Writing Is Not The Magic Wand You Think It Is
Utterly incomprehensible. Almost feels like the once-upon-a-time America’s gold rush. It started with the likes of YouTube, then Instagram, TikTok, and whatever else is out there that people desperately hope to squeeze a sad buck out of. Videos, photos, and apparently, now writing has become the go-to aspiring influencer dream. Stories and articles on how to make six figures from jotting down your thoughts in less than 30 minutes are a dime a dozen. Double that, and you’ll see stories begging for followers like it’s a sure path to the first penthouse and Ferrari — only to find those same souls crushed to expired pixie-dust when two months later they made exactly $1.
Has the world gone absolutely mad, I ask. It shouldn’t even be rhetorical really. The world has gone mad. Must have! While the reasons may very well be genuine and some I might even empathise with — such as wanting a better life, a side-income for better quality food on the table, paying the rent, buying Ralph Lauren branded socks, or your next MacBook Air — it still doesn’t excuse the ludicrous expectations of aspiring writers and bloggers.
Are you really a writer?
It pains me to put it like this, but most people who hop on the writing bandwagon, are anything but aspiring writers. What they aspire to is more income, a better life, and things they can not yet afford. Their aspiration has nothing to do with the literary arts or even journalism. It is not an exploration of the self, a genuine attempt to express themselves and their style publicly or even to help those needing guidance. They have no higher purpose other than the immediate effect their efforts might have on their bank accounts.
I have been blogging and writing on and off for nearly two decades now. It’s something I do on the side. Done it in three languages, English being my third. Wrote a 400-page novel because I had a story in me. It’s still in draft, but the experience of writing it was tremendous. Nine months of nearly daily writing, soul-searching, and riding the roller-coasters of my own imagination. It might never make a buck, but it was worth it!
Blogs and articles I’ve written hundreds over the years, maybe more, stopped counting. It was never about how many, it was about expressing my thoughts, my views, things I was comfortable enough making public in a structured format, one I myself would enjoy re-reading years later. People left and right kept telling me, I should write. Professionally. While I started doing that, I still find I have to justify calling myself a writer every single day. Questions that keep me up at night are not whether I wrote my title the exact right way to get those extra 100 reads, or whether I wrote enough articles this month to get the platform’s attention, and finally get distributed. No. I never cared about that, and nor should you. At the very least it should not be your main concern.
It’s fine to experiment
Life is a journey of self-discovery. Some go through life for decades only to realise they’ve been wasting their time doing the things they never cared about and decide it’s time for a change and try acting on their life-long dream of writing. Others are in a better position, young and eager to find themselves, experiment with anything, everything and see what sticks. To both categories of these brave souls I say, kudos, have a go at it, as long as you’re willing to learn from it.
Truth is, experimentation can always go wrong, and often it does. Trust me, I’m an engineer. 👨🔬 Regardless though, we learn from it, and that’s the point! If you start enjoying jotting your ideas down, and expanding on them into a story, well, you might have just found your calling, a new hobby, or just another skill you never knew you had. Fantastic! You’re already part of a relatively small cohort of humans who have at least some clue of what they’re good at, and who they are.
If however you’re at your 5th, 10th or even 30th story — which seems to be a popular challenge on writing platforms — and you’re still wondering why you’re doing this, why don’t you have a zillion followers or subscribers yet, holding your breath for that first $100 article, then you, my friend, are entirely and utterly in the wrong field, wasting your reader’s time and your own. Look at all the great YouTubers. MKBHD, Unbox Therapy, iJustine, Snazzy Labs and many others out there, prominent names, self-made kings and queens of the online. None of them started out the way you’re trying to. Does that not tell you something? Just in case it doesn’t, I’ll spell it out for you: passion.
Writing is beyond text
I see a lot of new writers popping up all over the place these days. Some instantly catch my eyes, and while it’s obvious they’re juniors at best, it’s clear they like playing around with words; they’re wordsmiths in the making. Others seem to struggle a bit with the creative aspect of writing, but they still manage to provide value, because they either try and teach through tutorial-style articles, while others share their genuine thoughts and experiences. To all of them, I say, yes please, keep writing, keep sharing, the world thanks you.
The above-mentioned group however dwarfs in comparison to all those who just want to write because it might result in extra cash. And in all honesty, yes, it will. No matter how terrible one’s writing is, once you’ve written enough stories — say 100 — it becomes a simple numbers game and you will make a (very) few bucks. It will however be an unjustifiable cost for all the effort you have put into creating your stories. A very public “secret” is that if you love writing, you’ll write faster than when you don’t. I know, because on a few occasions I took the role of ghost-writer for someone who didn’t really enjoy the act of writing. They would usually spend a day or even two writing a 6 minute story, whereas I would do the same in the space of about an hour or two, especially when the topic was familiar to me, which is my next point.
You need to care
Every single story I have written here, on this platform, is about things I either care about, love to talk about, or make me think. I have an interesting writing process, which I am sure is not entirely unique to me, but it stems from my need to care and know about the things I write in order to be able to write, and feel comfortable publishing.
The more you care about the subject of your writing, the more of you as a person will bleed through the story, the more people will want to follow you, rather than just your stories. Because… you know what? Almost everything has been written about already by many people. What makes stories still unique, is your vantage-point, the way you express your view and making the reader understand why you care about it, or why it’s special enough for you to write about it.
This of course stands true for those as well who — I suppose — have a “dryer” writing style, focusing on publishing research results, tutorials, how-to articles. While their passion might not come through in an artistic or “wordsmithy” way, the details they go into, the meticulously crafted examples and graphs they may present in their stories, are a testament to their passion and ambition to teach others.
No ultimate recipe
Anyone who claims they know the secret sauce to becoming a great writer, they’re lying. First of all because there are no secrets involved. Secondly, because no matter how well-intentioned they may be, how well it might have worked out for them, the unique ingredient will still be you. I don’t know what makes a good writer, I don’t know how good I am, all I know is that I love writing, and have done so for many years. Sure, I am somewhat successful on this particular platform (no, I won’t share earnings), but that’s merely a confirmation that I am doing something right, that I am on the right track. Ultimately though, it’s not even about that. Becoming a “good writer” is only secondary and entirely relative, because at the end of the day I just want my thoughts immortalised and somehow that’s what seems to have mattered the most to get me where I am.
If you want three, four figure or even a higher monthly income from writing, prepare yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s not a job you pick up and do and gives you a paycheque at the end of the month. It’s a journey, and a long one at that. Regardless of what you write about, it’s a journey of self-discovery as a writer, a learning process of how to write, when to write, or even why sometimes it’s best to keep it to yourself. Picking up the tricks of the trade is not something you’ll really learn from seven other articles by supposedly successful writers. Writing takes commitment, just like everything else of quality out there, and people pay for quality, be that directly or indirectly. Remember that, either before starting on a path that was never meant to be yours, or before giving up on the path you’re already on.
The key to good writing will always be you, and you will attract people through your writing. We get inspired by people, not by text alone.
Did you know that whenever you subscribe to become a Medium Member, us writers, get a cut? You get a ton of great articles, we get a coffee. Sounds like a fair deal to me…
Attila Vago — Software engineer, editor, writer, and occasional music critic. Pragmatic doer, Lego fan, Mac user, cool nerd. JS and Flutter enthusiast. Accessibility advocate.
