Writing fiction, the expendable art?

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Don't get me wrong, I love writing stories. I've been at it for as long as I can remember... but what if every novel in the world was burned down to ashes and every bit of written fiction online was wiped from the internet? Considering that anyone else could just up and start writing another story, would the world be any less without LotR, Harry Potter, Dune, The Dark Tower, Frankenstein and other such works? Is writing fiction ultimately an expendable form of art?

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Well, I was about to go on about how depressing it would be to create something that'll live on after you, only for it to fade into obscurity all the same... coincidentally, a guy I know had just finished writing this about writing. I won't lie, I'm looking for validation. I've made many attempts at writing a novel but I keep thinking to myself, 'Nope, it's shit' and 'Why am I doing this? Why does it even matter?' I mean how do you justify immersing yourself in something entirely fictional, something that has no direct applicable value to the real world? I could write any old story that I liked and say, 'Screw reality', but that doesn't make any problems go away or change anything in any way that matters, does it? I don't know and sometimes, I feel like I don't know much at all.