Narrative Trust

On Posture, Purpose, and the Viability of a Writer

I don’t like marketing. I don’t like the thought of monetizing my writing.

For a long time, I confused visibility with viability. I believed that if readers saw me, I would be a “real” writer. I may have believed it, but it never felt settled.

I still write for myself. Mostly. But I have readers now—something I never imagined—and that reality has changed me. Not because I need mass readership, but because I have come to understand something else entirely:

What makes a writer viable is not scale.
It’s posture and purpose.

Knowing your capabilities. Knowing your tolerances. Reaching an honest agreement with your goals.

I’m retired, and that affords me the luxury of writing without market volatility or algorithmic panic. I can pursue coherence over performance. But I would gently challenge any writer to ask: what truly makes you viable?

Mass appeal—or resonance?
A list—or a circle?

What I have been building, whether I named it or not, is narrative trust.

Not trust that you “get it.”
Not agreement.
Not branding.

Narrative trust is relational.

It’s the assurance that language here is not manipulative. That meaning is not a trick. That what is offered is offered sincerely.

My words may be mine.
But the meaning is yours.

That does not dilute authorship. It deepens it. Meaning happens between us. It asks something of both writer and reader—attention, charity, interpretation.

Narrative trust also means I am not exploiting attention.

I write about attention because I practice it. I invite you to attend—not to adopt my vision, but to see more fully through your own.

The invitation to share this space is genuine. If there is anything self-serving in it, it is this: you expand my perspective.

Narrative trust is slow. It is relational. It grows in reachable circles.

It may not be new to me, but articulating it feels clarifying. Settling. A recognition of the posture I have been moving toward all along.

What I offer now is an extension of that trust—in the form of a poem.

Without asking, “Do you get it?”
Because I trust you do.
Or will.

---

FLOREANA

havoc
among
the helpless

giant
saddleback
lineage

extinction
consequence
return

Floreana
found
Isabela

~ jlynn

Inspired by the presumed extinction and rediscovery of the Floreana giant tortoise lineage in the Galápagos.

When does your work feel most “real” to you?