Tough love for writers, followed by enormous growth

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Writing an enormous volume of content can teach you a lot.

I have been writing for six years on Medium, WordPress, and LinkedIn.

In the last three (roughly) years I went from four articles a week to a minimum of ten. There were a lot of peculiar lessons and realizations that occurred, which can help anybody who wants to write on the internet. (You’re already writing on the internet if you use email, instant messaging, or social media.)

You might think you have to be gifted, special, or well-coached to write a lot and present yourself to an audience. I disagree.

You can be anything you want when you write a lot.

Here’s are the lessons, without the fluff.

80% of What You Write Will Be Bullsh*t

This is the overused 80/20 rule shining its enormously bright headlights on your face and showing you the truth.

Most of what I’ve written over the last three years is nonsense. And the nonsense led to those rare moments where people said “what you wrote changed my life.”

80% of the moments as a writer are no-shows, disappointments, could-have-beens, and misses.

You want a lot of misses as a writer.

Expect rejection and failure to dominate your writing. Then, you’ll do well.

The Amount of Money You Can Make Is Limitless

Why limitless?

Because the amount of writing that can be read and published on the internet is limitless. This writing journey has shown me exactly how to make as much as Joe Rogan’s $100M podcast deal with Spotify. It’s actually not that hard. The process is obvious.

But what changes when you see the limitless amounts of money you can make as a writer is that you won’t want the money anymore.

It’s completely bonkers. Having a reason to wake up is more powerful than the drug of digits on an internet banking screen. The digits all look the same after a while. 100K followers look like 1K followers, and a $30,000 month looks like a $100 month. You become numb to the amount of money.

The limitless impact you can have becomes more obvious than how much you can earn. And that impact becomes important once you notice it. Money becomes a distant second and impact becomes number one.

The Only Barrier Is Yourself

Great writing is written by you.

And great writing can be written by you. Whether you achieve your writing goals or not all comes down to you.

Not the publication.
Not the number of followers.
Not the amount of trolls.
Not the social media platform’s secret algorithm.
Not other writers stealing your glory.

Now that I see I’m the barrier, everything becomes possible. Because I can get out of my own way by working on myself rather than focusing on outside sh*t that won’t help me move forward.

It’s freeing when you know the problem with your writing is you. And YOU can fix YOU.

You’re Not as Good as You Think You Are

Compared to Ayodeji Awosika or Sean Kernan — my writing absolutely sucks.

You think you’re good but the truth is you have a long way to go. Your mind will always tell you that your writing is awesome because it helped you write it. It’s unlikely your mind wants to disagree with your ego.

If you remember you’re not as good as you think you are then you’ll always strive to go that little bit further. That extra 1% makes all the difference.

Most writers are liars — to themselves. You don’t have to be.

Someone Will Piss on Your Parade

They will pull their pants down and produce a yellow waterfall all over your precious writing.

You’ll get ignored by publications.
You’ll get hated on by other writers.
You’ll get lied to by gatekeepers.
You’ll get that email that makes your heart stop with rage.
You’ll meet people whose sole purpose is to see you lose, so they can win.

I call all of this pissing on my parade.

After writing for six years, my only response is “do it.”

Someone always has the capacity to ruin your day, but whether they do is up to you. Expect these interruptions to your writing party and they will eventually not matter.

You Don’t Need to Envy Other Writers

You do you. Other writers have their own goals and that has nothing to do with you. Let them win, lose, and learn.

Mind your own writing business.

Companies Will Want to Abuse You

Don’t let them.

Tell them “NO”… Bob.

I won’t write about your weight loss product so you can make more sales. I won’t accept your money in return for my soul. I won’t succumb to your temptations and compromise my writing for your commercial benefit.

All you have with your audience is trust. Don’t abuse it.

A Moment of Inspiration Is Worth Bottling up and Writing About

There are these rare moments in your life called inspiration.

It’s those moments where you get chills down your spine. Or you begin to cry after seeing another human being overcome with emotion. These moments are everything to a writer. When you experience them, you have the opportunity to bottle them up.

These moments of inspiration produce some of the best writing you could ever imagine. They unite. They help us remember. They move mountains. They overcome life-long issues.

When I have felt these moments, I have written about them. Sitting in the audience and watching a man talk about battling cancer four times overwhelmed me. Seeing my colleagues lose their job in this recession broke me, and also inspired me because of their determination. Watching Brian Pennie go from heroin addict to hero was incredible.

Then there are your own moments of inspiration. The times where you refused to give up and achieved something that you didn’t think would happen.

This happened to me when I walked away from a business, battled mental health issues, lost people I loved, experienced a near-miss with cancer, faced many demons in the hiring process, and became unemployed.

You can scratch off the label of any experience and rename it inspiration.

When you write about an experience, you get to tell the story and make it an inspiring one. That defines the label.

Your Wounds Hold Clues

What do you write about?

Write about what is hard. Write about the global events that are dominating your thoughts. Look inside your wounds. When the world doesn’t give you what you want, that wound holds a clue.

Wounds are expectations that were not met.

Chances are if you have a wound, someone else does too. There’s your clue for what to write about next.

How You Treat Readers Is How You Treat Yourself

Many writers talk down to their audience.

They are overly harsh with readers and make them feel like they can never be on the same level as them. They take their education or their life experiences and use them as evidence for why you must listen to them.

They treat their audience badly because deep down they treat themselves poorly. They feel like they’re not enough or they’ve got to make up for something.

Notice how you treat readers.

If you’re unkind to readers or never take the time to respond to them, think about what that says about the relationship you have with yourself. Maybe you need to treat yourself better so you can unlock the next level of empathy with your audience.

The Comments Section Will Be like Marriage

Some days it’s good and some days it sucks just like a life-long marriage with another human being.

Comments can be kind. Comments can be a public execution.

That means there will be times when you don’t want to go near the comments section. Not because you’re a jackass, but because you need a break.

The comments section can break you as a writer. It can make you give up.

So regardless of what the influencers tell you in their online course that funds their Lambo, it’s okay to take a break from the comments section.

You’re not rude for ignoring comments; you’re trying to survive as a writer who is target practice for anybody having a bad day.

The Amount You Write Determines More than You Think

Write a helluva lot.

If I rewound the last six years and made the decision to write once a month or once a week then I don’t think I’d be still writing.

The differentiator was the volume.

The volume of writing produces momentum.
The volume of writing supercharges your skill.
The volume of writing allows you to fail fast.
The volume of writing forces you to think more.
The volume of writing helps you become an ideas machine.

If you’re not where you want to be as a writer then try writing more.

You Won’t Always Love It

It takes an enormous amount of work to write ten articles a week. Here’s a sneak peek into my schedule:

• Write two full days per week.
• Spend time writing headlines on the train to work or during lunch.
• Spend a few hours finding photos that stop me scrolling.
• Reply to emails and instant messages. (For me, that means Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.)
• Editing one morning per week.
• Sending story pitches to publications at least once a week.
• Managing and writing to an email list of 42,000 people.
• Speaking with other writers for about one hour per day.

You end up living and breathing writing.

That means on some days you won’t always love the process.

It’s exhausting to go all-in as a writer. But when you do, it can change your life.

Final Thought

So there you have it. Writing heaps of content is more life-changing than you might think. It’s tough being a writer, but it’s freeing at the same time.

If you’re not sure what to do next, look for moments of inspiration. Write more than you’re currently writing to see if there is a difference. The barrier to being the type of writer you dream of becoming is you. That’s great news.