How Do You Know if You Have a Unique Voice?

What new writers get wrong about success on this platform

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A few days ago, I stumbled across an old article* of mine. It was about Brussels sprouts of all things, and I expected the usual cringe that comes from revisiting past work. Instead, I found myself smiling at the opening line:

“As murder weapons go, Brussels sprouts are right up there with toilet paper and underpants.”

That’s me, I thought. My voice. My odd little sense of humour wrapped around a vegetable. What surprised me even more was that, despite being only my ninth article, it has been quietly racking up thousands of reads.

Written back in 2020, month after month, it stubbornly popped into people’s lives and has since notched up 5,500 views. Turns out I was writing evergreen content before I knew what it meant.

Unfortunately, almost all of those reads were from non-members, and it has earned the less than princely sum of $2.98 — about enough for a cup of tea and a biscuit back then.

With that kind of luck, I’d have made a poor poker player.

Novice poker players can place a bet with a significantly low chance of success, but can still win. It’s not so much luck as statistics. The trouble is that if those early bets…