I imagine most want to cut to the list, and so that’s where I will begin. For everyone else I share the reasons for conducting this exercise at the end.
Momentum is everything (as it is with most activities). The first posts were the hardest, but then you get into a rhythm.
Opinions are easier than facts. The saying goes that opinions are like backsides, everyone has one, and most of them stink. So I have found with opinion based articles… including my own.
Ideas are easier to come by than I expected. Inspiration is all around: the news, podcasts, other articles, conversations with friends and family, conversations with enemies, journals, personal experience, comedians, sports, the arts, history, pop culture, and everything.
Beware of ultracrepedariansim. It was tempting to try and give opinions and advice on areas outside of my expertise. This inclination slowly fell away when I wrote less from the point of view of conjecture, and more from personal experience. If I found myself conducting a lot of research to write an article, then that was my signal that I didn’t know enough to speak with authority; it was my reminder stay in my lane.
You come closer to finding your own voice when you’re under pressure to deliver. There were days when I was overextended. Those were the easiest to write, because I stopped trying to write, and just wrote.
Match your energy of the moment with the task you need to perform. I began by trying to write in the morning, but that is also the best time for me to exercise, and at some point I also had to start my day job. I switched to writing in the evening, but ideas and writing did not flow so freely, the writing took longer and I was always late to bed. In the end it occurred to me to throw down my ideas in a rough draft first thing in the morning – when my more creative energies at their zenith – and I left the more ‘mechanical’ editing and proofreading until the evening, when my energies had shifted.
Like many I began this exercise with dreams of crafting a viral article that would rake in a lot of money, allowing me to retire of the fruits of my labors. I have just looked back through the 29 articles I have written during this journey, I dropped the data into a spreadsheet, and added up my accumulated earnings. I managed to acquire the princely sum of one cent. Don’t do this for the money.
There is more to learn. I took a bit of a Larry King attitude, and deliberately so, i.e. I wanted to launch right in and go with my instincts, and not be encumbered with other people’s view of what makes for a compelling headline, the appropriate length of a paragraph, how to pick and use the right image, etc. I blame the lack of spondoolies on my amateur headlines and poor image choice, and not on the quality of my content, because the process also reminded me I have an ego.
Medium does not have life’s answers. On days when I was seeking inspiration I found myself reading more to write more, and it became evident that every successful person believes they have the answer to life’s question(s), and they do, for THEM. Find your own path because everyone is right, and everyone is wrong.
We are all individuals. ~ Monty Python
I now have an embryonic body of content, and on a range of subjects. I intend to narrow my focus with subsequent articles, and flesh out several of those I’ve already shared; I had to limit their length because I have a family and a day job and also needed sleep. I have decided I will write on more peripheral topics for fun.
My content has been very self-indulgent, with little consideration for whom I am writing, and little thought for what they might get out of this. I want to rectify that with my next steps. And in spite of the comparative intensity of my 30 day commitment I am still finding my voice, maybe I always will be. It has been a good exercise.
I proved to myself I can write more than I feared. I surely sacrificed quality for quantity but if I hadn’t stretched my perspective of my own capacity I would continue to languish with sporadic and infrequent publications. This brings me back to the point I began with, when I mentioned momentum; as a friend said to me yesterday, you can’t turn a parked car.
