There's No Such Thing As Real Writing. All Writing Is Real

26 Aug 2025 #misc

For so long, I was afraid of putting “writer” on my bio online.

I was full of self-doubt. “I don’t have thousands of followers.” “I don’t have a novel.” “I’m not even an English native speaker.”

Even after years of blogging, calling myself a writer was an impossible goal. Maybe because I pictured writers as Hemingways retreating to an island to return with a Nobel-winning novel.

I wish I had read Mark Thompson’s post challenging the distinction between “real” writing and everything else sooner. It would have saved me so many moments of self-doubt. He wrote,

If your words help someone, teach someone, inspire someone, or even just get them to click “follow,” then they’ve done their job.

If just one person has started writing and managed to change their situation after reading my articles, that is a win.

Stop chasing the “real writer” myth.

If you have helped, inspired, or made someone take any form of action with your words, that’s real writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Tweet, a blog post, or a 70,000-word work of fiction. Because all writing that moves someone is real. Period.