What I Learned After Four Months of Writing

And What I Learned That Was Wrong

Write what you know. That’s what writing teachers tell us. It’s excellent advice which I repeat often to writers I work with.

Why Writing What I Know Didn’t Work . . . at first

I was adopted from an orphanage at 3 months old. I have always had raging ADHD. My body has slowed down thanks to cancer and old age. My ADHD has not slowed down. If anything my ADHD is worse, thanks to the long-term side effects of chemotherapy.

(Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself because of chemo, I remind myself that I am alive after a double mastectomy for stage two breast cancer 7 years ago. It is estimated that 42,170 women will die of breast cancer in 2020. I won’t be among them. https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html)

So, it makes sense I would write about adoption, ADHD, and breast cancer. I wrote about adoption and ADHD but got little response. Nothing about cancer. I stopped writing about the two topics on which I could easily write several books without doing research.

I had a thriving business many years ago teaching parents and teachers how to work with kids with ADHD. The website for that business is still up. I’m an expert in ADHD. With good titles and submitted to the appropriate publications, this should be one of my writing niches.

Lack of Good Titles

Instead of asking why I wasn’t getting a response, I assumed that readers don’t like these topics. I didn’t ask myself the crucial question: Does the story have a great title?

I used titles I’m using in the two memoirs I’m writing. You can use intriguing chapter titles in a book. It doesn’t work for blog posting on any platform. Blogging requires titles that state clearly what the posts are about.

I wrote about the death of my birth-father on D-Day and an actor playing him in Steven Spielberg’s Band of Brothers. Obviously one of my best stories and articles in terms of content, but blew it with a poor title: “He Was of The Greatest Generation.” Readers not familiar with World War 2 would have no idea what that meant. I gave it a new title.

Didn’t Know What I Was Doing

Once I started connecting with a few writers, reading and commenting on their stories, I started to pick up. Studying the writing and formatting of top writers has been a key to moving forward.

People with ADHD don’t list patience as one of their strengths. I didn’t anticipate instant financial success, but I did expect instant “likes”, responses and highlights on my content pieces. That didn’t happen. Response to what I’m writing is picking up quickly now in the fourth month of writing in content platforms. Success at anything, including writing posts, takes time. (One would think that at my advanced age, I would know such!)

Jeff Herring and Tim Maudlin who were my first mentors talked about the benefits of writing every day for 30 days. I did it. I still try to write every day. Its paid off.

Revisited Previously Published Content

And I learned the benefits of going back to old pieces that didn’t do well to edit them. Rewrote lousy titles.

Because I misunderstood why ADHD and adoption topics didn’t fly, I’m going back to writing about them. And to writing about breast cancer. I’ll continue to work on mastering good titles, being attentive to my readers, writing every day, and editing.

Here’s an old ADHD story with a new positive title. The old negative title used the word “sabotage.”

And I’ll continue to learn about what works what doesn’t, why it doesn’t, and follow changes in the guidelines.