THE 30-DAY WRITING EXPERIMENT: UPDATE #2

Is There a Right Way to Find Success as a Writer?

An update on how things quickly changed during week two of my 30-day writing challenge…

I am a jumper. I can tip-toe around an idea and say “Hmm, I don’t know, should I do it?” a thousands times, but if it’s something I really want, I will absolutely dive in head-first with an “I can’t fail” attitude.

This has gotten me into some interesting conversations — like when I was 22, indie-publishing my first book, and I told my best friend it was going to be a success. I didn’t mean this out of brazen self-confidence ( — at all), I just knew it.

She asked more about it, considering no one knew who I was and I had no audience outside of friends and family. I told her it was going to happen — and I couldn’t see an alternative.

I could not, and would not — fail.

However, is the lack of failure considered — success?

Usually when I want something, even if there are 100 road-blocks in the way to get past before I get there, it happens. I’m honestly not sure if this comes down to something like The Secret, or if it’s just my intuition telling me what I should know.

This is my overall mindset when it comes to success, and it’s also why I started my 30-day writing challenge a little over two and a half weeks ago. That, and curiosity.

However, in the past 17 days since I posted my first article, I’ve only published 13… that’s a few short if this truly is a 30-day challenge… so what’s going on?

Let me break down last week’s earnings, views, and engagement before we get to how things changed, and if writing every day is the “right” way to be a successful writer.

How this week went:

To be honest, I hit a wall. If you look at my views, you can see that they’re pretty consistent, but after the 8th day (7 articles) I got about half of my normal views, and the day after that, it plummeted even more.

This was due to writing fatigue — I just felt like I didn’t want to force it at that point.

Looking at the graph, you can also see that it picked up, only to fall again a few days later.

This was after I found out that my friend had unfortunately passed away, and I just felt numb.

I didn’t write anything that day, but I did publish an article the next day. I just wrote. No planning, just wrote how I felt. This was the result:

I shared it on Facebook and it has about 140 friend link views, so that made up the bulk of external views, but it was also CURATED.

You can see that internal views definitely went up a bit, but then tapered off. It was interesting to see what happens when something is curated, because I haven’t seen that yet — most of my stories still say:

My first curated article came from this catharsis of needing to write out how I felt about losing my friend, and I really wasn’t expecting it:

I got the email that it had been distributed in Mental Health, which I really appreciated because I wrote it in hopes it would help others to know they are not alone if they are experiencing loss right now.

My views picked up a bit after that, and then trickled off. I was glad that others might see it, but I wasn’t too worried about the financial aspect of “getting views” or read time, because honestly, that’s not what the aim of that particular article is about.

It probably shouldn’t be what any article is about, but that’s also part of what I’ve learned in the past few weeks.

An update on the financial side of things:

I have not published an article since last Friday. Have I been writing? Yes.

Have I been publishing? No.

I’ve been pretty upset about losing my friend, understandably, and life has gotten in the way.

I didn’t want to force myself to publish, but I do have quite a few drafts waiting in the wings, ready to be published when they’ve been completed and the time is right.

As of the last day of April, this is what my total is sitting at:

Am I happy with that?

Absolutely!

Am I earning a five-figure income? No.

Can I quit my job now? No.

But, this has been an extremely interesting process that I’m excited to continue. I think it was a success, because I actually wrote things! I published them. People read them, even if it’s not an astronomically large audience.

To me, that is success.

I’ve met a ton of really cool people:

I’m honestly surprised that I have 181 followers after only a couple of weeks, but as I mentioned in my last update, I have been genuinely excited to meet a lot of authentic people who are not just in it for the “follow back” as I’ve seen on many other communities.

It’s nice to look forward to reading your friend’s articles and finding new ones as well.

My favorite part of last week was watching one article “flop”, and then getting something beautiful out of it.

I published this article about connecting with your friends while apart:

It didn’t do very well.

Like very well at all.

Then, in a hilarious turn of events, I wrote an article about that flop, which many people related to, and therefore was very “successful”:

I think it’s easy to get discouraged one day if an article doesn’t do as well as you expected, but if you give it a bit of time, something else might come out of it!

It was at this point that I stopped caring as much about “being seen” and using that as a mark of success.

I think that’s important — it’s stressful to go at this with the mindset of “how long will this keep readers occupied”, or “it’s not getting the reads I want” all the time. Sometimes you just want to publish something for your own sake, your own catharsis, and see if people connect with it.

It would be a lie to say that as writers, we don’t care what other people think. It’s amazing to have your work be appreciated by others, and to know that you’re not alone.

But that can’t be your sole drive — for the long run.

Next — are you successful if you don’t get accepted by publications?

The stories I wrote this week were more personal, and therefore I didn’t submit any of them.

Sometimes I’m still not sure which publication would like what article, and I’d like to save ideas I’m really excited about for submission.

I am also a highly impatient person, so waiting to see if they’re going to publish it instead of getting to hit the green button myself is something I’ll have to work on.

Is there a right way to write?

There are endless strategies. But for me, I’d like it to be authentic above all. I’d like to share when I want to share, and not force myself to keep publishing — even through traumatic life events — just for the sake of being able to say I did it.

We write for catharsis, to share with others, to get the high of connecting over a thought, opinion, or experience. If it feels right, it probably is!

You’re going to get very diverse advice if you’re just starting out — and you might have much more to give than I do if you’re a seasoned pro.

In my very limited experience, I advise:

• Read, read, read — as much as you can! Be inspired by others.
• Ignore a lot of outside influences, and do what feels best to you. If you’re faking it…you probably won’t be for long unless you want to be miserable forcing yourself through the motions.
• Be patient with yourself. It takes time for ideas to come through, and sometimes you feel like writing it out, sometimes you don’t!

What I’m doing moving forward:

• Writing many drafts and outlining my thinking before writing an article — I think sometimes this helps, and sometimes you can just get it all out in one sitting like I did with the loss article because it was so fresh and I had so much to say.
• Meandering around on Unsplash to see what I like ahead of time — the pictures seem to inspire me as I look through them, so why not have a library of awesome images ready to use?
• Supporting others — especially those who come back to my articles time after time to support me. It matters, and I’m excited to grow those connections.

Overall, if you’re writing, you’re successful.

It doesn’t matter how many views, followers, reads, shares, or fans you’ve accumulated for each article. Look at it holistically, and don’t let just one article get you down — your big connection with readers might be right around the corner.

Take a deep breath, jump, and see where you land.

Update: Read about week 3 here:

Thank you for reading!

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