Success on Medium | Creativity | I Love Writing
My Niche Is “I Have No Niche”
I have an anaphylactic allergy to restriction
I was reading Mark Baquiran’s piece on how he “wasted a year” (although I don’t think anything is ever wasted!). He joined Medium and didn’t write one word for that first year as he was trying to figure out what his niche was.
Oh, boy. All the words he could have written in that time! All the thoughts he could have shared! And more of his great stories! Have you seen his stories??
He’s not alone in his nicheless freaking-outness. I’ve seen plenty of other writers on Medium worrying and chewing on this issue. Seems to me that by all accounts, the angst about it is overwhelming.
They’ve been told that’s how you become successful on Medium so I respect how they feel. And at the same time, that level of worrying about finding a niche seems completely foreign to me.
Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid, if there had been such a thing as ADD (or ADHD for those with the hyperactive component) no doubt I’d have been on a Ritalin drip. Well, okay. Maybe there “was” ADD but no one had a name for it. You were just the kid who daydreamed. The kid who couldn’t pay attention. The kid whose head was always in the clouds. The one who could also focus for unreasonably long periods on something of interest. Or maybe that was just a budding addictive personality. (Not that I’d know anything about that). 🙄 So many labels from which to choose. (PS I hate labels. They suck.)
I’ve always said it’s like a pinball machine on steroids in my head — on a slow day. This has not been the case for a few years, thanks to various health issues after Too Many Bad Things Happened. But when I’m at my best and firing on all cylinders, that pinball is lighting up my brain with loads of creativity and ideas, one after another after another.
Check out this bit of insanity: I have 323 drafts here (recently checked and all are still viable story ideas 🤦🏻♀️). And my Notes app has hundreds more, not to mention a couple of documents with loads of others. Let’s not even discuss the zillions that never see themselves in print. Oy vey.
Many of those ideas have popped up during this “barely functional period.” I shudder to think what’ll happen when I’ve fully healed from the health issues that have waylaid my creativity and productivity for the past few years.
Cripes.
And as if the pinball machine of creativity isn’t enough of a problem, there’s also my insatiable curiosity. I’m interested in an ever-growing list of topics. There’s so much to learn and ask and study in this world and my brain loves to be fed!! Well, it loved it a lot more before. As in before Too Many Bad Things Happened and my brains got a li’l fried.
Bloody hell. Even at my worse for functioning above the neck, I don’t stand a chance at having a niche. That’s just who I am.
My niche is not having a niche.
Kinda reminds me of my dear friend, the incredibly gifted writer, Sally Prag who calls herself “wilfully niche-less.” See? 👇
She’s doing extremely well on Medium. And I seem to be doing pretty dang good, too.
Niches Be Damned! Down With Niches! Niches Are Dumb!
Well, okay. If you have a niche, it’s not dumb. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend your niche and I hope it will forgive me. I’m just tryin’ to make a point here. Having a niche is not necessary to your success or your enjoyment of hanging out on Medium with the rest of the cool kids who play here —both the niched and the un-niched.
I figure if you show up and write what you love and what most lights you up and interests you, that’s how you’ll be successful — whatever the heck that might mean to you.
Imagine if you sat down every night (or crawled into bed, in my case) with your journal and you were only allowed to write about one topic. Always. Every night. You couldn’t write about all the other experiences and thoughts and feelings and problems and fun stuff or exciting moments or anything else that was happening in your world. You were only allowed that one topic.
Uh-oh. I can feel the hives starting and my throat closing up just thinking about it.
See? I really am anaphylactic at the prospect of restriction. Don’t tie me down. Don’t limit me. Don’t keep me in a box. Not in any aspect of my life and most definitely not with my creative self-expression! Gimme freedom or gimme hives! I’ll take a supersized order of freedom with extra sass, please, no hives. Oh, and a side of do my own thing. What’s that? No, it’s to go. Wrap it up, honey, I’m taking it somewhere fun.
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