avatarTim Denning

Summary

The author reflects on the challenges faced in writing this year, despite initial success, and offers advice on persevering through tough times in the writing profession.

Abstract

The article titled "My Writing Stats This Year Are a Dumpster Fire" candidly discusses the author's struggles with writing productivity and quality, contrasting with their past achievements and the expectations of their audience. The author admits to publishing less impactful articles and facing reduced visibility on social media platforms due to algorithm changes and occasional bans. They address the impact of critics, personal tragedies, and the daunting task of confronting one's own past writing. The piece also touches on the financial pressures of writing and the temptation to write solely for monetary gain. Despite these challenges, the author emphasizes the importance of persistence, personal growth, and the intrinsic rewards of writing, such as positively influencing readers' lives.

Opinions

  • Social media algorithms can significantly affect a writer's visibility and success, often prioritizing monetization over organic reach.
  • Engaging in protests or excessive criticism can detract from a writer's focus and productivity.
  • Critics can provide valuable feedback, but they should not deter a writer from their craft.
  • Writing is inherently challenging and can involve periods of self-doubt, creative burnout, and personal loss.
  • A writer's past work may seem inadequate over time, but it is a natural part of growth and should not cause embarrassment.
  • Financial motivations can be detrimental to writing quality and personal satisfaction.
  • The true reward of writing lies in its ability to help and inspire others, rather than in monetary success or social media metrics.

My Writing Stats This Year Are a Dumpster Fire

Here’s how to *not* give up on your writing

Image Credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons

What happens when you lose your writing mojo?

I am going to be brutally honest. I shouldn’t do this. It’s against the silly image people have of me as a writer — the image that I’m some perfect writer who has ‘figured it out.’

One reader accused me of being a bot. “It’s not possible you can publish this many articles and be real,” they said in a direct message. Sorry to say, I’m real. I don’t pay a freelancer to ghostwrite my life into a book and make it an Amazon best-seller. I’m not smart enough to do that.

All I’ve figured out this year is how to write bad articles that light my various dashboards displaying writing stats on fire. Everything that could go wrong with my writing has gone wrong. This isn’t a pity party. Leave your flower boxes and violins at home.

The point of sharing this year’s dumpster fire of writing is to help you keep writing. The easiest thing in the world to do is give up writing. I see it all the time. I have a whole folder of bookmarks with links to my favorite writers’ blogs. You know an incredibly sad stat? Only about 25% of them make it in the long-term.

Here’s what forces them to give up writing.

Social Media Algorithms

When a social media algorithm is working in your favor, you feel like a fat kid eating mud cake every day and not knowing the consequences.

In the early days of LinkedIn, I clocked up multiple articles that got over 1,000,000 views. Since those days LinkedIn has reduced the organic reach. In simple terms, this means each user has their content viewed by fewer people.

Why? So they can make more room for ads and their own self-promotion. LinkedIn isn’t your evil cousin trying to take over the world. No. They are a business trying to make money. They can’t give you a humungous free audience to borrow forever.

When you see a drop in views on your writing it’s easy to feel deflated. It’s easy to feel like the world is against you. Or like the social media platform is secretly limiting your account. You know how to blow up this feeling? Get banned. This has happened to me four times on LinkedIn. Each time I got my account back because I didn’t do anything wrong.

But each ban chipped away at my writer’s ego. There were moments where I wanted to send in the suits and sue their ass for taking away my digital resume. Thank god for meditation (Joking! I stopped meditating at the start of the pandemic like the badass little self-help boy I am).

You need to understand this about social media apps:

  • Social media apps don’t work for you.
  • You don’t own any social media app you publish content on. They can do what they want, when they want.
  • You’re lucky to have access to any social media.
  • Social media apps will reduce how many people see your writing over time to make room for monetization. It’s natural.

Social media apps are not the enemy. Your own worst enemy as a writer is yourself, and the stories you tell yourself about why your writing isn’t doing well. Give up the stories about social media companies — the majority of their employees are part of a good cause, and are just trying to put food on the table like you are with your writing.

The fun of a protest

This is the next level of rage. You can end up wasting your precious time you put aside to write, joining a protest. You can start joining writing communities and spending a lot of time drafting articles to rebel against a company, editor, or fellow writer.

A protest can be fun. But it won’t make you a better writer or help you do the work you enjoy. Leave protests to the professionals, so you can get on with writing and help readers.

