I like how Hend Hegazi said in her recent interview with Umm Afraz Muhammed which is published here, that not everyone is going to like your work, your writing. She spoke a known, but not necessarily always remembered, fact. It is such an important fact to remember as a blogger. We need to let people “not like” our work, and consequently have peace with it in our minds.
Each one of us is unique, but not necessarily “good enough” in readers’ eyes. Some of us have huge word bank, while others use simpler vocabulary. Some share their thoughts in simpler form, while others find eloquence in a different path. Some hold degrees while others hold only experience. And so on….
Writing for many of us starts with the passion to share our thoughts in our own words. Pure love for writing motivates us to get started. But as human as we are, some times it is inevitable to fall in the trap of “likes.” This trap is oh so hard to avoid, and oh so depressing to be in. Like anything else in life, renewing our intentions is a must in this field too.
Keeping high goals as writers is understandable. For instance, wanting to write for sisters magazine some day (YES, that is a high achievement) or publishing one’s own book. Interestingly, to reach these goals in some undeniable manner we need to keep our readers happy. The more readers you have the better it is. Which is the very reason why it so hard to avoid the trap of “likes.” We need to balance it out for ourselves and remind ourselves from time to time. While we would like our content to be liked by readers, our writing should not be for the sake of “likes.” There is a huge difference. In first one, we share our thoughts as they are and then are content with how many ever people agree with our thoughts and like our work. Whereas in the latter one, we write in a way that readers may accept it – that is when we have lost the sole purpose of our writing.
Problem is in front of us and so is the solution.
We just need to remind ourselves and each other.
May Allah help us purify our intentions and help us write to spread good & knowledge for the benefit of Muslim Ummah and mankind in general. (Aameen)
Allahumma Aameen.
That’s a wonderful reminder. It’s something we need to be conscious of – our niyyah and purpose.
JazakiAllahu khairan for this 🙂
Indeed.
Wa anti fa jazakillahu khairan katheeran 🙂
From the beginning, as a blogger, I have decided to use simple words because I want to reach a lot of people. I have reads other blogs and I find words that are unfamiliar to me. I’ll lose interest because I don’t know the meaning. So from my own experience I started writing that way. Nice article dear.
What a great post sister! I agree with everything you have said. I started writing because I loved the fact that I could express myself. However, it’s very easy to get heavily involved in ‘likes and followers’. I think what you have written is beautiful! I believe most people who have a large following, do it because of the wrong reasons and it’s sad to see. I think it’s important to keep reminding ourselves from where we came from and for what reason.
Love,
Ramshaa Rose
xxx
Aameen. This is beautiful ma shaa Allah 💕 JazakilAllahu Khayr for sharing ❣️
It’s a good reminder jezzakallahu khiar sister..
I think there’s a progression that everyone go through: at the beginning, we write for ourselves because we want to then when we realised not many people are reading we start to look for likes, but then in the end we realised that it doesn’t matter who likes what we write, we’ll just keep on writing!
Absolutely, writing should come from the heart. Only then it will be effective.
Completely agree with you and the need for us to balance it out. Once you get trapped in the whole ‘likes’ thing then it all starts becoming less enjoyable.
Beautiful post and blog masha’Allah! It’s true that we will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we still need to carry on! Jazak’Allah khair for the reminder 🙂
Such a wonderful reminder for bloggers! Jazak’Allah khair for sharing!