THE 30-DAY WRITING EXPERIMENT: UPDATE #3
How Writing Consistently for Three Weeks Changed My Life
Your mindset really can boost your stats — and your earnings.
“Hey! I’m going to write an article about that!”
— Me, at least 12 times a day since starting this challenge.
After setting a goal to write each day for 30 days — almost one month ago, I feel like a completely different person than when I first started this challenge.
The crazy part is — I almost don’t realize how much I’ve changed until I write these updates.
If you’d like to catch up if you haven’t been following along, or if you’d like to refresh your memory before you scroll down, this was week one in a nutshell:
And week two’s update —
Why did I do this in the first place?
Countless people set out to “make it” in the writing world.
I did, at one point — get to live the dream of getting to watch my Amazon book sales climb every hour of every day.
That was, until I decided to leave the writing world and get a “real” job — because that’s what everyone tells you to do, right?
“You can’t be an artist, you won’t make any money.”
You might not make much money, but you certainly won’t if you don’t try at all.
In my case — you might feel like an important part of you has been locked away.
I felt like after years of putting my book-writing on the shelf, so to speak, I wasn’t sure how to go back again.
Am I even a writer anymore?
I questioned this for years at my “real job” and still question it almost every day because I can’t hold a (recently) published book of mine in my hands, or flip through the pages to re-live the story and hang out with my beloved characters.
Start small and find your identity:
I may not be writing chapters of books each day, but I am writing something.
I’m writing here.
I’m sharing my thoughts, and getting to read incredible articles put out by fellow writers.
So — yes. I am still a writer.
That’s big for me to type out, or even think about after leaving my beloved craft behind to join the masses in the “real” world.
You know what? I like it here.
I like being able to connect with others and share my thoughts.
I love that I haven’t experienced an ounce of negativity so far.
I love that I’ve been able to meet so many people and increase my confidence as a writer.
I saw that a very experienced Medium author said that too many people treat this like their personal journal and therefore aren’t successful — and that might be the case, monetarily.
If you’re only here for the money, I can 100% see that being the case.
I also see success in speaking your own truth —
I want to read articles written by people who have experienced the same things I have.
I also want to read articles written by people who have experienced things I could never even dream of — so that I can grow.
If we don’t put ourselves out there for others to connect with, we’re just a bunch of robots writing how-to articles.
That’s OK too — but I prefer a balance.
I just want to create:
I see myself writing. I see myself wanting to create funny videos.
I even have BOOK IDEAS.
Start creating, and the rest will come.
My Week Three (ish) Stats:
But… I see way more than three weeks on there —
In week two, I explained how I changed the challenge due to personal circumstances, and I actually think it has been more successful this way. I definitely think I would have had burnout issues had I not taken some time for myself.
You can definitely see the “lull” shortly after April 26, when I took a few days off.
I was still writing, but I wasn’t publishing every single day.
I only published a couple of notable articles this past week:
I wrote about an accidental solo trip to Disneyland after looking through some old photos from 2018.
Although the world is semi-closed right now, I hoped it would spark inspiration to start writing down places to travel once things are back to “normal” again.
Then I started thinking — will things ever be “normal” in the sense that we think? In the sense that we know?
So I wrote this at 2 A.M. one morning this week when I couldn’t sleep:
I submitted it to Invisible Illness since it seemed like a good fit, and it was published that morning — I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
It has been my most “successful” article to date:
After it was published by Invisible Illness, I checked the stats about an hour later only to see the word “Distributed” — and I knew what that meant. My heart started beating like crazy.
I hadn’t received the email yet, but I checked the top of the article to see:
It was triple-curated in Society, Mental Health, and Self.
I had tagged Mental Health and Self, but had not tagged Society — so there’s an answer for anyone wondering if you can get curated in a topic you don’t choose yourself — yes!
Those curators will put you where they want you. It’s pretty awesome to say the least!
Bona fide Medium magic.
I Reached Top Writer Status in Reading:
I was extremely excited to receive this email, and I love that it tells you exactly how it was achieved.
I don’t know how long it’ll stay, but I do love seeing it at the top of my profile.
What I’ve Learned This Week:
- Keep going, especially when it’s difficult. But —
- Give yourself a break (you deserve it).
- Spend time reading when you don’t feel like writing.
- Have someone else check your typos, because your brain will not catch your own.
- Your friends and family do want to read your writing — they might just not read it right now (see “impatient” below).
- Keep a list of article ideas — it might not be the right time to write it now, but two days or two months from now, it will be!
- Have a couple of articles sitting on the back-burner, written, ready to be submitted to publications — even if you’re impatient like I am! (So, so impatient.)
About Publications:
Submitting to Invisible Illness definitely helped my week. I have one that is currently sitting in a queue waiting to be accepted by a larger publication.
I’m not giving up on it for a couple more days before I pull it and submit elsewhere.
I’m still working out which publications I should send what type of articles to — it’s sort of like getting to know your friends before you decide what type of restaurant you should choose to invite them to eat at.
It takes time, and I am figuring it out. It has increased connections quite a bit, and I now have a hefty list of people I’m following.
I’ve also created a smaller note on my phone with links to my “Medium Friends” — people whose posts I don’t want to miss or let them get lost in the fray that is my ever-growing reading list.
April Earnings:
$12.46 hit my bank account — and I’m pretty excited about it. I was thinking I’d earn a few cents.
It may not be enough for me to quit my “real job” and live a whimsical life as a full-time writer, but I can say I made money writing this past month, and that means more than $12.46 to me.
May So Far:
It’s May 8th, and I’m happy to say that I’ve earned at least a dollar a day when I haven’t even been writing each day — I think mostly in part to my triple curation.
What I’m Looking Forward To:
- The long game: everyone talks about it, but I have yet to understand since I simply haven’t been doing for more than three-ish weeks.
- Finding out what else I love to write about.
- Remembering old stories that can be turned into articles to share.
- Meeting more writers, learning from them, and sharing moments even in this strange time.
How has writing consistently changed you?
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