Why I’m not a successful writer

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. There's so much I'm passionate about and so much I'd like to share.

But there was always something about writing that felt pretentious to me. When I would write, I'd almost feel a sense of shame that anyone should read it. As if it was silly of me to have the audacity to think I could write.

I used to think that the reason I don't write is that I'm interested in too many things, and that I have nothing particularly original to add in each of them. I'm not enough of an expert. I don't have the right credentials.

I also used to think that I was afraid of judgement. And I am—I'm terrified of it. But I never really took the time to break down what that meant.

I'm afraid my thoughts have no value. I'm afraid that even if they do, I wouldn't have the consistency or the discipline or the skill to put them into words that move or touch whoever's reading them. And I'm afraid that even if I did publish my thoughts, the readership stats would be an irrevocable rating of who I am as a person and of the quality of my mind.

And that’s another reason why I don’t write—I am constantly comparing my current audience with what I think it should be. I’m comparing myself to all the mega-successful bloggers out there, and I get discouraged by the possibility that I’ll never attain that kind of success.

It doesn’t help that most of the existing advice out there about blogging is focused on things like growing your audience and monetizing your content.

There’s hardly any advice on how to actually start writing even if you suck at it, and then continue to write while you suck at it, so that maybe one day you won’t suck at it. And I think that’s important. I think pretty much everyone should write, or at least should be allowed to write, regardless whether or not they do it well.

Content is now largely commodified. Hobbies are, too. I think it's gotten to a point where it's almost weird to have a hobby without trying to make money out of it. Yes, I'd love to live a life where I can make money writing, or reading, or traveling. I don't think anyone wants to have to sell their time for money. But that's not my reality. I have a job. The time I can dedicate to writing, or reading, or knitting, or learning music is limited. And anything I create in my leisure time won't have much of a chance growing into a “business".

And that's okay. Not everything has to be business. Not everything has to be created with the intention of being marketed to other people. Not everything we put out there has to be perfect, or perfectly sellable. Some things can be personal. Some things can be flawed. Most things should be.

Site traffic isn't a measure of my personal growth or my learning experiences, because these experiences weren't optimized for SEO or product sponsorships—they were optimized for me and my situation in life, and how I'd like to connect to other people.

And I don't know if you're anything like me, but I'd like to get better at this. I’d like to learn how to write something that adds some value, even if it’s average. Something that represents me, and represents some of the people reading it. And that should be enough.

I want to care more about writing than I care about selling

Capitalism may have trained us to think otherwise, but the process of writing and the content of the writing are more important than the packaging it comes in. I honestly don't know how much actual content I read every day. I don't know how many of the articles are advertorials, or how many of the Youtube reviews are sponsored. How much of the research about the health benefits of avocados was paid for by the California avocado commission? There's so much marketing disguised as information that it can be hard to tell the difference.

I've been seeing ads for online courses on how to create “no-content books" and sell them on Amazon, and I had to pause and ponder the concept of an entire book that is free from content. The appeal, of course, is that you can make money selling books without spending a lot of time or effort writing content. But when we talk to our friends, when we express thoughts to each other, we don't worry about these things. We don't worry about how much effort we're putting into our thoughts and how we can monetize that effort. We care about conveying value, and connecting with the other person. This is how a lot of writing should be—it should be about conveying value, independently from the market. And I'd like to write like that. Because “whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."

I'm not writing for a target audience

A lot of writing advice on the internet begins with choosing “your target audience". I read that you should write on a topic that is both general enough to be of interest to a large audience, but niche enough for you to stand out.

This advice held me back for a long time. I'm interested in a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I'm equally interested in or capable of writing about them. I get a lot of hits when I write on things like tech, but I don't have it in me to write about tech every week, and it's definitely not what I think is most important to write about. Other people can do that much better than I can. But it's not what drives me.

At the same time, there's other things I care about that I think are extremely important, that drive most of my day to day thoughts and conversations, but they're heavy. I want to write about capitalism, about issues of class or social injustice. And often, when I didn't have the energy or time I needed to tackle these topics, I've felt guilty for writing about other things instead, things that I tend to judge as less important or less urgent. These other things, they matter too. My thoughts on a book I've enjoyed, an app I've found helpful, a technique that's improved my mental health—all that stuff matters. And it's worth writing about.

I write for me and my friends out in the world. And I write what I can write.

I'd like to write, not perform

I've always written like a performer. Even in my own private journal, I've always written with the anticipation of my writing being read. As soon as I start to put my thoughts into words on paper or on the screen, I start editing them. I judge my thoughts as they're coming out, I judge my flow, my style, my choice of words, I judge every writing decision as I make it. I judge the time it's taking me to finish. I get anxious wondering if I should publish, when I can publish, and whether or not I have it in me to do this all over again then next time. From the very first line, I'm imagining, and judging, the final performance.

But, as anyone would expect, I've written the best when I thought about it the least. And I think that's the way it's supposed to be. While I'm writing, my energy should all be channeled into trying to understand what it is I'm trying to say. Whether or not that's worth anything is another story.

I'd like to write for the right reasons

I like writing because. I like it because it's a way of documenting ideas and conversations. I like it because it's a way for me to actively reflect on my experiences and interact with them, and go back to remember them afterwards. I like it because I like words, and fonts, and black on white.