read.

Writing is something I love to do, and I mostly do it for myself. It took me years until I had the courage to share my works with the world, to let strangers see what I have created. It was terrifying and still to this day I get anxious whenever I put something I’ve written online. 

Letting the world see what I’ve written means sharing an enormous part of me with strangers. It means opening myself up and being vulnerable. There is a little bit of me in everything I write. This means every piece of criticism I receive feels like a personal attack to some degree. I have no issues with constructive criticism, far from it, I welcome it because it helps me improve my writing. And I’m getting better at not feeling hurt by people who comment with the sole purpose to put you down and hurt you. It’s still difficult for me to not feel hurt to just let it go, but I’m getting better at it. 

I don’t know how to appropriately describe the feeling I get when someone comments on one of my works and lets me know that they like what I have written. The feeling is indescribable and one small, nice comment can make my entire day. 

Writing a story takes so much time, so much energy and it always means so much to see that people not only read my stories but that they like it, I love it when they share their thoughts with me and I can interact with them, the conversations that can come from someone just letting me know they liked what I have written. 

It means the world to me. And every nice comment puts a huge smile on my face. I’m not sure if people are aware how much one small gesture like that can mean to someone. 

And no, this isn’t me asking people to comment on my stuff, this is me trying to let people know that small gestures can go a long way. 

I try to do something nice for at least one person every day, because I know the effect one small nice gesture can have on my day and I want other people to get to enjoy that feeling too.