Do You Find Yourself Draining Your Soul By Chasing Viral Success?

Well then, I’ve got some good news and bad news. You will achieve virality, but only if you stop doing this immediately. . .

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

First off, I want to say something that I feel a lot of people avoid admitting in articles like these — me included — so I want to address it now so we’re on the same page.

I know it’s not all about the money, fame, or ego-strok one would propably feel from gaining thousands of followers that causes me to chase viral success.

I enjoy writing because I love the process of creating written art and expressing myself.

But, at the same time, I also wouldn’t be reading articles about how to get subscribers, how to grow my blog, how to blow up and get 10,000 views on a story, if I didn’t care about something else:

Making money and/or just earning a liveable wage, perhaps thriving one day, from doing what I love — writing.

Don’t make me out to be the only one of us who cares about viral success. Please, spare me the nobility just for today, and let’s get right to it. We all love writing for its natural beauty.

I absolutely love that I’m able to share all of the ideas and perspectives that encompass my writing without fear of judgment.

The sheer satisfaction you feel after spending hours on the computer writing and editing every day, seven days per week, knowing that your hard work is going to touch someone, someday.

It fills my soul to bursting with joy to freely share all my unique views and ideas with the world through my writing. . .

Except that the world has no fuc#ing idea that my articles even exist!

For the most at least.

Look, I’m not trying to sound bitter or jealous of the writers who enjoy financial success by writing on here. Good for you guys/girls/non-binarys’, truly, I’m happy for you. You worked hard to achieve what you have and no one can ever take that from you.

I can only imagine how it feels knowing that hundreds of thousands of people get up every morning, waiting for that push notification signifying Tim Denning has published another fascinating tale about the nightclub scene of 3 am Australia. . .

No offense Tim. I wasn’t being sarcastic in the slightest.

That article you wrote about the strange power of 4 am and your gig as a DJ on Wednesday nights was a masterpiece.

It changed my life.

Probably not in the way you think or could ever guess, but nevertheless I have you to thank for the fire lit under my ass.

(I’ll explain how and why Tim’s article inspired me and opened my eyes to why I’m not achieving the level of success that I was hoping for.)

Anyway — from the bottom of my dark, waning heart — thank you Tim.

What the hell am I writing this for them?

I’ve been thinking about something for a while now, especially as I progress on the different publishing platforms I use and my reach has been expanding ever so slowly, about a consistency I’ve noticed in certain niches and topics.

Most of the articles we read on here by very well-established writers claim that they never chased the fame and success they enjoy; they simply did what they love and then. . .

What?

Then they suddenly woke up one day to 10,000 newsletter subscribers?

They say the success found them. That we just need to:

1. Work Hard
2. Be Patient
3. Don’t write with the goal for monetary success as a main motivating factor, targeting topics that we believe are trendy — over topics that we truly want to write about.

I can get down with that 3rd ideal, but let’s get real for a second here. W don’t have time to waste on that sort of talk in this era we’re living in. There are too many competitors these days; everyone with a laptop and internet connection has a blog or three.

If that were truly the case, then many writers that show up on my homepage feed are some self-conscious, money-focused people. Why?

Because, according to their own advice, if they only write about what they love rather than what people like you and me are searching for, (which they find out with tools like Google Trends), then they must think very highly of themselves or have a strange love for writing about strange topics.

They really must have a true passion for writing articles where they post their stats, earnings, and listicles on how to achieve goals within a month — goals that have a very high bar because that’s all I ever see them writing about lately.

But, in those same articles, they tell me to focus only on what I love. Ignore the trends, don’t worry about followers and trying to make money, just be humble, just be you.

Here’s what I think — Here’s how I think we can all gain success

First off, reading those articles that tell me the same recycled information, over and over again, isn’t helping me to grow as a writer. They aren’t helping me gain followers nor are they doing anything really, except perhaps adding another view to the stats of the ever so humble author who wrote it.

I also don’t have the answer myself, obviously. If I did, then I’d have a bunch of followers, a massive newsletter, and I would be able to earn a liveable amount of money by writing alone.

Plus, I’d 100% be writing articles telling you all to not focus so much on monetary gain. Take a step back and write about what you love — the rest will follow. . .

Unfortunately, if you do want to learn a living on here then you have to write about relevant topics that people care about. I’m not saying that means you’re limited to a few niches either. There are plenty of popular genres that thrive on here and other platforms, you just have to find one that fits you and stick with it.

Don’t jump around too much, not at first.

I’ll say it again, I don’t have the answers. I’m sorry that I can’t provide more value to you in this article.

But, read this last paragraph. This is what Tim’s article made me realize. (btw… It wasn’t just Tim and it wasn’t just one article. It was four, but writing about all of them would take too long.)

I spent hours writing 4 different articles. I’d get self-conscious, thinking this or that needed changing, so I never ended up publishing them. Instead, I’d move on to one of the others, edit some things, maybe add a little more to it or take something I thought wasn't needed out, but the same result kept happening to me. I was writing articles that I loved, were true to my heart, and I had a feeling they would do great on here. . .

One was titled something along the lines of: The Power of 3 AM & Why I Find This The Most Productive, Peaceful Time of The Day.

I had that article finished a month before I read Tim’s.

I'm not claiming that mine would have been better by any means. Plus, even though they were similar, there were also radically different at the same time.

Then, of course, I notice that 3 other prominent writers on here wrote articles that were titled similar to my other drafts, as well they contained the same (or similar) message as the ones I was too scared to publish.

I got stuck with over-editing. I never thought they were good enough, never ready to be published yet.

Then, when I saw that someone had beaten me to the punch and published one so similar that I thought I had gotten drunk and accidentally hit the dreaded green button. . .

Well, I lost hope. I erased days and days of hard work. I was being a child. I was being too self-conscious about what people would think, and inevitably, due to my own hesitation, they invented the wheel before I did.

I’m like the Winklevoss twins and they were Mark Zuckerberg — except that I’m not the bad guy or a douche like the twins were — I hesitated with a great idea and someone better than I stepped in and handled the job when I couldn’t.

Conclusion

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t listen to what the great writers on here have to say, I’m simply suggesting that there comes a time when you have gained all the advice and knowledge their articles have.

Instead of reading what they're writing — read how they write it. Read what they are writing about. But, above all, don’t ever think you’re not good enough.

If you have a gem sitting in your drafts as you read this — you get your lazy ass to a computer right this instant, polish that thing up with a set time limit of 40 minutes, and hit publish no matter what — No excuses!

Don’t be a scared, timid writer like me that had to constantly see the ideas I wanted to write about, (that I had written about), going viral online — except the author’s name wasn't Steven Tyler — it was someone else.

My drafts are still there as a constant reminder of the four times that I truly think I had a short of achieving virality — success.

Thanks for reading.