How To Direct Your Writing Style
I’m doing something. It feels important. But I don’t know why I’m doing it yet. And I think that’s okay.
I don’t think you can force a purpose. There’s been something motivating me to continue writing (somewhat off and on) since November. It’s become a large part of who I am in multiple ways. But I’ve never had a real purpose or direction. In the beginning I was just trying to make sense of my mind. Lately I feel like I’ve succeeded to some extent for that. The reason I continue writing is that I feel that one day it’s going to be incredible to look back at these writings and see where I came from. How I actually started. It’s almost purely about documenting my growth. Yet my writing has been taking a more “classic” Medium post feel.
This starts to get complicated. Do I want my writing to represent my growth in the form of rants? or is this evolution of my writing part of the growth? I can’t really know. The easy solution is to do both, but I don’t quite enjoy writing “Top X ways to do Y” styled posts. Do I not enjoy it because I’m not good at it yet? Well that doesn’t make much sense since Medium thinks I’m good at it with my top article by far being exactly that. Do I not enjoy it because I’m not used to it? Maybe. Was I like that with this writing in the beginning? No. I really enjoyed doing this from the start. I saw immense improvement almost immediately. So do I not enjoy it because I don’t see how it benefits me? Well no because I gained a lot of attention for that style of article. It’s what sells on Medium. Maybe I don’t enjoy it because it feels cheap. It’s what everyone else is doing because it gets attention. I don’t even want attention though. I do this for myself. The attention isn’t terrible…It’s just not the goal. Or is it?
I want to help people learn how to be more self-aware by documenting my journey of questioning myself. I can’t do that by writing in a journal because then only I benefit. The reason I do it publicly is to gain an audience. The question then is does it need to be an audience built around this style, or can I mix and match. Oh I just went full circle. Maybe that’s the wrong question.
How can I best accomplish my mission of teaching self-awareness through writing.
I obviously can’t do things I don’t like, that will burn me out. I need to be vulnerable with my writing. I need to keep myself consistent or I’ll forget. So I still need a schedule and a commitment. I think my problem is doing this every single day got very annoying. Combined with a boring life, I ran out of material. That may be where the other style of articles come in. It would be fun to publish something every day for the next few years. That means I need to re-lower my expectations. Some days may be 250 words, some may be 1500. 5 views, 3000 views. The consistent part needs to be growth.
What can you take from this you’re wondering? Take the style. Ask yourself questions and get to the bottom of what you’re feeling or thinking. Learning to do that takes time. I’m incredibly dissatisfied with this right now as a Medium post. However, I feel that I answered my question. I have a better idea of what I want to put out. I’ve assured myself that what I’m doing is important and is going to last for a long time. Most importantly I’m back in line with what I like to do.
Interested in reaching out to me for any reason? I would love to hear from you. Send me an email: TrevorRivet@gmail.com
