My Writing Advice to My Fellow New Writers on Medium

Let me kill your insecurities and misconceptions.

First of all, here are a few questions for you.

1. How much time do you spend deciding what to write about?
2. How much do you think while writing every single paragraph of your article?
3. How much do you think before publishing your article?
4. And the last one. Does this much thinking and spending of your time really worth it?

Let’s talk about it.

We really want to become good writers and therefore we take our writing seriously. Doesn’t matter if — we are popular or not, we’re earning anything out of it or not. But we give our 100%. At least, we try to give our 100%.

But, the problem starts when we become so serious that it starts disrupting our flow of thinking and writing.

This excessive seriousness and thinking trigger a lot of questions and doubts in our heads.

If we’re deciding what to write about then,

• What should I write about? this or that?
• Should I really write about it?
• Is it worth writing on this topic or just a waste of time?
• Would people like to read about it?
• Does it too many times written already?
• Should I write about this idea now or later?

If we are writing then,

• Does my writing sound too silly?
• What do people think of me after reading this?
• Is it really valuable or a waste of their time?
• Does my writing look professional or cheap?
• Is my writing misleading?
• Does my writing sound too negative?
• Will my writing hurt any type or group of people?
• Will people understand what I exactly want to say after reading this?

These doubts and questions become obstacles in our writing process. We write and re-write again and again and waste a lot of our energy and time.

And finally, if we’re going for publishing it then,

• Should I really publish it?
• Should I publish it, or make some more addition or corrections?
• Should I publish it now or should I wait?
• Which publication should I add it to?
• Should I publish in currently available publications or find a new one?

But in all of these questions, we are missing one important question — Should I really care about all of these?

No. You shouldn’t.

Nobody cares. So, just write and publish.

Now let me explain why.

Nobody cares.

If you’re new.

When you’re starting out your writing journey on Medium, nobody knows you. Unless you’re any public figure.

The downside of this is very obvious. Your writing won’t get much attention and not many people will read it.

But now let’s see a good part.

The starting phase of your Medium journey is a golden opportunity for you. The opportunity to experiment. The opportunity to make mistakes.

Here, you can write what you want, about what you want, and in whatever style you want. These all without worrying about people’s responses and reactions.

Most people will find your article while scrolling through their Medium feed. If they will like your writing, they will read it more. If not, they will move on. Simple.

Also, when we write, we see ourselves standing in the center of the crowd and everybody is watching us.

But in reality, nobody is watching you. You’re feeling important and being serious just because you’re constantly thinking about yourself. But for others, you’re just one of the thousand others. People don’t have time to dedicatedly spend on you.

But, If you’re a little popular.

I’ve seen many successful writers getting attacked when they wrote something that not many people liked. When they expressed their thoughts and what they really feel about something openly.

But even after that, they never stopped. They kept writing what they really wanted without getting suppressed. And this quality inspires other writers.

If a person with that many followers is not giving any fuc* to people’s judgments and outrage, then why should we bother ourselves. Right?

Now, let’s see why you should just write and publish.

To figure out your thing.

Advice is good but the experience is far more powerful.

You can read articles of others telling you — what works and what doesn’t. But, how about you find it out for yourself?

How about you figure out — what is your style? which topics you’re good at writing? what things does your audience want from you?

When you find out what works best by trying on your own, you become more confident that you can do it. Why? Because you already have done that.

But this all requires radical experiments.

You’ve to keep experimenting with different things, styles, and topics. Without unnecessarily controlling yourself. Without limiting your ideas. Without forcing traditional rules on you. Without trying to fit your writing inside a single box.

To become successful.

We all know that not every single article we write will go viral. No matter how many followers we have, and in how popular publication our article is published.

In many of our ideas, we see a lot of potentials. So, we put a lot of effort into writing it. But when we publish, many times it turns out as an average article or a complete failure.

So it clearly indicates that we don’t know which of our articles are going to get viral. If people will like something, it’ll go viral. If not, then nothing would help.

So, you just have to keep publishing and let people decide what they like.

Also, if you want to reach more audiences, then first, you’ve to feed Medium’s algorithms. Algorithms need data to run the experiments. If you’ll publish more articles it’ll run more experiments, and will help you find the right audience for you who likes your writing.

To become more expressive.

Suppression is the worst thing you can do to yourself.

If you’re doubting your writing too much, you are suppressing the natural flow of your thoughts.

If you’re putting 10 barriers in front of your urge of expressing, then you’re sabotaging the development of your expressive behavior.

Do you dream of posting one article every day on Medium? Awesome. I do it as well.

But posting articles on an everyday basis is no easy job. It’s not something that anyone can start doing from the first day. But that also doesn’t mean that you can’t ever do it.

You can achieve this goal by extending your capacity every day. By publishing as much as you can. Without putting speed breakers in front of your car gaining speed.

Remember, quality matters. But first, you’ve to create a writing habit.

So, give yourself freedom. Let your ideas and thoughts spill out onto your articles.

To improve the quality.

You might don’t have that great writing skill now.

You might not be that good at explaining your ideas now.

You might don’t know the words that can express your thoughts exactly.

You might don’t have ideas that blow people’s minds.

But, those things shouldn’t stop you from writing. Because these are the things that you’ll figure with time.

Many think that, they’ll write when things will get perfect. But actually, it works reversely — Things will get perfect when you’ll write.

People build over time. Same for the writing skill. It builds over time.

You won’t remain the same writer as now. After six months when you’ll look back into your previous articles, you will see a huge difference. And the same after the next six months.

But for this to happen, you have to keep writing and publishing.

Don’t let your articles sit inside your draft box. If you’re not satisfied with them, you can re-write them in the future. But as of now, just publish it.

Simple.