Big Mouth Critics

A critic on your back can weigh you down. Add more than ten and you will find it hard to wake up. Add a few thousand and you may sleep in for weeks.

I had an army of critics chase me down. One ring leader decided my writing was despicable. He was bored from selling his company for millions and used comedy to take down my writing. His voice was loud. So loud he got banned from all the major social media platforms for good, for being a jerk.

If you write online then critics are going to disagree with you.

The best response is “thanks for your feedback and it gives me something to think about.” Critics can help you grow as a writer. We all say dumb stuff, even me. A critic’s feedback is optional to take onboard. Don’t let critics make you give up writing.

Pro tip: if you’re having a bad day then don’t read the comments on your writing. It will cause you to say mystical things you didn’t know you had the guts to write in public.

The Regular Moments of Suck

Writers aren’t superhuman. Read that again.

Writing is like any journey in life. There will be moments that suck. I experienced one recently when one of my direct reports — from when I was a people leader at an IT company — died suddenly. I had it on my list to message her and check-in. I was so caught up in my perfect writing life that I forgot. When I finally made it to her Facebook page it was full of “RIPs.”

She had passed away from cancer and left her newly married husband behind. She was there for me when I was fired from a job I loved and felt like a huge failure. Now I wasn’t there for her during her final days alive. That’s a tragedy if I’ve ever seen one. It was devastating. I felt so selfish. When these tragedies happen you lose the motivation to write.

Writing is hard work too. To write is to think. To write your best work is to think deeply about your experiences and your view of the world.

This process will burn you out. There will be times where you think:

  • “Help! I’ve run out of ideas.”
  • “I don’t feel like writing.”
  • “Am I even good enough to write this?”
  • “This whole thing is a joke?”
  • “I’ve written that too many times before.”
  • “Why aren’t readers devouring my articles anymore?”
  • “Why do I suck?”

Expect the suck. Embrace the suck. Learn from the suck. Grow from the suck. See the suck as part of the writing process. Look forward to the writing beyond the suck. Keep writing through the suck to make it to the other side.

They Look Back at Their Old Writing and Feel Stupid

This one is aimed at my giant forehead. I read my work from a few years ago and laugh. It’s terrible. It reads like a douchebag trying to jam donuts in your face and tell you “to get on the treadmill you lazy ass.” It’s a combination of hero-worshipping, boring listicles, cliche advice, terrible photos of guys pumping weights, Lambos, more Lambos, the occasional BMW, and name-drops to look cool.

My former boss said to me the other day, “Your writing was so terrible back in 2016. I was always afraid to tell you that. But now I can because I’m so proud to see how far you’ve come.”

Don’t let your old writing make you feel stupid. Each year your writing version is upgraded through experience. The beta version of your writing is always going to be worse than Version 21.

The Need To Earn Money and Pay Bills

Writing takes time. Many writers work for free for a long time.

A good chunk of my seven-year online writing career has been spent making zero dollars. That’s right. $0. Nada. Nothing. We all need food and shelter.

You can give up writing for an activity that makes money. Or you can let your writing get out of control and write solely for money. If you write to chase money you will eventually lose. You will give up.

Money is the worst writing motivation there is.

Money is such lifeless motivation. Money is an information system for labor allocation. It’s a concept made up by humans. It’s boring digits on a screen. Whatever happiness you think money from writing will give you, as we say in Australia, “you’re dreaming mate.” I’ve made more than six-figures as a writer.

You want to know one of the greatest rewards so far?

This message I got today.

I am currently about to celebrate 120 days of sobriety.

First of all THANK YOU for replying to me [back in 2016]!!!

I can’t believe how things have changed for my family and I in such a short period of time!

Went to a 42 day inpatient rehab facility which was an amazing experience, joined a 12 step group, sales have been great and our business is kind of booming.

Most of all I have my family back and we couldn’t be happier.

Just wanted to say thank you!

My wife says I should be writing much more and putting my story on paper but I don’t know where to start…

I eagerly await your reply.

Money looks ridiculous compared to the changes that the reader experienced, and the huge freaking smile I get on my face every time I read his message.

I’m glad you get to benefit from my poor writing performance. This article is my attempt to spray water on the dumpster fire. The point isn’t to dwell when things go wrong with your writing. The point is to take what’s happening and see how you can use it to be useful.

Your helpfulness propels your writing further. As long as you don’t give up writing, then you’re doing just fine. Take your low moments as a writer, add creativity, and see what you can do with them.

Writing stats are bullshit anyway. You can’t measure your self-worth in views.

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