validation-is-a-cult-eelkat-wendycallen-author

Validation Is a Cult.

Burn It.



By Wendy C Allen

Dear writers:

Stop begging strangers to tell you you’re allowed to write.

Stop asking Reddit if your character is “too Mary Sue.”

Stop workshopping the same prologue with your critique group for 9 months like it’s a damned IVF pregnancy.

Stop asking your fucking Aunt Linda if your dragon romance “makes sense” when she still calls comic books “Satan’s colouring books.”

Validation is the slow poison that kills your momentum.

You want to know how I publish a book a week?

I don’t ask permission. I don’t wait for feedback.

I don’t need a pack of insecure MFA students to form a circle jerk around my comma placement.

I write.

I publish.

I move on.

That’s the ritual.

You know what happens when you wait for validation?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

You stall.

You rewrite the same chapter forty-seven times.

You pick at your own sentences like they’re scabs you’re too scared to let heal.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are building an empire out of raw, unfiltered, un-beta-read chaos.

Do you think the zombies care if your metaphors are fresh?

They don’t.

They’re eating your protagonist’s spleen whether your pacing is tight or not.

Readers want to feel something.

They want audacity.

Momentum.

Something so real it doesn’t care if it’s flawed.

Beta readers?

They’ll sand off all your sharp edges and leave you with a beige blob of “technically correct” prose that reads like it was ghostwritten by an AI trained on oatmeal and mild disappointment.

You ever notice how every writing group starts out excited, then turns into a silent graveyard where no one ever finishes a story?

It’s because they’re all afraid.

Afraid to suck.

Afraid to shine.

Afraid to finish without gold stars pinned to their ego.

Fear is the soul of the validation cult.

And perfectionism is its god.

I don’t need validation to write.

I have a character.

I have a park bench.

I sit my ass on it and I fucking write. and when I get done writing it, I fucking publish it. Yes, without editing. Yes, without beta readers. Yes, without asking Reddit if they think it is any good or not.

That’s why I publish a book every month, while others spend a decade polishing one chapter and never publish anything.

I have a smell, a sound, a moment. And write it down. If I see it, I write it. If I hear it, I write it. If I smell it I write it. That’s what I do. That’s my starting point. The ritual begins. The words arrive. I hit publish.

And then I walk away.

I don’t fuss. I don’t obsess. I write. I publish. I write the next thing.

You want a reader? Stop editing and fucking hit publish.

You want an audience? Stop begging for gold stars from beta readers and keep publishing.

You don’t get fans from beta readers.

You get fans from consistency, guts, and having the audacity to release a story while it’s still steaming.

Validation isn’t just useless.

It’s a trap.

If someone loves your writing, you’ll start writing to please them.

If someone hates your writing, you’ll start writing to prove them wrong.

Either way, you’re not writing for you anymore. You’re performing.

You didn’t become a writer to crawl around grovelling for gold stars like it’s kindergarten story time.

You became a writer because there’s something in you that has to get out.
So let it out.

Loud.

Messy.

Now.

You want validation?

Here it is:

You are allowed to write.

You are allowed to publish.

You are allowed to skip the gatekeepers and put your story into the world like the feral, fearless creature you are.

You don’t need a critique group.

You don’t need an editor.

You don’t need a 30-comment Reddit thread full of people who don’t write books telling you how they would write yours.

You just need to show up.

Write what you see.

Write what you hear.

Write what you feel.

And then push the damn thing into the world and start the next one.


| ©2025 Wendy Christine Allen | All Rights Reserved |

The Park Bench Method To Writing (and the series of articles and rants that go with it)

I've Written An Entire Series on The Park Bench Method of Writing. Here are more of the articles in this set: 


The Park Bench Method To Writing (Just the article - no prompt lists)

The Park Bench Method of Writing (the really old long, rambly post from years ago; the long page with over 10k writing prompts and lots of lists)



More like this:

Self Publishing - My Self-Publishing Methods | Things I Have Personally Done

What (self-publishing) platform pays the most (for books)? - My top 3 picks. Comparing my results from different places.

How did you build your audience? Not online, that’s for sure.

Writing is dead.…is it?

Why I do not attend writing groups……are they all like this or just the ones in Maine?







What Is This Site?

I'm an author. This is an author home page. It's about me, my life, my books, my hobbies, my home town, and anything else that applies to me and my life. 

