I think there is a healthy tension between writing for yourself and others if you publish publically. If you are truly writing “for yourself” then that is more of a journal or diary. So why then publish it?

When you publish publicly, you need to take the audience into consideration. Or you likely won’t get many readers. You don’t have to write like everyone else, but you can’t be too self-indulgent either.

J.K. ROWLING may have written Harry Potter for herself, but she also wrote a very popular story. Had she written only poems about dying, I doubt they would have sold as well.

Be original, but think about your audience also. That is the balancing act every artist who wants to actually have an audience must walk.

By the way, some of my most popular stories are less than a minute long. Every writer is different. The “rules” don’t always apply.