I Got Caught in the Sinkhole of Writing Tech Articles
Writing is creative expression… and you cannot truly express yourself if you’re trying to cater to someone else
When I started writing four months ago, it was because I wanted a break from the world of tech. I’m opinionated. I like arguing. And I was tired of only using my keyboard to write lines of code.
In high school, I loved creative writing. But when I started studying software engineering, and the extreme pressure to do side projects, leetcode, and code all the time, got to me.
Writing was my escape from software development. But recently, my worlds of storytelling and tech have been colliding… I can see it clear as day in my stories.
And I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
I have a lot of opinions. And quite frankly, the world makes me mad. All the goddamn time.
For better or for worse, there was not a shortage of things that infuriate me. Unfortunately, we live in a world where many things are unfair, upsetting, or just altogether frustrating. On the bright side, it inspires good topics and gets me behind the keyboard
I wrote my first Medium story a month into the pandemic — Let’s not forget about Human Interaction. I found out that a few big tech companies were transitioning to a completely remote work environment and I snapped. I was already tired of coding alone every day at my basement desk, and could not imagine a lifetime of doing so. So I wrote out my frustration on a page.
My next few stories were penned in a similar manner.
Someone made an unintentionally derogatory comment towards feminity, so I wrote The Way Gender Rolls in a “Man’s World”. People who previously didn’t give a crap about racial injustice were suddenly posting black squares on social media because it was “trendy” and then went back to not caring a week later. Hence the inspiration behind Does true Altruism matter? Flocks of overexcited people crowded beaches and completely disregarded the idea of social distancing, leading me to write Stop disrespecting Healthcare workers.
If I was annoyed, or I was opinionated, I wrote. That was my single recipe and single inspiration.
I enjoyed writing them. In fact, I even enjoyed rereading them (which is a novelty, since I am normally quite opposed to consuming my own work)
This is not me being cocky. By no means do I think I am a professional-caliber writer. I think I make lots of mistakes, I could be a lot better, and I’m learning. But I was proud of my work.
I also got lucky. My first article ever was triple-curated and The Startup reached out to ask me to add it to their publication. I had a 50% curation rate in my first stories. That helped me get readership and followers when I had absolutely none.
I wrote these stories thinking I’d read it. And my mom would read it. And a handful of friends to whom I sent the links to would read it. Audience and viewership never even occurred to me. This exceeded every expectation.
Writing was mostly therapy. The rest was just validation. And happy unexpected bonuses.
And then one day I re-listened to my favorite podcast article of all time and was inspired to write about Stewart Butterfield’s life journey because quite frankly, his story is pretty exciting and he has some A-1 quotes.
I wrote How the Founder of Slack & Flickr Turned Failures into Billion-dollar Companies. I submitted to the Startup for the first time and they accepted my story.
Within a few days, the Reader’s Interests tabs didn’t say “We’re waiting until your story has more readers to show these insights.” My viewership went into the thousands. Strangers I didn’t know tweeted my story. I made more than a dollar for the first time ever.
It was a weird experience.
To this date, my articles with the highest viewership, highest readership, and highest earnings are my tech-related ones. By far.
My most successful stories were all published in the Startup or Better Programming — publications centered around the world of tech: How the Founder of Slack & Flickr Turned Failures into Billion-dollar Companies, How to Stand Out on GitHub With Profile READMEs, and Which Apps bypass Apple Tax? Kinda weird considering the only “Top writer” status I have ever received was in Diversity.
I don’t think these articles were eons better than anything else I had written in the past. But it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the stats once they're there in front of you.
Chances are, you have a writing fallback. Something to default to when you’re uninspired but want to write, or when you’re just looking for a stats ego boost. Maybe it’s a publication that likes your work, or a type of article, or topic that you find is generally well-received.
For me that is Tech.
I worked at Microsoft. I know how to code. I’m studying software engineering. Tech topics are my fallback — they are easier to write and the reception is generally pretty good.
But I got into writing because I wanted to do something I love. I wanted to write about topics I care about.
While Stats and Readership are great, they can make you feel boxed in. I mean there is a reason why the most successful writers have a specific niche. Afterall, the best way to attract a subscriber is to write something great that interests them, and then show that you can offer more of the same.
But I love freelance blogging because I can write about anything. There are no restrictions. I can speak my mind and not feel boxed in.
And that is why I’m worried about falling into a topic sinkhole.
Plus, quite frankly, if I wanted to make money with my coding knowledge, I should get back behind the keyboard and start writing lines of code.
This is not me saying that I shouldn’t write about tech. Or that you shouldn’t write about tech. Or that you shouldn’t write the easy-and-well-received-article.
This is my reminder to remember why we write in the first place.
I know we are taught to be unselfish. But quite frankly, I think writing should be selfish. Writing is a creative expression… and you cannot truly express yourself if you’re trying to cater to someone else.
This is my reminder to write selfishly. To write about what excites you, instead of falling into a sinkhole of writing what you think others want to read.
And if that reminder helps you, well that's even better
