In Critique of My Writing Career, Thus Far

Since I’m in a somewhat reflective mood, I’m going to take stock of my fledgling writing habit up to this point. Part of the motivation for this post will be to capture a moment in time, a snapshot if you will. I’ll also posit about where I am going with my writing and potential upgrades to my site as well. So let’s take inventory and also try to peek into the future while I’m at it.

Essentially, the biggest strategic mistake that I’ve made with my writing thus far is that I’ve gone in reverse order. The well-trodden path for a writer is to first build an audience, then write a book. This is the path that many writers have taken. Ramit Sethi started blogging in 2006, but didn’t release his first of edition of I Will Teach You To Be Rich until 2009. Ditto for Mark Manson with the book that made him famous, and Ryan Holiday did the same thing as well. Truthfully, the idea to write a book hit me out of nowhere and wasn’t a strategic or career-oriented move at all. It was one of those rare instances where inspiration called, and I felt compelled to answer. While there’s nothing wrong with inspiration, it isn’t methodical either. I wrote my book first, then started blogging.

As a consequence, I’ve yet to develop a consistent reader base (as far as I know). I’m not naïve enough to believe that it would happen overnight, however I’m also not naïve enough to think it won’t happen without a plan either. Admittedly, outside of write more, I still don’t have a plan. A large part of the reason for this is that I still haven’t figured out exactly what my writing identity is. While my book revolves around internet memes, and I’ve spilled a lot of ink talking about NFT’s and the blockchain, I wouldn’t call myself a technology writer. I’ve also written a lot about society, crime, and pundits (eww…pundits), I wouldn’t call myself a social writer either. I’ve written a lot about the ethos of the grind, why it’s necessary, and the topic of philosophy in our daily lives, I wouldn’t call myself a lifestyle writer either- after all, nobody likes a life coach.

There’s a possibility that I’ll figure out the direction of my writing sooner rather than later. Currently my article count is at 66 (including this one right now), and I won’t make any grand proclamations until I reach article number 100. Maybe by then I’ll have a direction figured out, thus enabling me to figure out a marketing plan to drive more eyes to my writing. I’d like to learn search engine optimization (SEO) to drive more traffic to the site as well, though that isn’t the magic bullet. After all, it helps if GPS can take you to your destination, but that alone won’t make the destination somewhere inherently worth going either. Once traffic is both high and relatively stable, then I can start to monetize the blog in authentic and transparent ways. The biggest non-writing upgrade I’d make under this scenario is to hire an artist, as my artistic skills are somewhat lacking (I hope you were sitting down for that!), and I don’t particularly have an interest in developing my drawing capabilities-I’d truthfully rather be writing!

Fortunately, I don’t angst over where my writing has gone-and hasn’t gone-either. I don’t obsess over visitor counts or any other metric that WordPress keeps telling me is important. I’ve been treating this mostly as a sandbox environment to try new things, explore new ideas and to just have fun with it-after all, writing is a hobby and hobbies are supposed to be fun, right? In fact, writing is all I ever want to do now-whether it’s jotting down ideas or racing home to start typing away on the laptop. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon either.  I used to fret about the word count of my articles but then chose to throw caution to the wind and post anyways. Perfection is the enemy and releasing a sub-par article and collecting feedback is better than it never seeing the light of day.

Speaking of feedback, the most consistent feedback I’ve received regarding my book is the tone; readers have found my book too aggressive. While my readers aren’t necessarily wrong, I couldn’t afford to hold back since I had no idea if I’d ever have another chance to make this case. There exist countless articles on the internet about helping authors to find their voice on the page, though this is a problem I never truly had (maybe that’s a sign I haven’t been doing it long enough?). Outside of the first few sentences, I don’t have an issue going from idea-to-page, provided it’s captured on the friendly yellow legal pad first!

I’m even open to writing another book, though most of the topics I’m interested would point me towards the social issues/sociology section of the bookstore. However, I don’t see myself reaching out to established writers for mentorship right now since, as Austin Kleon puts it, advice can be a vice. That is to say, that people usually imagine themselves in your shoes, and that can skew the advice they give you based on their experiences and biases. Rather, I find myself often applying Bruce Lee’s philosophy of taking what is useful and leaving behind the rest.