Personal Experience

How I Got Back into Writing After Twenty Years and What To Do if You’re “Stuck”.

It was the first time I had written something of substance in over a decade.

I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer since I was a child.

I was the nerdy kid who would get in trouble in elementary school for writing or reading a book when everyone else was doing other work. In fourth grade, I wrote ten pages front and back about baseball, how it’s played, and the entire history of the sport, just for fun.

Even though I’d end up “in trouble”, my work ended up on the bulletin board outside the classroom.

By the time high school began, however, I’d lost most interest in writing. Having to analyze poems, plays, and stories over and over made me hate them. While I now realize that it’s necessary to understand the basics of writing to be good at it and know what you’re reading, I feel the way it’s taught in schools is confusing and uninteresting.

So I largely quit writing, aside from keeping a journal off and on during my summer of trips around the US, which got lost that same year.

I gave up. For about eight years.

Then I discovered the Medium platform. It didn’t require an exorbitant payment to join. There were stories about any topic imaginable. I had no excuses anymore. Everyone around me is extremely supportive of my writing career, which is very important. You need to surround yourself with positive people. I mean, my wife has agreed we could go on a road trip if I’d write about it!

So, first thing’s first:

1. Just Write Something

Write about what you did that day. Write whatever comes to your mind. Just write something down for as long as you can sit there. Then get up, do something else, and come back to it. I’ve always found it much easier to expound upon a topic, as well as find mistakes and plot holes.

For myself, I have to write every day now because it’s a great habit to get into. Find time to sit down and write an article for an hour or two, preferably daily.

2. Read, Read, Read Other Writers’ Articles

What bothered me for a long time was fear. I feared that I wouldn’t be the next Hemingway or Stephen King, and I felt that if I couldn’t be at that level, I didn’t want to even begin. That seems so silly now looking back, it’s like expecting to be able to run a marathon the first day you get up off the couch and start training.

I feared that I wouldn’t be the next Hemingway or Stephen King, and I felt that if I couldn’t be at that level, I didn’t want to even begin.

I have learned so much about how Medium works as well as how to write better, from spending hours poring over articles. Some were written by members who had been here two or more years. Some were written by those who joined last week. All of them had something I took away and have used in my own writing.

3. Find Your “Zone”

The first step here is finding what you’re passionate about. That one subject you could talk to someone about for hours and not notice the time slipping by.

A topic I find extremely important is self-improvement, as someone who nearly wrecked their life through mismanaged depression, anger, and anxiety, which eventually lead to alcoholism, I’ve been focusing on a more non-traditional journey towards sobriety and real change in my life through helping others through my writing.

Personally for me, once I started, writing became my new addiction. If I’m not writing, I’m editing. I’m reading articles on how to write. I’m sharing my writing with friends and family. If I’m working at my regular job in car sales, I’m thinking about how I can tie any experiences from that day into my writing.

Some people just won’t be this intense about writing, and that’s alright. Find your passion, what you’re truly knowledgeable about, and start writing about it. I guarantee if you can get just a sentence or two in, you won’t want to stop.

4. You Aren’t Going to Become Rich Overnight…Or Maybe Ever

Don’t expect it anyway. I used to look for “get rich quick” courses for all kinds of things. Writing, affiliate marketing, making videos, it’s all the same in that any one of those takes weeks, months, even years of time, practice, and skill to be able to depend on it for real income.

You have to give your audience something they enjoy. Make them want more. If you’re only focused on how many claps, likes, responses, or whatever that your story is getting, you aren’t going to do as well as someone writing a well researched, informative, fun to read article that really came from their heart. And that was well edited, with proper grammar and spelling. You have to know the rules to break them.

Over and over again I read of people who went months with less than 100 views, constantly writing content hoping for a hit. Suddenly one of their articles got picked up by a publication, and exploded onto Medium. That might happen to you, or it might not. Don’t expect it. Write for yourself because you enjoy it.

Use it to share your experiences and personal stories, people love reading about how someone overcame a problem or helped someone else overcome one. If you write for money, you aren’t going to find it.

5. Listen to Others, Don’t Be Afraid to Edit Your Work

I used to think that writing was something that couldn’t be messed with, that the great novel writers like Stephen King just sat down and knocked out the next New York Times bestseller on a whim.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, a good story requires editing, often multiple times. Come back to your piece an hour later, or even a day later. You will find small mistakes and plot holes you missed in the first draft, every time.

Ask others to read your work and give an honest opinion. Don’t ask family or friends, they may have a hard time giving an honest critique.

Befriend other writers on the Facebook groups, talk to them. Don’t just post your story link without at least reading the Original Poster’s article. I read, comment, and follow the author. It’s good courtesy if you’re going to drop your link in a group and will almost guarantee they will do the same thing.

6. Before You Can Be a Great Writer, You Have To Be a Mediocre One

It wasn’t until I wrote my first article about my experience as a delivery driver during Covid-19 that I started seeing myself as “a writer” and really starting to find my niche. Why do I feel this is important?

It helped me want to practice and get better. It helped me be able to concentrate and not be distracted by wanting to play Xbox or watch TV during my free time. Mediocre writers let themselves be distracted.

That was the problem I’d had years ago when I quit writing. Writing for school made me see it as some begrudging task, not something I wanted to do for pleasure.

Now, I have fallen in love with writing again, and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Don’t give up, even when you can’t think of what to write. Even when you aren’t getting any views or responses. Keep writing new content and stick with it, even if it’s just one word at a time.