You’re scrolling on Facebook and then you see a link shared from one of your friends. You click on it and then go, “No way! They wrote this? I didn’t know they wrote.”

As how it goes nowadays, most people find out that their friends write through social media, or some type of online medium. But what some people don’t realize is how much courage it takes us for us to paste that small link into our bio, to effectively publish it for all eyes to see, welcomed or unwelcomed.

Reasons why writers don’t like to share their writing, reasons more or less all combined.

It takes guts.

Honestly, it takes a lot of courage for writers, who pour their heart and soul into crafting their piece, who have sat for minutes, hours, and days to share what they have created.

Writing for oneself is a very personal activity, hard to explain, but if you have ever kept a journal or diary, you could probably understand. It is exposing a more secretive and lesser-known side of you, a side people might not even know about. So many people are very private with what they write. One of my friends, who is not very good at English, refused vehemently to allow me to even take a look at his essay he wrote for class. When I asked him why, he stated “because it was bad.” I tried to assure him that I wouldn’t mind, but he still did not allow me to see it. Once it is shared, it is subject to the eyes of others, their comments, judgements, and criticisms.

Unnecessary questions and comments.

I knew that joining The Odyssey required me to share and publicize my works. Mainly, I had joined The Odyssey in an attempt to upkeep my writing hobby, with the sharing of my works being more of a side condition. Upon first sharing, people would come up to me, going, “I didn’t know you write!”, which I enjoyed because it allowed me to talk about what I enjoyed to do. But eventually, it got to the point where people would say, “wow, did you all know she writes”, in more of a snide way, as if my writing and my pastime was something to be laughed at.

Sometimes, people would read my works and go, “that was weird” or “you should have written in it in third-person.” Um, okay. What am I supposed to do with that? I welcome criticism, as long as it is constructive. It’s frustrating when people come up to me with random comments, telling me to change something about my writing, something that I had spent hours of my time on, when they had only skimmed it in five minutes. And to answer everyone’s questions: YES, THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT.

After talking to many writers, I realized the main reason why I DON’T like sharing my writing is because in the end I find that I always end up having to defend myself. I shared with someone that I had stayed up once to finish writing something, to which she responded, which her face crinkled in slight disgust, “why?”. Why do you listen to music, why do you play basketball, why do you spend hours taking pictures, why do you do anything? Because you love it. Why is writing any different?

I had used to keep a personal blog before college, where I would publish my passing thoughts, poems, and short stories. I was a little embarrassed when people first found out about it, but mostly everyone seemed to enjoy what I had written. But then, one of my hallmates found out about it, and thought that what I had wrote on there was hilarious. So he would show it to everyone who gave him the time, pointing out all the "funny" parts of what I had wrote, reading my writing in a ridiculous accent in an attempt to make people laugh. I was mortified and insulted. So that very night, I deleted everything from my blog, so no one could see any of it anymore. And it was from then on, that I had refused to share my writing with anyone... until now.

Yes, I know that when writers publicly share their works, they are agreeing to whatever may come. But I'm just asking that you please be mindful of what you say, the comments you make. It takes a lot of personal courage for us to share, but a very little amount of judgement to discourage us.

Write (and read) on, friends.