Writing & Content Creation

A Year Into the Jungle

My writing journey and the 7 lessons I’ve learned from it as a software engineer

It’s been a year of me being in the jungle of the online writers’ tribe. And it feels like a fierce war to survive.

It started in March 2020 when I decided to make writing my new daily job. I wasn’t satisfied with my life at the time and was looking for a change. Writing seemed an attractive alternative; it allows me to work remotely and choose the topics I want to explore by myself. But for my English level and language skills at that moment, it wasn’t an easy undertaking. I surrounded myself with writing culture. I watched YouTube videos, read inspiring stories, and tried to go into the minds of experienced writers and replicate their thinking patterns in my own mind. I published articles about writing techniques to share what I’ve learned and keep myself motivated.

Although that was not my first writing experience — I have written before for jaxenter and Java Magazine in 2014 and 2016 and have few articles published on Medium in 2018 and 2019 — I struggled a lot, and it took the better part of a year to notice a bit of improvement.

I couldn’t have been happier when I received a message from Medium in June 2020 telling me I became a “Top Writer in Creativity” on the platform. Then in the same month, an article of mine went viral and was selected as featured for many days or weeks (I don’t remember exactly) in Better Programming (today it has 56K views and generated $603 as income). In January 2021, I became a “Top Writer in Startup”.

I have done it. Could I finally start calling myself something of a “Writer”?

While I was determined to change my career — by being at least a part-time writer, I was also self-conscious. I couldn’t shake the truth that writing is an art and a craft that needs to be developed through deliberate practice and study over a long period.

But to be honest, my goal wasn’t just to write but to make from writing a source of income that I can live from it. Unfortunately, many of my articles — that I put my heart in them — didn’t generate more than dozens of dollars or just some bucks. This made my decision in the time where I’ve my stable career as a senior software engineer, as an alternative to fall back on, tough to stick to it.

“And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better.” — Anne Frank

So for private reasons, I decided to continue. I trudged on, with my “hope for better” keeping me afloat. And it was a journey in-and-of-itself.

Below are seven lessons I’ve learned from it.

1. Finding meaning

Taylor Foreman once wrote: “Being a writer takes all the random meaningless out of my life and puts it all under the umbrella of storytelling.”

I tend to agree. Writing allows us to dive into parts of our past, reflect and expand upon them. It’s an opportunity to organize our thoughts and feelings and make sense of both personal and collective experiences by transforming them into interwoven narratives.

2. Connecting with the world

For me, writing is about connecting with the world. It’s a different kind of connection, but beautiful.

Sharing online materials opens a gate to find the type of people that we may miss in our physical life. Readers who feel that a piece struck a chord with them might have something in common with the author. It could be a similar experience, but it could be the same intellectual or cognitive orientation as well.

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” — James Baldwin

3. Respect

After seeing how it was so difficult to earn one dollar from writing in the beginning, I build respect for every dollar I earned from writing. I find the following quote from Anne Sullivan sounds to me:

“People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.”

I’ve also learned to respect every minute someone spent reading a piece of mine, and every hour of my day where I can be productive and create something worth publishing.

4. Face rejection

I’ve recently written a story and after a few days of submitting it to a publication; I got a rejection from the editor. I’ve submitted it again to another publication and got a second rejection. Then I decided to self-publish it, which I did.

Can you guess what happened after that?

The story was featured by Medium’s editors, which was surprising for me since I thought it does not have the required quality that allows it to be curated. A few hours later, I got a message from the second publication (that has rejected the story) saying: “Great piece. We’d love to publish it on … Would you be interested in submitting it? …”

Later that story got over 1.3K claps and many positive responses from readers.

I’m not discussing here why that publication has rejected my piece then asked me to submit it to them, but the question is: how many times in our lives we have allowed rejection to undermine our confidence and make us doubt our worth or the value of our work when it’s not the case?

The writing game involves a lot of rejection from editors, which can be extreme. Whether you’ve experienced it a lot, or it has only happened a few times in your life, it can make you reduce your willingness to take risks and stop you from achieving your goals. But you need to move on and continue improving. Maybe it will pay off next time. And remember that rejection is an opinion that could be sometimes hard to explain like the following one — which is one of the best rejections I have received from editors:

“Thanks so much for sharing your story with us. We enjoyed the read, but unfortunately have to pass on quality pieces sometimes. But we hope to see you back here soon.”

5. It’s about thinking and problem solving

“The biggest mistake I see new programmers make is focusing on learning syntax instead of learning how to solve problems.” — V. Anton Spraul

Just like spending time learning about syntax, variables, functions, loops, and arrays does not produce a good software developer, learning about correct grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structures is not enough to create a compelling story.

Writing is about finding the right place for each sentence and each word. It’s about trying to put yourself in your reader’s shoes and see things from their perspective. It’s about finding the connection between things that you didn’t know they are somehow connected. It’s about learning how to choreograph a dance and write it with your pen.

In other words, writing is an art that includes thinking and problem-solving; two skills where creativity gets into play. George Orwell famously said:

“If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”

David McCullough confirms the idea:

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.”

6. Estimates are too optimistic

In agile software development, one practice we use is the “estimation” of the tasks before starting to implement them. The problem is that even when we spend time to make estimates accurate, the product just can’t be delivered on time and budget with all promised features in most cases.

A feature estimated to take 3 days of work could easily take 10 days or more. IT projects are notorious for over-running.

I’d experienced the same with writing as well, especially at the beginning of my learning curve. Finishing my stories took much more time than I’ve expected. Sometimes, it seems futile to dedicate estimation efforts. I wonder if the reason is my IT background.

7. Stay in the ring

“You become a writer by writing. There is no other way. So do it. Do it more. Do it again. Do it better. Fail. Fail better.” — Margaret Atwood

Nothing else will make you a writer other than writing itself. You need to practice and get your hands dirty. But the quality of your practice matters. In her book “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, the author and writing teacher Natalie Goldberg introduced the concept of writing practice. She wrote:

“One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and non-aggressive.”

According to Natalie, one of the basic rules to practice is to don’t take your fingers from your keyboard or put down your pen because you want to check email, or get something. Instead, much like during meditation, you must stay present with whatever you are writing. This is a real challenge in our digital world.

My writing and I

Zat Rana once said: “I write because I read.”

I used to be a slow reader and most of the books I’ve read date to my time as a teen at school, where writing sessions were terrifying to me. Writing is a hard craft to master; it’s an act of organizing our thoughts and learning how to put them into words that we can understand. I lack the enticing origin story of a rockstar writer, and my writing is still an excruciating battle. But I’m here now and I’m here to stay.

Am I a writer?

Medium’s algorithms seem to think so. But the better question is: does it matter?

Maybe the title matters, but what matters more to me is what I do and what it means for the audience. And what I do is to inspire, answer questions, and solve problems that could help someone out there to move forward.

And I’m on my way to be really good at it.

“Every day, for hours at a time, I sit at my computer and tapdance my fingers across the keyboard. Sometimes I type words for emails or articles. Sometimes I type a weird pseudo-language full of brackets and dots and semi-colons, telling the computer what to do.” — Simon Pitt

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