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There’s No Secret Sauce for a Successful Article but There is This

Though it still isn’t a recipe for success, it ups the odds

Suzanna Quintana
Practice in Public

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Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash

During any given month, my article stats resemble my contractions when I first went into labor. Valley after valley, with a peak arriving by surprise and so randomly I feared I’d never give birth.

The peak in writing — when that line darts skyward, forcing the graph to recalibrate to make room — is the holy grail for a writer.

And I live for it.

So much so that I’ve tried to figure out the science behind one of my articles “virality” in the effort to recreate it.

That was my first mistake.

Because science schmience.

Unlike volume, time, or temperature, writing can’t be measured. It’s a crapshoot. No matter how long you’ve been doing it, how much training you’ve had, the degrees hanging on your wall, or the work and time invested — the result is unpredictable, the outcome often a surprise.

After four decades of consistent writing, you'd think I’d have at least a bit of insight into what will be a hit. Recently, right before publishing a piece, I thought, Oh I got a great feeling about this.

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