when your art feels small

sometimes i’ll spend forever trying to get one sentence down. and when i finally do, i hate it. it’s giving that one spongebob episode where he spends hours on an essay and only writes “the.” that’s me.

i write something, read it back, and immediately delete it. it doesn’t sound like me. or it feels like too much. or i spiral and convince myself no one needs to read it.

i almost deleted this too. not because it didn’t matter to me, but because i wasn’t sure if it mattered at all. sometimes i don’t know if i’m adding something honest or just more noise.

there are moments where i think i need a class, a new book, something to fix my writing. and maybe i will take one. but also… my voice isn’t supposed to sound like everyone else’s. maybe it won’t be perfect, but it’ll be mine. and that’s enough. even when it doesn’t feel like it.

i’ll post something and then see another post with 200 likes and spiral. suddenly mine feels small. like i’m behind. like i should’ve said it better. i start scrolling. looking for proof that my work matters. i think i scroll because i’m still learning to trust that it does.

i doom-scroll on substack a lot. i love reading. i love learning. but sometimes it makes me feel like i haven’t earned the right to be here. like my work doesn’t belong next to people i admire.

editing one draft turns into three because i had too many thoughts and now none of them feel right. but if it took me that long to write it, why am i so quick to erase it?

recently, i saw this clip of tyler, the creator talking about evolving your art while still creating from the heart. the part that stuck with me starts around 44:06. he said to make what you feel right now, and let the rest fall where it falls. that helped something in me unclench.

maybe my posts don’t have to last forever. maybe they’re just for the version of me that needed to say something out loud. if someone else gets it — cool. if not, it still did its job.

i’m trying to stop caring about who didn’t like, read, or share it. the right people will find it when they’re supposed to. or not. either way, i wrote it. and maybe that’s enough