The only audience you must write for.

Khyati Jain
2 min readDec 12, 2022

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“Who am I writing for?” It’s a fundamental question, and it has a fundamental answer: You are writing for yourself. Don’t try to visualise the great mass of audience. There is no such audience — every reader is a different person. Don’t try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don’t know what they want to read until they read it. — William Zinsser, On Writing Well

I’m lucky to have loved, to have been loved, in all its power, pep and peace. Experiencing the physical pain of loss, numbness of thought, emptiness of words. Being able to wake up everyday with joy in my feet, a smile on my face and laugh until my stomach aches, even when nothing seems to be going right. That’s the strength of friendship, of companionship, of love.

First flush of morning as I sit to write after a terrible night,
Put my soul on paper, not immured by what I “should” feel or say.
Accomplished, having captured beautiful moments in strings of words.
Allowing myself to look at life as a collection of essays and chapters.

Every chapter has made me appreciate little things even more, instead of waiting until it’s the good old days. These moments have helped me connect better with people who’ve lived completely different lives.

Someone recently told me, do not do anything for free. I couldn’t disagree more. Do things for yourself. Enjoy the freedom that comes with not doing things for money, unrestricted by timelines or the expectations of aesthetics or of deep insights. Write to know yourself better.

This is my diary, where I write my pieces on love: love in all shades. Written just for myself. Maybe I’ll read out a piece or two, to friends or strangers, but what makes them uniquely me, is that they weren’t written with an audience in mind.

❤ ❤

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