Mistakes I have made coming up as a writer
Become a better budding writer by avoiding them
1. Crowd over an audience
When I first set up my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to increase my reach as a writer, I frankly had no idea what I was doing.
I often used hashtags on Twitter for the wrong reasons. Hashtags on social media content are great; they get your content in front of an audience that engages with your kind of content.
They can also be used to enhance clout.
I often used hashtags to gain a following from people who were interested in the same topics as I was. While that helped my profile stand out in certain topics of the Twitterverse, it wasn’t getting me what I wanted.
Instead of getting authority as a writer, all I had was a crowd. I had a few hundred followers within the first couple of months, but they rarely engaged with my content.
As a writer, my goal is to build an audience, not a crowd.
An audience is more valuable to you as a writer. If all you want is a crowd, however, there’s the secret ingredient.
2. Waited for motivation
My lazy ass loved that.
If you have read at least four of my previous articles, two must have mentioned the importance of discipline and strategy over motivation.
It is something I discovered through writing. In the first few weeks, I struggled with productivity and maintaining sustainable progress in developing my career.
I had no strategy and only wrote when motivation struck. But I wasn’t content with that.
After a few weeks, I committed to publishing every day and my productivity (not just in writing) has soared.
I stopped living the outdated life of legacy writers.
3. I doubted myself
More times than I can count.
I hate to admit it, but I still second-guess myself sometimes before I hit publish. But, it has gotten easier with time.
Every article doesn’t have to be perfect before I share it, hell I don’t even know what perfect means.
Every article doesn’t have to gain wild traction for you to be a successful writer.
Stop overthinking.
4. I wasn’t ready
I have no idea what that means, frankly.
I delayed starting my newsletter because I wasn’t ready, I delayed setting up a ko-fi account because I wasn’t ready, and I held back an article for almost three months (no, not a mistake) before I published it; it was the first article I ever wrote.
For every delay, there was an underlying issue that I took my time to solve, and for every issue, there was a distraction I hid behind to avoid dealing with the truth.
The truth was I didn’t have the balls to publish an article addressing a sensitive topic (free will). I was afraid of judgment and criticism.
If you are not going to give your all to writing, if you are not ready to share your unfiltered self through writing, don’t quit your day job yet.
The world is full of unique individuals with different beautiful, embarrassing, and crazy stories.
If you choose to tell your story through writing, you have to be willing to do what it takes to get your story to the right audience.
More importantly, you have to remain relevant by making your storytelling skills efficient and having the guts to share pieces of yourself with your audience.
