Sometimes, I feel as though we are all so eager to be read about, to have our thoughts and writing be spread worldwide, to be published, that we forget the honest, simple reason we started the path that we have all taken: the innocent love of writing.

Have we all been so mesmerized by fame, so taken up with the possibility of our names in print, that we forget the true meaning of writing? Have we forgotten the way our pen flows over the paper as our soul pours down onto the empty page? I know I have.

In the past few months, I write not for my own pleasure but for others. I write what people want to read, not what I want to write. I’ve forgotten what it means to be a writer. To be a writer means to be creative, spontaneous, to allow feelings to overflow you and to allow yourself to drown in them. Being a writer is not a profession or a subject, it’s a passion and a lifestyle.

The first step to healing me, and to healing all of us, is to admit if we’ve turned our faces away from passion and become starry-eyed from glory. If you haven’t, and you honestly—in your heart of hearts—don’t write anything for other people’s benefit, then good for you. But I reckon that most of us have begun to change our writing so that we’ll be liked, and we’ve allowed our pure sense of creativity to be infiltrated by the rest of the world.

So, what I say for myself and for all those who have forgotten, in the midst of glory and praise, the true power of writing, is: No more. No more will I allow my heart to be bottled up, afraid that my stories aren’t good enough. No more will I care about bad reviews, or no one reading my writing. No more will I change myself, and my God-given passion, for the benefit of others.

I am a writer, and it’s time to remember the freedom, the real reason that I love to write.