3 Grueling Challenges You’ll Face After Your First Year of Writing
Get ready to squirm.
I’m not going to spend this post dogging out the newer writers. This post is about problems that even I, someone who’s written articles every single day for over two years, still face.
While I’ve made thousands of dollars from the engagement on my work, it’s still hard as hell to be a writer.
Mo money mo problems I guess.
So here are three grueling challenges you might face even after getting some writing experience and a little bit of success.
It’s Easy For Your Writing Quality to Decrease When You Find Some Success
Writing quality ebbs and flows if you’re not actively trying to improve. My writing quality this month can be shit compared to last month. I can get tons more engagement and views another month than this month. My writing can be a puddle of mud at any time.
Heck, editors have seen it before.
You start to grow stagnant unconsciously when you start making good money with writing.
It reminds me of that fight Connor McGregor had a few years ago with Dustin Poirier. Connor suffered a beat down in round one. Sports commentators and other fellow MMA fighters said that ever since Connor got 100 million dollars from that fight with Floyd Mayweather, he’s never been the same.
That’s what happened to me before.
I found a tiny bit of writing success, and when I noticed a crack in the floodgates, I got too comfortable and submitted crappy articles to publications.
No One Cares About You — You Need to Be Okay With That
No one is going to care about your articles when you die.
The most you’ll get is a small acknowledgment on Twitter and people will move on with their lives in two days. After I had my first big article, I was a nobody writer when I published my next one.
You have to earn your buzz every single time you publish.
It doesn’t matter how many followers you’ve gotten. It doesn’t matter how good you think your article was. No one wants to read an article that doesn’t resonate.
To make content that resonates, you have to be passionate about it. When you notice you’re not doing that, you might have these problems:
You haven’t consumed enough content
You’re throwing half-baked thoughts at the wall for money
Rekindle your writing fire. Don’t pay attention to stats or money. Look up some writing tips. Avoid becoming a washed-up writer like I was who needed to get their mess together.
You’re Going to Want to Quit Even More When You Stumble Across Another Trial
I really want to quit my writing career right now.
But who cares? It comes with the job.
When you begin to reach the promised land after one consistent year of writing, you get even more frustrated when things don’t go your way. You're much more humble at the beginning of your writing career because you aren’t expecting anything.
This isn’t to say that all prominent writers are assholes who think they deserve the world — they’re all very humble because they’ve learned how to deal with so many bumps in the road. When you first get some success and you see a decline, that’s your first big bump. You don’t know how to deal with it so you start panicking.
Here’s how to handle that initial success:
Look up more writing tips
Give yourself a nice dose of truth when evaluating your articles
Keep writing as if no one cares about you
One thing I’ve always admired about my favorite blogger, Tom Kuegler, is that he always writes his articles like they’re journal entries the world happens to see. Of course, all writers care about views.
But he writes like he doesn’t give a damn about views — that’s what makes his content resonate.
That’s the approach you always need to take when you write.
Final Thought
I know you have what it takes to be an extraordinary writer, or else you wouldn’t have gotten this far.
Success can be a really ugly thing when you first get it. After making thousands of dollars on my writing and getting my work praised by huge bloggers, I used to get stagnant on my journey. So please, keep writing as if no one cares about you.
It will keep you going.
The Consistent Writing Blueprint Program is Now Open!
I know you’re probably sick of me talking about this.
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In this training, I talk about:
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https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/Lh0qjE7qHHgJNZnzZ3n1_ZuvYv3OFFp-XBYyRF4XiMWrT9cNqMaRECjFy-nhFxG3._5EQFbzSKAHcXyqu
It's a common theme with everything that goes to pot...
Too much of a good thing ruins everything.
Every business that ever eventually went out of business did so because of too much greed that derailed the original intent.
I like the advice to write as if no one cares and let it come across as a journal someone happened to see. Thanks for sharing.