Since starting my writing career in 1978, I have written 130+ novels, 2,000+ short stories, 6,000+ non-fiction articles (ALL are found on this site), a few dozen stage plays, 12,000+ blog posts, and a few comic book scripts for Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck (I only worked for Disney one year (in 2005) and only wrote a few stories for their Danish comic books).

NOTE: I ONLY write the Quaraun series (aka The Twighlight Manor series aka The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane). In recent years there has been an issue with impersonators trying to pass books off as written by me, notably several non-fiction and Erotica books. I write neither nonfiction nor Erotica.

ALL of my books and their cover arts are listed on my website here. Beware of any books you find claiming to be me. If the books are NOT listed here on my website, they are NOT my books.

In fiction works, I specialize in Weird/Bizarro Tales set in 40th century CyberPunk-Quasi Medieval, Cozy Dark Fantasy and Science Fiction worlds featuring an intersex Elf and his Faerie husband main characters.  I DO NOT WRITE ANY OTHER SERIES - THIS SERIES IS THE ONLY ONE I WRITE.

Non-fiction (found ONLY here on my site) is daily updates of events in my life, and how-tos on how I write my novels.

I DO NOT write Erotica.

I DO NOT write books with HUMAN characters.

The Erotica books and books with Human characters, that you are finding, are written by scammers trying to impersonate me.

There is an ongoing FBI investigation into this matter. If you find any such books, please report them to FBI Agent Andy Drewer @207–774–9322

The FBI believes the people behind the impersonation accounts showing up, are relatives of the woman who murdered my son.

146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, is NOT FOR SALE.

And I'm sick of real estate agents who are too incompetent to research land ownership before they show up to stick a for sale sign in my yard.

The fact of the matter is, my son was murdered in 2013, and the friends and family of the murderer think it is funny to keep ILLEGALLY listing my land for sale, because apparently their child murdering bitch friend didn't hurt me enough by crippling me with a golf club, ripping my baby out of my 8 month pregnant belly and beating his brains out on the ground with a golf club.

Also, her friends and family like to gaslight me by doxing me on ufo and alien abduction forums, while pretending to be me, and trying to make it look like I believe in ufos or aliens, even though I think people who believe in ufos are raving lunatics and people who claim to be alien abductees are crazy. 

Worse, they've also taken to harassing my WW2 vet homeless friend, by calling HIM an alien, demon, or cryptid and sending alien crazy ufo nutjobs at try to "catch him".

So, yeah, my son was murdered and the murder's friends and family endlessly harass me, my friends, and my family both online and offline, and I'm not happy with it at all.

There is an ongoing FBI investigation into this matter.

The FBI is looking for information into:

  1. identifying my son's murderer, 
  2. identifying the scammers who listed my land for sale, 
  3. identifying the impersonators who pretend to be me both online and offline, 
  4. the harassers who are harassing the homeless man and sending the UFO nuts to harass him... 
  • If ANYONE tells you 146 Portland Ave Old Orchard Beach, Maine is for sale:, please report them to FBI Agent Andy Drewer @207–774–9322
  • If ANYONE tells you I believe in aliens, demons, or UFOS, please report them to FBI Agent Andy Drewer @207–774–9322
  • If ANYONE tells you my homeless friend is an alien, a demon, a cryptid, or named Etiole for sale:, please report them to FBI Agent Andy Drewer @207–774–9322


I'm going to repeat it because I'm tired of people showing up and making offers:

146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, is NOT FOR SALE.




| Home | Index |



How did you build your audience?
Not online, that's for sure.
aka How to sell ten million books
aka How I sold ten million books.



The Park Bench Method of Writing

(just the article)

or

The Park Bench Method of Writing

(with the list of 10k writing prompts - takes a LONG TIME to load - SEVERAL MINUTES!)



Why I am not proud of Disability Pride Month.
In fact, I think it’s deplorable and downright offensive.



I Think UFO and Alien Believers Are Weird Here's Why...




Does every writer have to deal with this shit?



Testing Out AI aka Conversations with ChatGPT-5:



My thoughts on the Rapture 2025 Rumours, that are on both Etiole's birthday and my 50 year anniversary: September 23rd:





Thank you for stopping by and have a nice day! ꧁✨🌸🔮🦄🔮🌸✨꧂

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Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻

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