Why Do You Write?
A question that could keep your unruly expectations at bay
The third app I open as soon as I switch on my internet every morning and check my socials (yes, I’m basic like that lol) is medium.
For the last 3 months, I got rid of my personal social media accounts in a break that I am taking for the year to concentrate on my well-being.
I now only have my art Instagram and Twitter which barely have any activity so I naturally spend most of my time on Medium either reading or writing.
The content I tend to pay the most attention to is the one that shows up in writing advice and I think it is my effort to become a better writer and I hope it will make an effect on how well I write as time goes on.
When I write, there are many times when I write 3500–4000 words and I feel disgusted about the entire article. Articles like these push me into a writing block because most of them tend to be an effort on my side to jump onto a trend I have seen on Medium.
I don’t think there is a problem in going trendy but I often find that the trends don’t match with why I write and whenever I try to go that route, it’s always a desperate effort I make in hopes that I can have a viral story that can bring attention to me and what I write.
The problem with this is that as much as attention is part of the reasons why I write, it is not the fundamental reason that fuels my writing desire.
After having spent the past 3 months reading at least one article a day on writing and advice from other writers, I have noticed that most writing advice given has a promise rooted in financial gain.
But the question I ask however is this. Is money the main reason why you write?
If your main reason for writing is about the money you expect to make, I am going to be honest with you and tell you that your efforts are misplaced.
I'm not saying that you shouldn’t have money as one of your reasons for writing. I am saying that it shouldn’t be your main motivation — worse still, your only motivation.
Money is one of the reasons I write but it’s not my main reason and as soon as I forget that and try making it my main reason, I begin having massive funks in my writing and it affects even the money I set out to make.
There are mainly two reasons why I say you should not make money your fundamental reason for writing.
- You can make more money from other areas with much less creative input. Most people think that writing on Medium is the way they are going to make a lot of money, I have even read articles about achieving financial freedom through writing and as much as that is possible, to me that would require a lot of creative drains to achieve money that I would have achieved doing something else less taxing.
- Writing for the sole purpose of making money exposes your audience to watered-down and sometimes even dangerous information and ideas. We know that ideas are powerful and the worst thing you can do is to impress upon another mind a terrible idea just because you want to make a quick buck. To me, this is just as bad as murder. We all saw what ideas can do at the events of January 6th, 2021 at the Capitol.
Again, I ask. Why do you write?
Is it for fame, money, recognition, meaning, change in the world,… what is your why?
For me, I have found myself much more aligned to my writing when I discuss ideas with the world that I know affect so many people. I don’t write much about and encouraging people to dream like how MLK did or Barack Obama does; I do not write to encourage people to stand up to the bullies, nor do I write to impart ideas that serve my interests.
Those however are a few fundamental reasons why people write. For me, I think there are a lot of ideas that have been taken as gospel truths which I don’t believe so I write about them not to nullify any other beliefs contrary to mine but to bring up other schools of thought to encourage people into having thoughtful disagreements and alternative beliefs to explore.
Before joining medium, I used to dump such material on my Facebook pages and I feel sorry for my friends and family who had to watch the meltdown of inexperienced writing those posts exhibited.
So many people unfriended or blocked me, and rightly so. But it was hard for me to for example stick to a Christian belief after having lived with the Hindu and finding that they had a better explanation for that belief and vice versa.
Medium taught me to present my information and I am grateful to this platform that I am better than I was before I joined here and I hope to get even much better.
I know that as writers here, it’s natural to get caught up in the numbers and incomes, but exploring your reasons for writing and drawing your inspiration from them instead of the money would be a great use of your creative expression while on medium.
Chase the trends by all means if you think they serve you, but as soon as you start feeling overwhelmed and needing a break, take that time to reconnect to your why and try drawing from that. I have found that this has helped me to recover from some of the biggest funks in my writing.
There are so many cool writers, Tim Denning, Zulie, Sinem, Tom, Matt, Brittany, David, Hakima, and so many others that have in some way or another indirectly mentored me in several aspects of my life since joining medium and I am thankful for them. You too should read and find similar people that resonate with you and let them help you figure out why you write if you don’t know it yet.
Money is a great incentive for writing, but I hope it's not your only incentive.